Page 1 of How to Charm a Coven (How to Flirt with a Witch #2)

Landing in Shit

T he problem with setting magic free is that it hangs around. It stews and festers, lashing out at random times as if holding a grudge against the people who trapped it.

And maybe that’s exactly what it’s doing. None of us understand magic enough to know what it’s thinking. If ‘thinking’ is even the right word.

As my plane descends through Vancouver’s rainy sky, it’s clear how much worse things have gotten since I fled the city.

The aircraft lurches again, and my stomach relocates to somewhere near my tonsils.

Turbulence doesn’t usually make me anxious, but this isn’t just the wind.

My skin prickles like static, and there’s a familiar tug inside me, leaving no doubt about what’s going on: feral magic is all around us.

Crap. I sink deeper into my seat and rub my arms as if I can tame the sensation. There’s no way it was this tangible when I left two and a half months ago…which means it’s either gotten stronger or my ability to sense it has .

The cabin lights sputter, an ominous buzz tickling my eardrums. Nearby magic crackles through my veins like I’ve grabbed onto an electric fence.

Crap, crap, crap!

The magic was supposed to disperse, not linger for months.

But according to the news and Natalie, anomalies have been showing up all over Vancouver, taking the form of various animals that cause traffic accidents and panicked 9-1-1 calls.

For the clueless public, blame swings between invasive species as a result of climate change, a black-market animal trade, and wild conspiracy theories from aliens to lab accidents.

Only witches know the reality: these are chimeras.

Magic incarnate. And they’re pissed off.

“I don’t remember the turbulence being this bad last time,” Hazel says squeakily, leaning back and gripping the arm rests. Her nostrils flare as she does some deep breathing.

No point in freaking out my bestie with the truth, so I wave my hand nonchalantly. “Spring showers. You’ll get used to Vancouver’s mood swings.”

But as we break through the bottom of the dark clouds, I lean across her and peer out the rain-streaked window, searching for an explanation for what I’m feeling—a thunderbird flying alongside us or a leviathan thrashing in the Fraser River.

Only a flock of Canada geese catches my eye.

I squint at them for a long moment to make sure they’re really geese and not faking it.

Seems legit… Though the one black raven among them certainly does not.

My spine tingles as I look at it, like the feeling of being watched.

A small cloud whips over our wing—dark, misty, almost shimmering—and we jolt again.

Shadows flicker at the edge of the window, like something is hovering out of sight, ready to latch its claws into the propeller as we all sit helplessly in this metal tube in the sky .

I rub my eyes and lean back. Stop it, Katie. Just because chimeras ravaged Vancouver and tried to kill everyone a couple of months ago doesn’t mean it’s going to happen again.

Ethel meows in her kennel at my feet. I poke my fingers in to soothe her, her fluffy white fur and beige-tipped ears visible through the holes in the top as she turns in a restless circle. Not for the first time, I wonder if she can sense magic too.

“I know,” I murmur. “Nearly there, sweetie.”

Below us, the snow-capped mountains cradle the familiar city, from Gastown to the West End and everything in between.

Even from up here, the scars left by the chimeras are visible—buildings in repair, cranes positioned throughout the city to fix the damage.

The University of British Columbia campus perches on a peninsula, where I’ll start May term in two weeks.

I’m miraculously not behind, thanks to a feigned medical emergency and a note from Doctor Sharma permitting me to finish last term remotely, but it’s going to be a heck of a lot easier to attend classes in person again.

Assuming we don’t get taken out by a monster before we land.

Hazel yanks up the hood of her University of Toronto sweater, hunched against the plane’s aggressive air conditioning. “I’m nervous.”

I look sharply at her. Does she somehow know magic is causing this?

Then she adds, “I don’t know how you did it, moving away from home.”

“Oh.” I blink back to reality. Right, we’re here for normal things like my university classes and her new co-op job placement. “It’s not so bad. I mean, it was at first, but…”

“But then you found someone worth staying for.” She nudges me, grinning.

She’s right. Before Natalie, I thought I was doomed to be homesick forever.

Now, Vancouver is as much my home as Toronto, and I’m so ready to return to the coven’s familiar underground halls—my room, the courtyard, the lounge, and all the witches I got to work with before everything went wrong.

It’s time to get back to business, starting with helping to rescue Natalie’s dad from Sophia and Oaklyn Madsen.

