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Fifteen years adrift and untethered, cast out of the sky, unwanted by the earth, finding a way to survive anyway.

Fifteen years of yearning, of dying little deaths, of climbing wobbly-legged out of the ashes and building the most unexpected of lives.

Fifteen years in the company of ghosts and great-aunts, foxes and farmers, hobbits and knights and children bursting with light.

All of that, and it ended with a glass teapot.

There was a tremor in the air. A breeze of salt and earth and starlight.

It blew outward from the teapot and the witch holding it in her hands, knocking books to the floor, rattling the shutters, ruffling the feathers of sleeping chickens in their coop, and tousling the hair of a man who looked like he’d fallen out of a myth.

Then, like that breeze had gone to collect magic from all over the universe, it blew back in a thousand times stronger, wild and untameable, returning to the witch like she’d called it home.

The old inn went quiet and still.

Sera closed her eyes.

And found entire galaxies of stars waiting for her.