“Old friend?” Marcus asked.
“Old something.” Hazel picked up the envelope and dropped it in the trash. “The coven that rejected me wants me back. Isn’t that sweet.”
“Rejected you?”
“Long story. Short version: my magic was too chaotic. They voted. I lost. Vivienne got the pendant, the status, the belonging. I got a severance check and a suggestion to try hedge witchery instead.”
Marcus was quiet. “Their loss.”
Hazel’s hands stilled on a jar of moonflower petals. She didn’t turn around.
“Yeah. Their loss.”
The shop’s phone rang. Hazel picked up, then tensed. “Jeremy? Slow down. What’s wrong?”
She listened, expression growing concerned. “Okay. I have your backup supply here. Twenty minutes. I promise.” She hung up, already moving toward her storage cabinet. “His stabilizer shattered. If he doesn’t get a replacement before moonrise…”
“We’ll deliver it.” Marcus was already pulling out his phone. “Where does he live?”
“We? You just spent ten minutes telling me how dangerous it is to be out.”
“And I spent the last five watching Mrs. Henderson.” He held her gaze. “Your clients need you. So we deliver it together, then we leave. Deal?”
“Deal. But we need to hurry.”
Jeremy Hollins livedin a third-floor walkup on the edge of town. His wife answered the door with tired eyes, forced calm.
“Thank god,” she said when she saw the potion. “He’s in the bedroom. The shaking started an hour ago.”
Marcus positioned himself by the door while Hazel went to work. When she emerged twenty minutes later, some of the tension had left her shoulders.
“He’ll be okay. The potion will hold through the full moon.”
Mrs. Hollins pressed a jar of homemade sauce into Hazel’s hands. “For everything you do. I know it’s not enough.”
“It’s plenty,” Hazel told her. And meant it.
By the time they returned to the shop, the sun was setting, and Hazel was exhausted. They climbed the stairs to her apartment in silence until she paused at the door.
“Thank you,” she said. “For not making Jeremy wait.”
“Your clients are your responsibility. I understand that now.” Marcus met her eyes. “Though I hope you understand that keeping you alive is mine.”
She looked at him, really looked at him, and saw the determination beneath the professional mask.
“I understand.” She unlocked the door and pushed it open.
Hazel’s apartment above the shop was a testament to what she called “organized chaos.” Books stacked in precarioustowers, herb bundles hanging from every available hook, crystals scattered across every surface. Dried flowers pressed between window panes. A collection of antique mortars lined up on the kitchen counter like soldiers awaiting orders.
It smelled like her. Marcus cataloged the space for tactical weaknesses and found himself distracted by a photograph on the mantle — an older woman with Hazel’s eyes, squinting against the sun. There was a mug on the side table, still half-full of cold tea.
“This is your filing system?” He stared at a pile of grimoires reaching nearly to the ceiling.
“That’s my winter reading. The stack by the window is protective magic, the one by the bed is healing.” Hazel pulled a suitcase from her closet and began tossing clothes into it.
“You cannot bring seventeen grimoires for a three-week protection detail.”
“Says the man who packed four identical suits.”
