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TWENTY-THREE

The raven’s back. Bandit hadn’t moved from the windowsill for hours, and it was now sunset.

Thorn leaned out of the window. The raven turned its head to look at her. She called out to it, “Tell her to meet me.”

The bird didn’t move.

“I know you’re her familiar. And I know she stole my dagger.”

Lily must have taken it when she’d rummaged in the wardrobe under the guise of helping Thorn.

Lily must have wielded it to cleave the cats’ lives, in a similar way Thorn would have used it to cleave souls.

The first time Lily had used it was the same afternoon she’d stolen it, because that evening, Walls had seen the first case of the strange cat illness.

The raven gave a loud caw. Then it took flight, quickly disappearing into the sunset.

Thorn dragged her feet in circles around the cottage, heavy with guilt for not enchanting the wardrobe against thieves the way Mother had enchanted her own pocket where she kept the Dire Dagger. She chided herself for taking three weeks to realize that the dagger was missing.

When Thorn had cleaved bits of souls, she’d store them inside a burning candle, and she guessed Lily might have stored the cats’ lives in a similar receptacle. She shuddered to think that Lily might have used them all up.

“What potion could she be brewing?” Thorn wondered.

Contrary to Father Jorrison’s beliefs, most potion ingredients were plant-based.

Those that called for animal parts would usually ask for naturally shed antlers or long-buried bones.

Very few potions required a witch to cause such grievous harm, and even fewer witches were willing to do so.

“I heard that the King potion required the brains of five wise men, but what other potion necessitates harm to produce it?”

Thorn froze. She recalled a memory she hadn’t once revisited in three decades. In the middle of the night about a month before Rose and Mother died, Mother had suddenly leaped out of bed.

“Mother?” Thorn had asked, groggy with sleep.

Mother yelled with glee, “That’s it! That’s what will turn True Love for a Day into Forever True Love!” In her euphoria, she had dashed out of the cottage barefoot.

Thorn nudged Rose awake, and together, they ran after Mother, but always keeping a few feet behind.

Mother fished the Dire Dagger out of her pocket and unsheathed it. Thorn and Rose glanced at each other with delight at the sight of the blade glowing pink and silver in the moonlight.

“I can’t believe it took me so long to figure it out.” Mother cackled as she talked to the woods. “The last piece of the puzzle is a human life!”

Thorn and Rose looked at each other in horror. Surely Mother wouldn’t march into town and kill one of the townspeople.

Suddenly, Mother stopped. Rose grabbed Thorn’s hand and pulled her to hide behind a tree. They watched as Mother dropped to her knees. Her shoulders shook violently. She was sobbing.

“I can’t. I can’t.”

Rose led Thorn to sneak off back home. A short while later, they heard Mother return and get back into bed next to them. All night, she cried into her blanket. But the next morning, she was back at the table, trying to find an alternative recipe for the Forever True Love potion.

Someone’s coming , Bandit said.

“That was fast. She must have flown,” Thorn said as she marched toward the door. “What I’d like to know is where she found her enchanted wood for a flying broom in the twenty-first century.”

But standing on the porch, his fist poised to knock on the door, was Brad, forty-five years old, marketing manager, no interest in being a dad except a cat dad. “Ready for our date?”

Thorn had completely forgotten about it. Her New-and-Improved True Love potion wasn’t ready. And the last time she’d seen Brad, she looked ten years younger. Now, she didn’t even have any makeup on.

“You look beautiful,” he said.

Thorn paused. She didn’t want to miss this second chance with Brad; he could end up being her true love. But she also needed to talk to Lily so she could somehow get back those cats’ extra lives.

Brad cooed and bent down. “What a pretty kitty!”

Bandit weaved around Thorn’s ankles. Go and get me a daddy. Stay in the park, and I’ll come let you know if the witch arrives.

“No,” Thorn said, surprised by the offer—Bandit had always been wholly indifferent and sarcastic about her love life. But she wasn’t about to leave her familiar to potentially face down a witch who’d been going around stealing cats’ souls.

Don’t underestimate me, witch. I’ll come find you the moment I spot her.

“Do you not think your cat’s beautiful?” Brad asked.

“Oh, he’s downright debonair. But listen, instead of Pinocchio’s, do you mind if we take a stroll through the park?”

“Oh,” he said, looking a little disappointed.

