Page 61 of The Witch They Fear

They collide. Nellie is taller than her mother by three inches but it doesn't matter—the woman wraps her up in an embrace so total it looks like she's trying to absorb her. Nellie laughs. Her mom rocks her side to side, murmuring in a mix of English and French that's too fast for me to follow.

My heart warms and swells in my chest just watching them.

Then the eyes find me over Nellie's shoulder.

Sharp. Assessing. Nellie's intelligence aged thirty years and sharpened to a point. I can feel her reading me—instinctively, witch to witch, her magic brushing mine like fingers across braille. Her eyebrows lift. Her mouth opens slightly.

She knows what I am. Or at least she knows I'm something.

"Mama, this is Calypso," Nellie says, pulling back. "My friend from Devenir."

"Calypso." The woman says my name slowly. Rolling it. Then she smiles—wide, warm, the Nellie grin with, if possible, even more warmth baked in. "I'm Odette. Welcome to my shop, chère. You look like you need feeding."

"I ate a big lunch—"

She's already hugging me. I go rigid—the full-body lock that happens every time someone touches me without warning—and then, slowly, I let myself soften into it. Odette smells like flour and herbs and something distinctly floral and her arms are strong and sure and she holds me like she means it. Like she's hugged a thousand lost things through her front door and knows exactly how tight to squeeze.

My eyes burn from the affection. I blink it back and soak up everything this woman is generous enough to give me.

"And who," Odette says, releasing me and looking past us toward the front of the shop, "is the extremely overdressed vampire standing on my porch like he's waiting for a dinner reservation?"

I turn. Aamon is visible through the front window—standing at the bottom of the porch steps, hands at his sides, surveying the shop with that composed, unreadable attention. He hasn't come in. Hasn't knocked. Just positioned himself at the entrance like a sentinel and settled in.

"That's Professor Aamon," Nellie says. "He's Calypso's—"

"Escort," I say. "Academy-assigned. He's not here socially."

Odette's eyebrows climb. She looks at the Aston Martin. At Aamon. Back at me.

"An escort. A professor. In a car that costs more than my building." She puts her hand on her chest. "Calypso Dellaby, are you some kind of royalty I should know about?" She dips into a curtsy—exaggerated, theatrical, one hand sweeping her apron like a ball gown—and holds it until Nellie snorts and then I'm laughing and then Odette is laughing and the sound fills the shop and the orange cat lifts its head from the encyclopedias with an expression of profound inconvenience.

"Mama, stop—"

"Your Highness, please, make yourself at home in my humble establishment—"

"Mama."

Odette straightens up, grinning. She waves a hand toward the porch. "He can park himself out there. If he gets bored, there's a bench." She's already untying her apron, tossing it over the counter. "Okay. Change of plans. I was going to do inventory tonight but inventory can go to hell because my daughter is here and she brought a friend and we are eating."

She pulls her phone from her skirt pocket, already dialing. "Henri? It's Odette. I need the usual. Double it. And throw in an extra order of the cornbread, the good kind, not the dry stuff you tried to pass off last week." She listens. "Because my baby's home, that's why. Twenty minutes? You're an angel. You're a saint."

She hangs up. Turns to us. Claps her hands once.

"Sit. Talk. Tell me everything. Nellie, you look thin—are they feeding you at that school? Don't answer, I already know they're not. Calypso, do you drink coffee? Of course you drink coffee. Everyone drinks coffee."

She's already moving toward the back room, pulling mugs from hooks, filling a kettle. Nellie catches my eye and shrugs—a this is what I warned you about shrug that's ninety percent pride and ten percent apology.

I let myself be swept into it. The warmth of the shop, the clatter of Odette's back kitchen, the easy chaos of a mother who just cancelled her evening because her kid walked through the door. It's overwhelming in a way that has nothing to do with magic and everything to do with the simple, devastating fact that some people love like this—loudly, immediately, without checking the terms and conditions first.

Nellie and I drift through the shop while we wait. She shows me the rare book section—a locked glass case in the back corner filled with volumes so old the spines have disintegrated and been rebound with twine. The apothecary wall—rows of glass jars labeled in Odette's handwriting, containing things I can identify (rosemary, lavender, chamomile) and things I can't (something iridescent, something that moves, something that's definitely watching me through the glass).

I shiver as I walk by and feel it’s gaze follow me.

The cat follows us too. Judges us. Returns to its encyclopedias.

Aamon hasn't moved from the porch. I can see him through the window every time I glance that direction, which is more often than I'd like. He's standing exactly where I left him—hands at his sides, face composed, the porch light casting sharp shadows across his jaw. Just existing with perfect stillness in the warm night air, like a statue someone left on Odette's porch and forgot to retrieve.

At one point, Odette brings him a cup of coffee. I watch through the window as she hands it to him, says something I can't hear, and returns inside. Aamon looks at the cup. Takes a sip. Resumes his post.