Page 12

SYLVIE

T he dream still burned in Sylvie's mind as she swept herb dust from the counter of Moonshadow Apothecary.

Three nights in a row now, the same vision had haunted her sleep—Nicholas, the candle, that damned tiger prowling through her consciousness.

Each morning she'd woken with sheets singed at the corners, the scent of smoke clinging to her hair.

She'd come early to the shop hoping work would clear her head, but her thoughts kept circling back to the binding spell, to Nicholas, to the strange twist in her stomach whenever the binding spell pulsed.

She heard the bell and glanced up to see her great-aunt Missy Sage glide into the shop, trailing scarves and the scent of lavender.

"Morning light finds the troubled witch at her sweeping." Missy's voice carried its usual musical lilt as she deposited a basket of fresh herbs on the counter. "Your magic feels restless today, little spark."

Sylvie shoved loose strands of hair back into her messy bun. "Just didn't sleep well."

"So I see." Missy reached out, thumb brushing beneath Sylvie's eye. "Those circles tell stories. As do your candles." She nodded toward the shelf where three new pillar candles had sprouted tiny blue flames without being lit.

"Damn it." Sylvie rushed over, waving her hands to extinguish them. The flames flickered out, but not before one left a scorch mark on the wooden shelf. "This keeps happening."

"I'd be more concerned if it wasn't." Missy settled onto a stool, arranging her flowing skirts around her. "Love magic never stays contained, especially not when it's fighting against stubborn hearts."

"It's not love magic," Sylvie countered automatically. "It's a warding spell gone wrong."

"Is there a difference?" Missy's eyes twinkled. "You remind me so much of your mother. She fought her feelings for your father just as fiercely. Nearly burned down half the orchard before she admitted what was already there."

Sylvie paused her sweeping. "Mom never told me that."

"She wouldn't. Sages don't like admitting when magic outsmarts them." Missy plucked a sprig of rosemary from her basket, rolling it between her fingers. "Your candles aren't misfiring, darling. They're amplifying."

"Amplifying what?"

"What's already there. Magic doesn't create feelings—it reveals them." Missy's smile turned knowing. "Remember Petra Willowbrook?"

Sylvie groaned. "Not this story again."

"Insisted on a potion to make Tim Fletcher notice her. I warned her, but she was determined." Missy leaned forward conspiratorially. "Three drops in his coffee, and suddenly he couldn't stop proposing. Five times in one day! Problem was?—"

"He'd actually been in love with her for years," Sylvie finished, having heard the cautionary tale countless times. "But that's different. Nicholas Whitmore doesn't have hidden feelings for me. He flirts with everything that breathes. You know that."

"And yet, the binding took." Missy raised an eyebrow. "Your candle could have exploded when anyone walked in. But it chose him."

"Candles don't choose anything. They're wax and wick."

Missy laughed. "For someone surrounded by magic her whole life, you certainly work hard to deny its intelligence.

" She stood, moving toward the shelf of specialty candles near the window.

"Love magic gone wrong looks very different, little spark.

Remember Gloria Chen? Tried to enchant roses for her ex-husband and ended up with man-eating petunias. "

"Or Finn O'Riley," Sylvie contributed reluctantly, "who tried a devotion spell and made his girlfriend allergic to his presence."

"Precisely!" Missy clapped her hands. "Magic backfires spectacularly when it's forced against nature. But you and your tiger? The spell reversed and strengthened. It's holding. That tells its own tale."

The band warmed, as if agreeing. She twisted it absently, remembering how Nicholas had looked in that dream—amber eyes blazing, reaching for her across impossible distance.

"He's not my tiger," she muttered.

"The magic seems to disagree." Missy moved back to her herbs, sorting them with practiced hands. "When was the last time you spoke with him?"

"The other day after I had my—" She stopped herself before she gave her aunt more ammunition by telling her about the dreamwalking. "We've been avoiding each other for the most part."

"And how's that working out for both of you?"

Sylvie frowned. The truth was, she'd felt increasingly off-kilter since Nicholas had stopped coming by the shop. Like something was missing, a constant itch she couldn't scratch. She'd blamed the binding spell, but what if...

"You think I actually have feelings for Nicholas?" She couldn't keep the disbelief from her voice. "The man who goes through dates like I go through candle wicks?"

"I think," Missy said carefully, "that sometimes we build walls against the very things we need most. And that magic has a way of finding cracks in those walls."

The image from her dream flashed again—Nicholas standing in a circle of candlelight, looking at her with an intensity that made her breath catch even in memory.

"But he's so..." Sylvie waved her hand vaguely.

"Handsome? Charming? Desperately trying to keep everyone at arm's length despite clearly yearning for connection?" Missy suggested innocently.

Sylvie narrowed her eyes. "Has anyone ever told you that you're insufferable when you're right?"

"Only every Sage woman for six generations." Missy patted her niece's cheek. "Emotional truth, Sylvie. That's what will untangle this magic. One way or another."

The violet band pulsed again, more insistent this time. Sylvie stared down at it, her resistance crumbling. What if the candle hadn't malfunctioned? What if it had simply seen past her carefully constructed barriers to something she'd been denying for longer than she cared to admit?

Every interaction with Nicholas replayed in her mind like a film reel spinning too fast—the nervous flutter that rippled through her stomach when he entered her shop, the electric awareness that prickled across her skin whenever he stood near her sorting through herbs.

She recalled with startling clarity how she tracked his movements without meaning to, how her magic seemed to hum in response to his presence.

That irritation she'd always felt at his easy, flirtatious manner might, possibly—no, probably—have been something else entirely.

Something she'd been desperately labeling as annoyance because the alternative was too complicated, too vulnerable.

She remembered how he'd leaned across her counter last month, amber eyes catching the light as he'd asked about a remedy for one of the sanctuary's injured foxes.

How her fingers had trembled slightly when passing him the tincture, and how she'd attributed it to the morning chill rather than the brief brush of his warm hand against hers.

"I need to see him," she said suddenly, rising from her chair with such force that it scraped loudly against the wooden floor.

The decision crystallized in her mind with the same clarity as perfectly formed ice.

Her heart raced with a mixture of terror and exhilaration.

"I need to talk to Nicholas before I lose my nerve. "

Her wrist pulsed with approval, as if it had been waiting all along for this moment of surrender.

Her aunt simply smiled and nodded, that knowing look in her eyes that had irritated Sylvie since childhood, the one that said Missy had anticipated this exact outcome hours or perhaps days ago.

"Let me know if I can be of any further assistance, dear," she said, casually adjusting one of her many colorful scarves.

"Though I suspect the magic has things well in hand now that you've stopped fighting it. "