“Maybe to the pavilion?” She held out her hand.

“You’ve worn me down.” He winked and took her hand.

Thorn’s first one-and-a-half date was going well. She used her new small-talk skills she had picked up from speed dating and was able to get the conversation started by asking about his work.

But by the time they reached the pavilion, their conversation about Brad’s day as a marketing manager had petered out despite her valiant attempts to keep it going.

He clearly didn’t love his job or talking about it.

She steered the conversation toward a subject they both loved. “Tell me about your cat. Or cats.”

“I have one. Her name’s Smudge. She’s okay now, but two weeks ago she wasn’t doing so great. Mysterious illness. Miraculous recovery.”

Thorn stopped in her tracks. “Was she terrified but otherwise healthy?”

“How did you know? Even the vets at Gatehill couldn’t figure it out.”

“Did you date a woman named Lily?”

He pulled his hand from hers. “How do you know all this? Have you been stalking me?”

She turned in the direction of her cottage. The chimney and the tip of the roof peeked above the trees. It looked serene.

There was a chance she was just being paranoid. After all, she, Lily, and Brad were all on the Darling app, and they all lived in the area. They were logically in the same dating pool. But she had to be sure. “Brad, what really made you give me another chance?”

“It was just a feeling. But now that you mention it, I was on my second date with Lily when I had this sudden desire to see you again. I think because she said something about first impressions not always being right.”

She studied the cottage again. It looked like it always did, but there was something off. “When you were with Lily and you had this feeling, were you drinking something? Tea? Wine?”

“Lily brought a bottle of wine. Wait a minute.” He took a big step back. “You didn’t send Lily to persuade me to date you again, did you? That’s sick.”

“Smoke!” Thorn ran. She never left the house with the fireplace roaring. And now thick gray plumes were billowing out of the chimney.

“What’s going on?” Brad shouted.

“Bandit!” she yelled, abandoning her date. “Bandit!”

She wanted to cry, but she couldn’t. She had to keep running. She had to make sure Bandit was okay.

As she got closer, she could see the purple threads weaved into the gray smoke. She could smell the sweet and sour of magic infused into the bitter of burning wood. She could feel the tingle in the air. Someone was in the cottage brewing a potion.

Thorn threw the door open.

Standing next to the bubbling cauldron was Lily.

In Lily’s hand was an open box of matches. But it wasn’t the one the Historical Society had left on the mantel. Her matchsticks had differently colored heads instead of plain red. They were orange, black, white, and gray in different permutations.

Lily struck one, and it lit with a black and gray flame, striped like tabby cat.

Thorn was horrified. “The cats’ lives are stored in the matchsticks!”

“Very good.” Lily let go. The burning matchstick plummeted into the purple brew, and the flame was swallowed up. “Now tell me what I’m brewing.”

“I don’t know.” Thorn glanced at the box of matchsticks in Lily’s hand. It was too close to the cauldron. Lunging for it was too risky.

“It’s a Never Love Again potion. So one will never fall in love, never get one’s heart broken.”

Thorn couldn’t help but yell, “If you don’t want to fall in love, just don’t date!”

Lily huffed as if she was insulted that Thorn didn’t think she had thought of that. “Just because you avoid dating, doesn’t mean you won’t fall in love. Love has a way of sneaking up on you when you least want or expect it. It’s insidious.”

Three months ago, Thorn would have said that was nonsense, but now, she couldn’t help but think of Walls. Not that she was in love with him. But she did know there were feelings there.

Lily smirked. “You’re thinking of him.”

“Who?”

“That vet.”

“No, I’m not. And don’t change the subject. You’re hurting the cats!”

“I didn’t kill them. They can spare the extra lives. And it’s better than taking a human life”—Lily looked straight into Thorn’s eyes—“isn’t it?”

Thorn’s heart skipped a beat, thinking of her recently unearthed memory.

It almost seemed like Lily knew something about Mother’s Forever True Love potion, but that was impossible.

And it seemed like appealing to Lily’s conscience wasn’t going to work.

Thorn realized she’d have to play along at least a little.

She scrutinized the wall of shelves, running a finger along a middle shelf and making a face at the cake of dust. “I’m very impressed you thought to use cats’ extra lives as an ingredient. But in my time, it’s not wise to cross another witch. And it’s very unwise to harm her cats.”

