Zara didn’t laugh. She just reached over and squeezed Ramona’s hand, brief and firm, before letting go. “I’m right here. The whole time. And I reallycanburn this place down this time. Your childhood home felt a little too sentimental to let go up in flames, but I did consider it briefly.”
Ramona smiled. “Did the bonfire after let you live that fantasy a little vicariously?”
Zara laughed, the sound quick and surprised. “Sure, Mortal.”
Ramona took a breath. “Okay. Let’s go.”
The shop waseverything Mystic Moon Books wasn’t. Where Mystic Moon was warm and a little cluttered, The Thornwood Apothecary was meticulous. Intentional. Every surface gleamed. Nothing felt accidental.
Glass display cases lined the walls, each arranged with unnerving precision. Polished obsidian pendulums rested onvelvet trays. Small, corked vials held powdered bone and crushed amethyst. Bundles of dried vervain and yarrow hung from brass hooks, labeled in tidy script. Beeswax tapers infused with rosemary oil stood in regimented rows beside shallow dishes of black sand and iron filings. Everything curated. Everything measured. Everything undeniably real.
The air smelled faintly of myrrh and damp stone, perhaps, or old earth. Something that made the back of Ramona’s neck prickle, not with nostalgia, but with recognition. Being here, surrounded by genuine magical ingredients and the low thrum of active enchantments, felt like pressing on a bruise.
“It’s beautiful,” Zara murmured, and she sounded genuinely awed. Her eyes were sweeping the shop with that cataloging intensity, but softer somehow. Interested rather than assessing. “The energy in here is remarkable.”
“It should be. It’s been magically active for centuries.” Ramona pulled out the supply list they’d compiled together. “All right. We need moonstone dust. Blessed salt. Hawthorn branches, fresh-cut. And yarrow flowers… I think I saw those near the front.”
Zara held up her fingers as if tallying the list. “I’ll take the left side, you take the right?” she suggested.
“Actually…” Ramona hesitated. “Stay close?”
Zara’s expression softened. “Of course.”
They moved through the shop together, Ramona consulting the list while Zara stayed a half step behind her. Close enough that Ramona could feel her warmth, could feel the steady pulse of the tether between them. Grounding.
Ramona found the moonstone dust first — three different grades, each labeled with its source location. She scanned the labels until she found what they needed:Convergence-sourced, Thornwood district, harvest date October.
“This one,” she said, picking up the jar. The dust inside shimmered faintly, catching the light in a way that was distinctly magical rather than cosmetic. The weight of it in her hand felt right. Familiar in a way that made her chest ache.
She remembered buying moonstone dust like this for research — testing its resonance against archived ritual transcripts in Thornwood’s warded stacks, staying until the wards shifted at two a.m. The old stones had vibrated faintly beneath her palms when she leaned over the reading tables, ink smudged along the side of her hand, silver grit clinging stubbornly to her cuffs. The air had always smelled like parchment and cold mineral dust, settling into her lungs and making her feel ancient just breathing it in. Back then, she’d felt precise. Necessary. Like she had a place carved out just for her.
“Ramona.” Zara’s hand touched her lower back, light but present. “You okay?”
“Fine.” Ramona set the jar on the small basket Zara had picked up. “Let’s keep going.”
They found the blessed salt easily enough. The hawthorn branches were trickier — fresh-cut meant they had to ask the clerk.
The clerk was a tall woman with sharp cheekbones and severe hair pulled back into a tight knot. She wore fitted charcoal slacks and a structured black vest stitched through with faint silver warding thread — the kind of reinforced, spell-resistant fabric meant for people who actually handled volatile ingredients and not just posed with crystals on social media. A slim iron ring gleamed on one finger, more functional than decorative.
Her name tag readSEVERINEin small silver letters, and a gray cat wound between her legs as she stood near the counter.
“We need fresh-cut hawthorn branches,” Ramona said, approaching the counter.
Severine looked up from the inventory she was sorting. Her gaze swept over Ramona — taking in the thrift-store jacket, the worn boots, the slight nervous tension in her shoulders — and something shifted in her expression. Not quite disdain. Something worse. Dismissal.
“What kind of ritual?” Severine asked flatly.
“Severance. Binding severance, specifically.” Ramona kept her voice steady. “New moon timing. We need branches cut no more than forty-eight hours before.”
“Binding severance requires Thornwood certification.” Severine’s tone was clipped. Bored. “Do you have credentials?”
The question landed like a slap. Ramona felt her face heat, felt the familiar shrinking sensation — the one that hollowed her out from the inside. The one that reminded her exactly where she no longer belonged.
“I—” she started.
“She doesn’t need credentials to purchase ritual ingredients,” Zara said.
Ramona hadn’t heard her move.
