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“We’ll get started in just a moment,” Maida said, not quite meeting anyone’s eyes. “And I apologize in advance for dashing as soon as we’re through. The cafe gets crowded during the holiday.” She glanced at Priya. “If you wanted to pick up a shift after, I’d be happy to pay overtime.”

Tempest wasn’t sure whether to be reassured by how unbothered everyone seemed. She may as well have been there to get her ears pierced, for all the gravity anyone was assigning to the ritual.

“Don’t start without me!” Dr. Dvita came lumbering down the stairs, quite slowly. “Happy Birthday, Tempest. What an auspicious day for an unbinding. How does it feel to have reached the age of mastery?”

Tempest looked down at her still-shaking hands. “It feels odd,” she admitted. “I thought I knew who and what I was. Now I’m less certain than ever.”

“Welcome to magical majority,” Sara said drily. “Whoever told you you’d have it figured out by now sold you a sour bin of sweets.” She glanced at Minerva. “I only hope to have it a little more together by the time I’m her age.”

“Ha!” Minerva tittered.

“Speak for yourself,” Lucretia said, with some dignity. “I’m in my magical prime at fifty-five. It’s a gift to be able to speak one’s mind freely.”

“When has she ever not?” Hildegarde said, under her breath, without looking up from her crackers.

Dr. Dvita settled into a chair to one side. He saw Tempest eyeing the brooms laid out on the stone floor, handles pointing inward. Six of them. The circle they formed was not large.

“This won’t take long, and it won’t hurt,” he said. “You’ll stand at the center with Fortune while the coven chants to dissolve the last of the binding. Afterward you should both be right as rain.” He smiled. “I’m here to observe, and because I promised Granny Luna I’d take her to the Samhain market after.”

“Ready?” Maida asked.

“Yes.” Tempest swallowed. She stroked Fortune’s feathers with her left hand and gave the locket one last squeeze with her right. Then she stepped into the circle.

Lucretia extinguished the overhead lights with a wave of her wand. The Archives filled with candlelight. The six witches took their positions, bent to lift their brooms, stepped inward, and interweaved the handles and brushes until the circle locked closed around her.

The effect was immediate. Outside was noise, the wild hum of archived magic, the crackling presence of the individual witches themselves. Inside the circle there was only quiet. It was just her and Fortune, and Tempest felt safe.

Then the real working began.

Minerva led, and the coven’s voices as they chanted were low and steady. The candles held. Tempest closed her eyes. Then she felt it: a warmth lapping at the edges of herself, a loosening, something that had been held very tightly for a very long time being given permission to let go. It felt wonderful.

And then it stopped.

Tempest opened her eyes. Fortune looked wrong. Blurry at the edges, as though someone had tried to erase the line of her. She could feel the talons digging deeper into her shoulder, pulling closer. When she looked down at her own hands they were blurry too. Her throat tightened. Her hand flew to the locket. It was warm, but not nearly warm enough to hold back the chill spreading through her. She felt herself beginning to dissolve.

Outside the circle, the coven chanted louder. Lucretia’s voice boomed. Hildegarde shifted her stance. Minerva gripped her broom with both hands and closed her eyes, doubling down on intent. When Tempest turned toward Priya she caught it: a flash of fear, there and gone, folded back into concentration.

She understood the problem, even as she grew more blurry.

The circle was holding. The binding was refusing to give.

She hung on. Her fingers tightened around the locket, the way they always did when she was afraid. She breathed and waited for the warmth to return.

It did not.

She was starting to lose the thread, her entire sense of herself unraveling. Then Fortune lifted from her shoulder.

The movement was sudden enough to open her eyes. All six witches were looking up. There, on the chandelier above the circle, perched a magnificent snowy owl. Minerva pressed a finger to her lips. The chanting stopped. The room went still.

Fortune opened her beak.

The voice that came out was Clement’s. Smug, Familiar, Unmistakable. He was murmuring to himself, somewhere between complaint and justification.

“I’m well within my rights. It’s for her own good.” A pen scratching. Something signed. “Her mother was quite beautiful. But no head for business. I kept telling her she was sitting on a goldmine.” The clink of coins. “The child is three years old and already I cannot keep her hands off the stock. She absorbed a book of fairy tales last Tuesday and started telling the stories to an Ordinary customer. Won’t keep her gloves on.”

A short, affronted pause.

“That’s a pretty penny for a Haeret Gravat on a locket I’ve provided myself. Convenient that the binding charm matches the dead mother’s initials.” A low chuckle. “I know it’s not permanent. The binding can’t last past her thirty-third birthday. Maybe I’ll see fit to break it sooner. I just need time to get things in order. After that, good riddance. She’s on her own.”