Page 28 of A Ghost’s Guide to Haunting a Witch

He nodded. “Theo.”

“Theo,” she repeated, liking the sound of it in her mouth, the way her tongue wrapped itself around the softness of its syllables. “Okay then. Theo.”

“And you’re Augustine,” Theo said. “Unless your card was a lie? Or Augustine is some kind of . . . I don’t know, stagey witch name?”

She laughed uneasily. “It’s my real name, but I told you already, I’m not a witch.”

“You can speak to the dead,” he returned flatly. “That feels extremely witch-adjacent to me.”

“Speak to the dead?” She shook her head. “I can speak to you, and you just happen to be dead. That’s hardly a skill. I mean, how many people on earth have ever died? A billion?”

“Actually, it's about one hundred and ten billion,” Theo corrected calmly, and Augustine’s mouth dropped open.

“What?”

“A hundred and ten billion, roughly, I should say.” He shrugged. “Estimates vary.”

“How on earth do you know that?”

“I’m a statistician. Or, at least, I was a statistician. Before.”

She paused. “It must be hard. Learning to talk about yourself in the past tense like that.”

“Augustine,” he said, almost gently, “when you’re dead and haunting a candle shop, verb tense falls fairly low on the list of pressing concerns. Death clarifies many things, but syntax isn’t one of them.”

She hid a smile. “Well, I can assure you that I haven’t spoken with one hundred and ten billion dead people.”

“Just me,” Theo offered, his tone still gentle, his eyes still steady, and something fluttered inside of her again.

“Yeah,” she agreed, her mouth suddenly dry. “Just you.”

Do not get a crush on a dead man, she abruptly ordered herself. That would be crossing a line. Actually, that would be crossing several lines and maybe even a veil. The dating pool isn’t so bad that you need to start dipping into the afterlife, Augustine.

“Augustine.” Theo leaned towards her. “Please help me. You’re the only one. For whatever reason, you’re the only one who can hear me. The only one who can see me. It has to be you.”

Augustine shook her head, an instant ‘no’ forming on her lips. She knew what her sisters would say. Get the hell away from this guy, they’d tell her. That was the sensible option. The sane choice. She and her sisters were supposed to be keeping their heads down, blending in with the real world. They knew witch hunters could sense a witch’s power, and so they always used theirs lightly, and only when needed. Magic in their world was like adding a dusting of sugar to their coffee, rather than a whole cube. Nothing obvious. Nothing to draw attention. Of course, Augustine had always felt a little safer than her sisters, because she’d never had any real power to use. But then, what was this? Was her ability to see and speak with Theo — a spectral vision — her power suddenly awakened? Or was this something else?

“Please,” Theo said again, leaning closer.

The scent of his skin was stronger now, warm and distracting, and Augustine inhaled before she could stop herself.

He was staring straight into her eyes. The blue of his irises were deep and stormy, like an evening sky before it rained, and Augustine swallowed, her tongue darting briefly across her lips as she held his gaze. Abruptly, something fluttered low in her chest.

My heart, she realized, with a small degree of mortification. God, Augustine, pull yourself together. What will you tell Maddy or Celeste when they want to meet him? ‘Oh, we met on Cinder. That’s like Tinder, but for the recently cremated.’ No. Absolutely not.

Quickly, she stepped away from him and moved to the display of ritual bowls, picking one up and polishing it with unnecessary concentration.

“So . . . how did you even die?” she asked, clearing her throat. “Were you sick?”

“I was diabetic, but not sick.”

“Was it the diabetes that killed you then?”

He shook his head. “No.”

“So, you had an accident?”

“No.”