“You mean the gray and the orange cats in the oak tree? Those are strays. I only targeted them because I was sick of having to go on dates to get to men’s house cats.”

“Pepper and Pumpkin hang around my cottage. They eat my food.” Thorn slowly scanned the room. “You better not have harmed my familiar, too.”

Lily turned to the cauldron and stirred. “Relax. My raven lured Bandit away. Besides, I’ve gathered enough lives.”

“Good,” Thorn said, trying to sound nonchalant, like she cared more about not being inconvenienced than relieved that Bandit was safe. “But you’ve still stolen my dagger and broken into my cottage.”

Lily smiled. “You’ll understand, and you’ll forgive me, because you love witchcraft.”

“I understand my dagger isn’t something you can buy in the shops or forge in your lifetime. But why would you come in here and use my cauldron and favorite ladle?”

Lily looked at the ladle balanced across the mouth of the cauldron and laughed. “I didn’t know it was your favorite. But do you really not know why I have to brew the potion here? You’re sitting on a gold mine and you aren’t aware. This area used to be a forest. The town was much farther away.”

“How do you know that?”

“The tour guide. Have you not been listening on those daily tours? Think , Thorn. Why was this house built here, in the middle of nowhere?”

“Most witches don’t live in populated areas,” Thorn said.

The cottage had been Great-Grandmother’s before it was Mother’s.

A few times, Rose had asked Mother if they could move into town.

The shops there had nice dresses, and there were other children to play with.

Besides, that was where Father lived after he left.

But Mother said she needed to stay in their cottage in the forest to brew the Forever True Love potion.

“It’s easier to practice magic away from prying eyes,” Thorn added. “And many ingredients can be gathered from the forest.”

“True, but that’s not the main reason.”

Thorn sifted through her memories. Rose had begged Mother to at least move them to the edge of the forest. But Mother said the house was at the perfect place for the strongest magic.

And Madam Maude recently said that if she was to pull Thorn back through time, it would be better to do so through her own fireplace in the cottage.

“I suppose you don’t feel it because you live in it,” Lily said. “But if you go away for a long while and you return here, you’ll find the hair on the back of your neck standing up, your steps a little lighter, the potions you brew more effective.”

Thorn gasped. “This house sits on a nexus of magic.”

“Yes. Every magical object holds more power here. You understand why I had to get you out for a while. A little Persuasion potion was all it took for Brad to give you a second chance.” Lily pinched out a matchstick whose tip was gray like a dash of pepper.

“Bloody modern witches,” Thorn muttered under her breath. “No respect for tradition whatsoever. You’ve done all this to make the perfect potion, and you haven’t even bothered wearing a hat.” She grabbed her own hat off her replica broom.

“You sound like a cranky old man sitting on his porch chasing away kids.” But Lily paused and pursed her lips in thought. “Slide it over.”

“I don’t usually loan hats.” Thorn pushed the hat across the table. “But whatever gets you out of my house quicker.”

Lily snatched up the hat and put it on. She smiled. “Ah, yes. This feels right.”

“Of course. It’s a good hat with decades of potion brewing imbued into it. Now, hurry up with your potion, return my things, and get out.” Thorn crossed her arms and tapped her feet impatiently.

Lily struck the gray-tipped match. This time, the flame didn’t light.

She tried again, but she fumbled, and the matchstick slipped from her fingers.

As she bent down to pick it up, she tripped over her own foot and hit her chin on the arm of the rocking chair.

The matchbox fell out of her hand. Thorn scooped it up.

Lily looked at Thorn in confusion, then in anger. She ripped the hat off her head and stuck a hand into the cone. When Lily hadn’t been looking, Thorn had stuffed something into the part where one could hide candy.

Lily fished out that something from the hat and tossed it away like it was hot coal. The little ball of twine landed somewhere under the table. “A hex ball. You bitch.”

It’s witch. A blurry white rocket zoomed in through the cat door, landing straight on Lily’s back. She shrieked.

The only weapon within Thorn’s reach was the replica broom that couldn’t fly. She grabbed it and swung.

Lily grabbed Bandit by the scuff and tore him off her back. He hissed, but before he could attack, she whipped the dagger out of her pocket and held it close to his belly. He froze.

Thorn dropped the broom.

Lily used the dagger anyway.