Page 35 of Hopelessly Teavoted

Mint and sage from the herb patch next to the crop of Venus flytraps wafted past Vickie, calming her despite the jarring sight of the shattered glass from the green panels missing from the side of the conservatory. The one with the cross and the circle drawn on it sat in the middle.

“Definitely the symbol of the megachurch,” she murmured. “Can we be sure it’s them? Isn’t it a bit obvious to leave their own symbol?”

“I did a spell to check if it was done in authenticity or faked. It’s authentic, so whatever it means, whoever drew it did it in earnest.” Priscilla snapped her fingers, and a broom and a roll of duct tape appeared in each hand.

She tossed the broom at Azrael, who caught it in such a way that Vickie couldn’t help but look at those very talented fingers for an extra moment.

Stop it , she told herself. Home break-ins were not the place to feel frisky about Azrael Hart, witch extraordinaire, and his magical hands.

“Patch this up with plastic sheeting until we can get a new pane of glass in?” he asked his sister. There was no need to sweep, Vickie realized, but she remembered Azrael explaining why witches also had to clean up. It was one of the first rules of magic their parents had taught them, he had said.

The act of cleaning could be as important as the cleanliness, and with stress running high, it was Hart family protocol to fetch the broom with magic but do the sweeping by hand. She smiled as she watched him, thinking of how his parents would be happy to know their small lessons lived on.

“That sounds right,” said Priscilla, as though echoing her thoughts.

“A good, old-fashioned, do-it-yourself Benedict Hart cleanup, and then, once we buy the new panes, we snap to replace the glass, obviously, since that’s not a skill set either of us possesses.

Do we have any plastic drop cloths in the house?

I don’t want to summon the closest and risk accidentally stealing it from somewhere if I’m not sure. ”

“I’ll go look,” Vickie volunteered. She needed a moment to collect herself, and to stop thinking of how Azrael’s breath felt against her collarbone and how his hard-on had pressed against her hip before the world had gone and turned upside down.

To focus on the task at hand and not on the fingers now gripping a broom.

The door to the small wooden shed attached to the greenhouse was past the hemlock and the poison oak.

Along the path, glorious roses sprang up in all shades of red and purple, blooming like gorgeous bruises against the pale green of the glass.

Between the bloodred and the crimson sprouted shiny black roses, the kind only witches could grow, which Azrael’s mother had used in healing potions and other small tinctures.

Persephone had once explained that her son was a rose: sharp in some ways, soft in others, and too easy to wither under a harsh stare.

Vickie traced a finger across the tops of them, the petals so much softer than the thorns Persephone had treasured.

Thorns, her neighbor had explained, were the truly precious part of roses, the things that made plant craft work perfectly.

People always try to use the petals , she’d said, but it’s their loss, for the things that are most difficult to see the beauty in can sometimes be the most essential .

The memory made Vickie smile, though she wished that she had realized earlier that, under his thorny exterior, Azrael always could have loved her as more than a friend.

Maybe they could be in love without ever touching, at least until Halloween.

They could pretend there was no soul-crushing deadline on the possibility of their love.

They had more pressing issues now, though.

Next to the shed’s brown door, and between the wood and the roses, was a gray three-tiered stone fountain carved with snakes and cherubs and filled with sparkling blue water that she dipped her hand into.

She drew her fingers back before the tiny, razor-sharp jaws of miniature snapping turtles could close around them.

The shed was dark, and she couldn’t see the light switch, but she heard Az call from outside the greenhouse.

Part of her wished he would join her here without the glaring truth of light, but the other part wished he would stay away long enough for her to remember how she’d immolate him if she wasn’t careful.

To protect him, she needed to reconstruct the guards around her heart that he had sliced through so seamlessly when he returned to town.

“I can get the lights for you, Vickie.” The sound of Az’s voice from across the greenhouse slid against her like rain on smooth pebbles. There was no hiding the effect he had on her from herself.

