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Today will bethe day Henbane Coven accepts me.

I exhale as I stare up at the sprawling Gothic buildings that make up the coven’s campus. The property sits on the coastal hills north of San Francisco, bordered on all sides by the Everwoods, a thick coastal forest composed of evergreen trees.

There’s no placard that announces I’m now standing on witch-owned land, but this place doesn’t really need one. If a person lingers for long enough, they’ll see something out of the ordinary—like, for instance, the circle of witches sitting on the lawn ahead of me.

Their hair and clothes float every which way, as though no longer bound by gravity, and plumes of their magic thicken the air around them. The color of their individual magic varies—from bright green, to bubblegum pink, to turquoise, and more—but as I watch, it all blends, creating an odd sort of rainbow in the air around them.

A wave of longing moves through me, and I have to tamp down the panicky, desperate feeling that follows in its wake.

I glance down at the open notebook in my hand.

Tuesday, August 29

10:00 a.m. meeting with Henbane Coven’s admissions office in Morgana Hall.

*Leave an extra twenty minutes early. You have a bad habit of arriving late.

I frown at the note, then glance at my phone:9:57 a.m.

Well, shit.

I begin walking again, heading toward the weathered stone buildings, even as my eyes flick back to my notebook.

Beneath my scrawled instructions is a drawing of a crest with flowers rising from a cauldron atop two crisscrossing brooms. Next to the drawing, I taped a Polaroid picture of one of the stone structures in front of me, and I’ve scrawled the wordsMorgana Hallbeneath it. At the bottom I’ve written in red:

Meeting will be held in the Receiving Room—second door on the right.

I head up the stone steps of Morgana Hall, growing breathless with my churning emotions. For the past century and a half, any witch worth her weight in magic has been an active member of an accredited coven.

And today I’m determined to join that list.

It didn’t happen last year or when you reapplied at the beginning of this one. Perhaps they simply don’t want you.

I take a deep breath and force the insidious thought away. This time is different. I’m on the official wait list, and they arranged for this interview only last week. They must be taking my application seriously, and that’s all I need: a foot in the door.

I open one of the massive doors into the building and head inside.

The first thing I see in the main hallway is a grand statue of the triple goddess. Her three forms stand back-to-back—the maiden, flowers woven into her unbound hair; the mother, her hands cradling her pregnant stomach; and the crone, wearing a crown of bones, her hands resting atop her cane.

Along the walls are portraits of past coven members, many of whom have wild hair and wilder eyes. Mounted in between them are wands and brooms and framed excerpts of famous grimoires.

I breathe it all in for a moment. I can feel the gentle hum of magic in the air, and it feels like home.

Iwillget in.

I stride down the hall, my determination renewed. When I get to the second door on the right, I knock, then wait.

A witch with soft features and a kind smile opens the door for me. “Selene Bowers?” she says.

I nod.

“Come on in.”

I follow her inside. A massive crescent-moon table takes up most of the space, and on the far side of it, half a dozen witches sit patiently. Across from them is a single seat.

The witch ahead of me gestures to it, and despite all my encouraging thoughts, my heart hammers.

I take the proffered seat, folding my hands in my lap to stop them from trembling while the woman who led me in takes her own seat on the other side of the table.