Ramona’s throat was tight. “I’m not going to be ready.”
“You don’t know that.” Zara’s hand turned under hers, interlacing their fingers. “A year ago, you thought you’d never do magic again. Two weeks ago, you thought the severance ritual would work and I’d go back to Hell. Last week, you let Posey put a possibly carnivorous fern in your room.” She squeezed Ramona’s hand. “Things change. You change. And when you’re ready, I want you to have this. A real plan. Numbers that work. Something you can actually use.”
“Why?” Ramona’s voice came out barely above a whisper.
“Because after I’m… you know. Well, you deserve to have options.” Zara said it simply. Like it was obvious. Like Ramona’s worth wasn’t something that needed to be proven or earned. “Because you’re brilliant and you shouldn’t be wasting that brilliance selling crystals to people who think Mercury is inretrograde. Because—” She stopped. Started again. “Because I want you to have a future that’s bigger than just surviving.”
Ramona felt tears prick at her eyes. “No one’s ever—” She had to stop, swallow. “No one’s ever taken me so seriously before.”
“Then everyone else is a fool.” Zara’s voice was firm. “Now. Tell me more about your target demographics. Who exactly are you serving with this space?”
They spent the next hour going through details. Zara asked questions — sharp, specific, the kind of questions someone who’d spent centuries managing Hell’s bureaucracy would know to ask. Ramona answered, and with each answer, the fantasy on the screen became a little more real.
Revenue projections. Expense categories. Competitive analysis. Market positioning.
A business plan.
An actual, viable business plan for something Ramona had thought would never be more than a daydream.
“I’m sending this to you,” Zara said finally, typing on her HellBerry. “As a draft. You can add to it, revise it, completely rewrite it. Or you can just save it and never look at it again. But at least you’ll have it.”
Ramona’s phone buzzed. She opened the email, scanned the document Zara had created.
It was professional. Detailed. The kind of thing you could actually show to a bank. The kind of thing that saidthis person knows what they’re doinginstead ofthis person is desperate and broke and has no idea what they want.
“I don’t know what to say,” Ramona whispered.
“You don’t have to say anything.” Zara stood, checking the time. “We should close up soon. And tonight—” She paused. “Tonight we should talk to the others. About Thornwood.About whether breaking into the restricted archives is actually something we’re willing to do.”
“We are definitely not doing that.”
“I think we need that grimoire. And I think waiting for someone to give us permission to access it isn’t an option.” Zara’s expression was serious. “But it’s not just my decision. We all need to be on board.”
Ramona looked at her laptop — at the business plan on one window, the useless research notes on the other. Two impossible things. Two futures that felt equally unreachable.
But sitting there in Mystic Moon, watching Zara check inventory with patient competence, thinking about convergence points that needed cleansing and grimoires that needed stealing and shops that could be something more?—
Maybe impossible wasn’t the same as unreachable.
“Let’s talk to them,” Ramona said. “Tonight. See what Kashvi found. Figure out if this is actually something we can do.”
“Good.” Zara started turning off lights, the practiced movements of someone who’d been working here long enough to know the closing routine. “And Ramona?”
“Yeah?”
“Keep thinking. Keep planning. Keep letting yourselfwantsomething for your future.” Zara’s smile was small but genuine. Ramona could feel a mix of pride and melancholy through the tether, like Zara believed in her but knew she’d never see the finished store. Like she wanted Ramona to pursue this future, no matter what happened with the tether severance. “Promise me.”
“I promise,” Ramona whispered around the ball of emotion lodging in her throat.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
The Grimalkin was quieterthan usual for a Thursday evening, which meant the hedge witch argument in the corner had only three participants instead of the usual five, and Parliamentarian was asleep on the bar rather than actively soliciting tribute. Odette moved behind the counter with her customary unhurried efficiency, setting drinks down in front of people who hadn’t quite finished deciding what they wanted yet.
Kashvi had claimed their usual table — the one near the back where the candlelight was good enough to read by but dim enough that nobody could see your screen from across the room. Her laptop was open, two empty glasses pushed to one side, a third half finished. She’d clearly been here a while.
Ramona and Zara slid into their seats. Odette appeared, set something in front of each of them without comment, and disappeared. The jukebox was doing something atmospheric in the corner, the kind of music that suggested the evening was about to get complicated.
“Good news and bad news,” Kashvi announced, turning her laptop to face them.