She had admitted to herself too late that she had feelings for Azrael Hart, after all these years. Strong feelings. And she was going to have to deal with them eventually.

Ornate sconces on each wall lit up with flame, and the shed, as though sensing her presence, slammed its door shut.

This dramatic, haunted house had always loved her.

It hadn’t frightened her, even as a small child.

She could picture Benedict Hart, in his fancy suit, explaining that the house showed affection by shutting the door to the room, like it was giving you a hug.

Hart Manor was old and ornery and full of sharp things and spires that twisted into the clouded sky, but the house knew Vickie, and she knew it, and it would always be a safe space for anyone who cared for the family.

She had stared into the darkest corners of the house long enough to know that the dark not only stared back but did so with kindness.

There was a love in the sentience of Hart Manor that was more than her parents had ever offered her.

The dark wood panels of the house were a home and a friend to Victoria, along with the Harts, and as a child, it was adaptable to what she needed.

All she needed, then and now, was to fit into a family full of affection. A family so different from her own.

Azrael was her oldest friend, and there might not be anyone she cared for more.

For a time, she’d thought she might care more for Natalie, or Robbie, or even her best friend, Claire, but Claire had drifted away after Vickie dropped out.

Besides Priscilla, and by default, Evelyn, Vickie didn’t have close friends anymore.

Her parents had cut her off from one social circle and leaving school had cut her off from another.

Her friends and family were here, in this house, and she was more than willing to dig through a dusty ancient shed to help them. There were no plastic sheets in the organized stacks of material on metal shelves, but she found a box of extra-large garden garbage bags that would do nicely.

On a whim, Vickie passed the racks to the sturdy wooden desk in the back.

A row of serious-looking knives hung above it, but she knew from the chips and shavings that they were for carving wood and not bodies.

This was where Benedict had practiced his shadow craft, the brand of witchery where the practitioner could construct a magical token out of whatever medium spoke to them, and then cast the shadow of that thing’s essence for a time.

A gargoyle for protection, a dragon to do battle.

A cupid to mend hearts. She could have made good use of any one of those.

But instead, sitting on the table was a roughly hewn wooden angel.

An archangel. For Azrael , she thought. Occasionally, the fire that brewed in Vickie’s veins pulled her toward objects, telling her that they would help her behold a spirit.

Her pulse beat faster, half fear and half curiosity, as she picked up the carving with both hands.

It heated up, and Benedict Hart appeared, sitting in the chair. Alone. His golden eyes softened, and he spoke swiftly, as though he had been waiting for her to summon him.

“Victoria. How is Azrael?”

“Mr. Hart.” She paused; it was strange to see him without his wife. “Grieving, but other than that, doing well. Azrael just started teaching. I think he’s going to be extraordinary. That he already is, really.”

Benedict nodded, his white hair shaking back and forth, and let out a little grunt of satisfaction.

“Good. That suits him. But we have other things to speak of. Your gift.”

Vickie was glad he’d called it a gift. She hated when her parents, the very people who had stuck her with it, used the word curse .

“You’re not the only one with bargained-for power.

Yours allows you to see souls and burn the thing that bound them to this world as sacrifice.

There are others with gifts like this, gifts that allow kindnesses.

You can summon the dead. Some can persuade them.

Others walk in dreams, or enchant with beauty in any craft.

These are the gifts of the lesser devils.

Of your devil. And he might be tricky and haunt you with his caveats. Still, he does follow a code.”

“But?”

“Someone has made a worse bargain with a much more terrible prince of Hell. A greater devil. Their bargains are rarer even than yours. And more deadly. The ability to reap bodies and souls. Sometimes the ability to see the future or the past. Gifts humans shouldn’t have.

It complicates things too much. It may not have been a bargain that greater devil made willingly, which means it may not be limited in scope and power the way it should be.

” Benedict’s transparent brow wrinkled. He cracked his knuckles and tapped them on the table.

“Who?”