For the first time, the tiny apartment she grew up in didn’t feel like it was teetering on the brink of disaster, and dinner wasn’t forgotten in favor of some half-baked magical experiment. That was when Honey realized that order could bring peace, that structure could hold joy in place instead of letting it slip through the cracks.
She had been raised in a family that railed against constraints on magic. The truth of it was that her parents practiced witchcraft. They called it many things over the years—holistic medicine, herbal teas, tinctures—but no matter what they called it, the ingredients they sourced and the centuries-old recipes they manipulated, were witchcraft.
They skirted many rules defining what was witchcraft with clever marketing. It was a point of pride for them as they believed rules stifle creativity, and that magic should be wild and free. As a pair of witches raising an ordinary human, they made sure Honey knew how to whip up a tonic to ward off the common cold and patchwork to keep away a chill on a cold winter night. But they also left behind a trail of half-finished spells and consequences they never stuck around to clean up. Honey had learned early that someone had to be the responsible one. So, she became the person who thought ahead, and who kept things from spiraling into a mess.
It was the right decision to deny the man’s wish, she told herself, even as she watched his retreating back and guiltgnawed at her. She had to do the right thing, even when it was hard.
Honey secured her supplies, capping the container of denied wishes and tagging it for disposal. She tucked her computer, her folded-up apron, and her baggie of approvals into her bag and slung it over her shoulder.
She headed to Jo’s Pizza Shoppe on the corner across from the fountain. Despite the people streaming by her, she waited for the light to turn. She checked her watch as the light flicked to green. Twenty-nine minutes left on her lunch break.
Twenty-eight by the time the bell tinkled when she pushed the pizzeria door open, just wide enough to slide inside. A wave of heat wrapped around her, thick with the scent of blistered cheese, slow-simmered tomato sauce, and the yeasty tang of dough baking in the brick-fired oven. The place was packed. A long, snaking line of people shifted impatiently. Their chatter wove into the clatter of pizza peels scraping against stone, the hiss of soda dispensers, and the shouting of orders from behind the counter.
Honey walked through something sticky as she took her place in line, ten people deep, pressed between a man in a stiff wool coat scrolling on his phone and a pair of teenage boys still in their soccer jerseys, sweat-damp and jittery with energy.
It should have been overwhelming—the crush of bodies, the constant motion, the heat from the ovens radiating outward—but instead, it settled something inside her. She exhaled, rolling her shoulders back, letting herself sink into the rhythm of the place. This was the city—loud, fast, unapologetic—and she loved it.
At the counter, dough slapped against wood, spinning under calloused hands before being tossed high into the air.One of the younger Costa brothers—she could never tell them apart beyond the eldest—spooned sauce in perfect spirals while another worked the register with efficiency. The eldest Costa, the one who’d been here the longest, who probably had flour in the lines of his palms no matter how much he washed them, slid a paper plate across the counter toward her.
“Enjoy, hun,” he said.
She usually bristled at the childhood endearment, and the way it clung to her like an old, ill-fitting sweater, but from him, it meant nothing. She was just another face in the rush, another nameless customer cycling through the doors of his family’s institution.
She liked that.
“Thank you,” she said, but he had already turned to serve the next customer.
The plate bent under the weight of her slice, and the grease pooled toward the tip. She folded it instinctively, lifting it to her mouth as she stepped out of the flow of movement. The first bite was molten-hot, the cheese stretching in a single strand, and the crust was crisp beneath her teeth. It burned the roof of her mouth, but she didn’t care.
She slid onto a miraculously empty barstool at the window and watched one of the interns at the bureau haul away her container of denied wishes.
It was rather difficult to shake off the disappointment from her encounter with the man. She was happy with her life in the city, but there were days she’d sit alone at her little dining room table, sipping tea while muffled laughter and conversation drifted in from the hallway of her apartment building. On those days, a small pinch of loneliness settled in her chest.
So yes, she understood the temptation to wish for more. But wishes and hopes meant nothing without a plan or action. And as much as she empathized, she couldn’t let that understanding sway her. She couldn’t grant a wish just because she knew what it felt like to be lonely.
As Honey sprinkled red pepper flakes onto the remaining half of her slice, she forced her thoughts to turn from the lonely man to her upcoming performance review. She had no cause for concern, of course. For the last ten years, she’d gotten perfect marks every time, and she relished the tidy way Mr. Aldridge printed a neat line of fives across her employee file.
But this year would mark her tenth review. It would be the year she was finally eligible for promotion to Assistant to the Director of Arcane Relations, a title reserved for those entrusted with overseeing not just wells, but entire magic systems of the region. The Assistant to the Director didn’t just check wishing wells for compliance; they set the tone for how magic was regulated in their territories. They designed new protocols, advised on policy, and—if she earned enough favor—could even become Director in another ten years.
Getting the promotion of her dreams would be a bittersweet development. It meant giving up the day-to-day maintenance and review of her beloved wishing well. But the opportunity to shape magical regulation on a larger scale—to ensure that every policy upheld the bureau’s guiding principles of spreading joy, promoting unity, and keeping the magical world safe and harmonious—well, that was worth the sacrifice of changing her routine.
So, when she finished up her lunch and walked across the courtyard, up to the fourth floor, and into Mr. Aldridge’s office exactly two minutes early to their scheduled meeting,she was ready. She would smile politely, sit up straight, and ask with confidence. Mr. Aldridge was the type of man who respected a solid, well-reasoned request.
Despite her intention, Honey didn’t get any farther than the doorway before Mr. Aldridge interrupted her plan. “Instead of conducting your review today, there’s something else I would like to discuss with you.”
“Oh?” Surprised by this deviation from her plan, the single syllable was all Honey could manage. Mr. Aldridge had never, not once, deviated from protocol in the entire decade she had served under him. He was a man of measured words, clockwork expectations, and an almost religious devotion to routine.
Mr. Aldridge slapped a file folder on the table. “I would like to send you to Brim's Hollow.”
The way he said it sounded like Honey was about to be sentenced to drive through Times Square on a Friday night in December during a blackout.
“And what,” she asked, pulling herself back into the moment, “is particularly special about this well?”
Mr. Aldridge flipped open the folder with a brisk flick. “It’s out of the city.”
Honey blinked. She hadn't taken a vacation—or really left the city’s humming, carefully gridded streets—in, well, ever.
But she was not one to complain to a superior. “I’m sure I can manage. A change of scenery might even be…restorative.”
