Page 65 of The Witch They Fear

"Thanks," I manage. My voice comes out rough.

Nellie bumps my shoulder. Says nothing. Doesn't need to.

Aamon is somewhere behind us. I catch glimpses—the dark silhouette between the canopies, the glint of the Aston Martin parked at the end of the block. He's trailing at a distance that's meant to look casual but isn't, because nothing about a six-foot-something vampire in all black browsing a Cajun farmer's market is casual. An old woman at the praline booth watched him walk past and crossed herself.

"Your shadow's attracting attention," Nellie murmurs.

"I know. It's annoying." I glance back. He's pretending to examine a display of homemade soap. The image of Aamon holding a bar of lavender goat milk soap with his composed, unreadable expression is almost enough to make me laugh.

Almost.

"So what's the deal with you two?" Nellie asks. Casual. Too casual. "Like, is he nice to you? Is it strictly professional? Does he actually talk or does he just lurk and smolder?"

"He doesn't smolder—"

"He's literally smoldering next to the soap display right now."

I look. He's... okay, he might be smoldering. Unintentionally. The jawline and the cheekbones and the all-black in the Louisiana sun are doing something whether he means them to or not.

"It's complicated," I say.

"Complicated how?"

"Complicated like... he can literally turn me off with a button in his pocket.” I cringe as Nellie shoots me a look. “No, not like that.”

She chuckles.

"He's my trainer. He's my warden, basically. We were training and then things got a little tense. I distanced myself and now we haven’t really talked in like a week. I’m not really sure where that leaves us. But it’s not like I can completely ignore him." I stop. Nellie is staring at me with her mouth slightly open. "Complicated."

"Girl," she says slowly. "That is not complicated. That is a mess."

"Thanks, Nell."

"I'm here for you."

“You’re hear for the tea, be for real.”

She smiles, can’t help herself. “Yeah, I mean that’s just a lovely bonus of being your friend.”

After the market, Nellie takes me to the water.

There's a dock behind the main strip—wooden, weathered, jutting out over the bayou like an afterthought. The water is dark and still, reflecting the oak canopy in a way that makes it look like there are two skies. Spanish moss hangs low enough to brush the surface. Everything smells green and old and alive.

We sit on the edge, her bag of purchases behind us. Feet dangling. The wood is warm from the sun.

"I used to come here after school," Nellie says. "Every day, freshman year. Before I figured out the social stuff. I'd just sit here and let the water do its thing." She leans back on her palms. "The bayou doesn't care what species you are. Doesn't care if you're powerful or broke or if your last name opens doors. It just sits there being ancient and wet and completely unbothered."

I close my eyes. Feel.

The ambient magic here is enormous. Old in a way that makes the academy's wards feel like a fresh coat of paint on a cathedral. This isn't manufactured power—nobody channeled this, nobody inscribed it, nobody built it into a curriculum. It grew. It seeped up from the water table and the root systems and the centuries of things living and dying in the mud, and it's everywhere, humming through the dock boards and the water and the air.

My magic reaches for it. Not the spike, not the surge—a reach. An open hand. And the bayou reaches back.

The water around the dock goes still. Not frozen—still. The gentle current that's been lapping at the pilings stops. The surface goes flat and glassy and the reflected sky becomes so clear it looks like you could step into it. The moss stops swaying. The insects go quiet.

The whole bayou is holding its breath. And I'm at the center of it, sitting on a dock with my feet over the water, feeling my magic and the earth talk to each other in a language I don't speak but somehow understand.

"Cal," Nellie whispers. "Look at the water."