I’m going to make those assholes wish they’d never—

The plane drops, and Hazel and I grab each other with squeals of terror.

As my stomach recovers, I nudge her back. “You’ll call this place home in no time. We’ll have to find you a local boyfriend.”

She grimaces. “Maybe…”

I search her face for the meaning beneath that expression, but she turns to look out the window. This has become her standard reaction when the topic of dating comes up. Either Sean broke her heart more than she admits, or there’s more going on that she’s not telling me.

“Try to meet someone with a safer career than Natalie’s,” I say lightly. “Like…a tiger trainer. Or an experimental jetpack tester.”

Her laugh helps dissolve some of the tension in my shoulders.

I caved and told Hazel Natalie’s a witch. It was the only thing keeping me from thinking I hallucinated everything. Anyway, when you already got in trouble with a coven, what’s one more broken rule? The other details, especially anything about the Madsens, will stay a secret for Hazel’s safety.

At the thought of reuniting with Natalie in a few minutes, my heart flutters wildly. So close. I’m going to kiss her until my lips are bruised, feel her mouth against mine, breathe in her comforting scent of something herbal and sweet…

And I’ll finally tell her the three words that have been burning in my chest for seventy-eight days.

Yes, I’ve been counting. There’s only so much intimacy you can get through video calls, especially with your parents and sisters in the next rooms. I need her to know how completely she has my heart, even if it’s terrifying.

Even if I risk her telling me not to fall in love at a time like this, when dangerous people are willing to do anything and kill anyone in pursuit of magic.

Last night on our video call, she’d looked at me with such tenderness that the words almost slipped out.

“Natalie, I—” I’d started, before Nicky barged into my room asking to borrow my charger.

It was for the best. The first time I tell Natalie I love her shouldn’t be through a phone.

It should be face to face, where I can see if her eyes light up or if they cloud with worry about what loving me might cost her.

Using the black screen on the seat in front of me as a mirror, I comb my fingers through my light brown locks, making sure the loose curls are sitting right.

I’ve never put this much effort into my appearance for a travel day—smoky eyes, cherry lips, a tiny white top under an oversize jean jacket, and ripped jeans that make my legs look amazing.

“I expect you’ll be out all night catching up with Natalie?” Hazel asks teasingly, watching me fuss.

An embarrassed little laugh escapes me. “We’ve got dinner plans.”

And a whole lot more. We’ve talked about what we plan to do to each other in intimate detail. Assuming this flight doesn’t end in a magical disaster, Hazel is correct.

“Well, if you need someone to watch Ethel, she can keep me company while I set up my apartment,” Hazel says, poking her fingers into the kennel.

I bite my lip, my cheeks heating up. Not that I want to ditch her on our first night in Vancouver, but she gets it—and she’s right about how tonight will go.

The wheels slam into the wet tarmac, and we grab each other again as the plane bounces and sways like a ship in a storm. My stomach lurches, Ethel meows, and then, miraculously, we’re safely slowing down.

Thank God.

A collective sigh of relief whooshes through the cabin, and a few people clap .

The pilot’s muffled voice crackles over the P.A. “Welcome to Vancouver. Local time is 3:46 PM. Apologies for that bumpy landing due to the windy conditions. We appreciate your understanding and expect to be at the gate in about ten minutes…”

Amazing that everyone else thinks it was the wind. For me, the sensation of nearby magic keeps getting stronger, like a voice in my head whispering words I can’t quite understand.

Hazel and I pull out our phones and turn off airplane mode. I’ll text Natalie to tell her I landed, but knowing her, she’ll already be waiting for me in Arrivals.

The second my phone connects, messages come in. My heart leaps at Natalie’s name—then plummets as I read her texts.

Natalie

Katie, don’t leave the baggage area.

I’m in Arrivals.

Katie

I feel a ton of magic nearby. Is something wrong?

Natalie

Interesting. But no, I caught sight of Fiona. She must have followed me here.

My mouth goes dry. One of the coven’s Directors secretly following her to the airport can’t be a good sign. This has to be about the magic we freed.

We pissed off a lot of witches that day, but I thought Natalie’s trial convinced them we had no choice if we wanted to stop the Madsens from stealing it. The coven wouldn’t have pardoned her otherwise, right?

But the fury on Fiona’s face still haunts me. To her, releasing magic that took a hundred years to contain was unforgivable .