“First time for everything.” Avine bit into the danish with more force than necessary. “He showed up at my house. Demanded to know what I’d done to the wards. Implied I couldn’t take care of myself.”
Junie prompted, “And?”
“And nothing. I told him I wasn’t interested in trading one cage for another. He…” She paused, remembering. The way his expression had shifted. The softening she hadn’t expected. “He heard me. Backed off. Agreed to weekly ward checks with advance notice.”
Marzipan chirped from the armchair, her tail flicking with feline smugness. The inn’s lights flickered once, then steadied.
“We know.”
“How?”
All four witches answered in unison: “Seagulls.”
As if summoned, a seagull landed on the windowsill outside. It pressed its beak to the glass and stared at Avine with unsettling intensity.
Junie gestured with her cocktail. “Accept that privacy is dead and move on with your life.”
Dahlia reached over to pat Avine’s hand. “The mating surge makes magic… responsive. To emotions. Especially emotions people are trying not to have.”
“I’m not trying not to have emotions.”
Junie’s grin was infuriating. “Sure, you’re not. That’s why the whole room reacted.”
The wine flowed. The pastries dwindled. Narla’s candles burned low, their colors shifting through the spectrum as conversations deepened—pink for affection, blue for melancholy, gold for joy.
Cassia had kicked off her shoes and tucked her feet beneath her on the couch. Junie was sprawled on the floor, using Glimmer as a very small, very judgmental pillow. Dahlia had migrated to the armchair next to Marzipan, absently scratching behind the cat’s ears. Narla sat cross-legged by the fireplace, her expression thoughtful in the flickering light.
And Avine—three cocktails in, full and surrounded by women who’d decided she belonged to them—found herself talking.
The candles burned steady and blue.
“I forgot how to be what I needed.”
Dahlia’s hand found Avine’s across the space between them. “What changed?”
“My grandmother’s tarot deck.” Avine smiled, small and sad. “I found it in storage last year. Hadn’t touched it since before the wedding—Henry thought divination was silly. I pulled a card on a whim. The Tower.” She laughed. “If you’re not familiar, it’s the universe saying ‘everything you’ve built is about to come crashing down, and that’s a good thing.’”
Junie nodded approvingly. “Dramatic.”
“I filed for divorce three weeks later.” Avine set down her glass. “Sold the apartment. Quit the job that was eating me alive. And when Aunt Sue mentioned this place…” She looked around at the old walls, the flickering candles, the magic humming quietly through the bones of the building. “I don’t know. It was the first time in years I’d wanted anything for me alone. Not because it made sense. Not because it fit someone else’s plan. Because it called to me.”
“And the magic recognized you,” Narla said quietly. “The wards lit up the whole town when you signed that deed. That doesn’t happen by accident.”
The candles shifted to gold. Welcoming.
Dahlia squeezed her hand. Magic pulsed where their skin touched—not intrusive, present. Sisterhood made tangible. “Oh, honey. You came to the right town for figuring things out.”
“We’re going to be loud,” Cassia added. “And in your business. Constantly. Aggressively. There’s going to be so much unsolicited involvement in your life that you’ll want to scream.” She grinned. “And you’re going to love it.”
“You’re here because you needed to be.” Junie sat up, her expression more serious than Avine had seen it. “This place, these people, whatever comes next—this is where it starts. Where you start. The version of you that exists on the other side of all that hiding.”
Narla’s voice came last, soft and certain: “You’re allowed to want things, Avine. Even things you didn’t plan for. Even thingsthat scare you.” A pause. “Even things that make my candles misbehave.”
Avine laughed—wet and surprised and more genuine than anything she’d managed in years. “I hate all of you.”
Dahlia bumped her shoulder. “You love us. You don’t know it yet.”
The fourth bottle of wine was open. The banner had been ceremonially hung above the fireplace. Marzipan had migrated to Avine’s lap at some point and was purring with suspicious contentment—the cat’s approval, Dahlia explained, was notoriously hard to earn and meant something significant, though no one could agree on what.
