Page 126 of How to Flirt with a Witch

She does ten reps then puts it down and walks in a circle, panting. Beads of sweat roll down her face and chest, dampening her sports bra.

“Could the Madsens be about to do something serious to try and acquire magic? Are we in danger?”

Sky doesn’t meet my eye, stretching her quads. “Tough to say.”

My God, the oath has everyone here by the balls. How can anything get done if we’re not allowed to discuss it?

I steel myself, nerves jittering. “Can I ask you a question, then? About the history of CSAMM?”

She stops stretching and puts her hands on her hips, breathing hard, a bit of apprehension on her face. “Sure.”

“When did witches decide to start controlling magic?”

She doesn’t answer right away. A fan whirrs overhead, blowing cool air over me that raises the hairs on my arms.

Sky crosses to a bench and grabs her water bottle. She takes a big gulp and towels her face and neck. “The laws were put into place in the early 1900s. It’d become clear that some witches were using magic in dark ways, even trying to change the course of history in World War I.”

Unease trickles down my back. Biological magic must have been involved—mind control, telepathy, shapeshifting.

She kicks one of the foam blocks as if needing something to do with her feet. “An early version of CSAMM was formed to make sure magic could only be possessed by a select few. The first iteration didn’t go well.”

“I’m guessing only the rich and powerful were allowed to use it?” I venture.

“Exactly. Plus, it hinged on the idea that those people would use magic purely for good.”

I chew my lip. It’s the same conclusion I drew while talking to Freddie. “Like for every person using it to cure disease, there was another amassing an army or mind-controlling the government?”

Her water bottle slips from her hand and spills all over the rubber-matted floor. She swears and drops her towel onto it to mop it up. “Where did you hear about that?”

I bend to pick up the empty bottle and pass it to her. “I’ve overheard things in my time here.”

“You don’t justoverhearinformation like that. People don’t talk freely about…” She mouths the words “bio magic” as if afraid of eavesdroppers.

I lift a shoulder. “Sometimes people forget I’m there.”

Good lord, I’m a bad liar.

She looks at me sideways, definitely unconvinced. “Well, the conflict escalated into a civil war—those in favor of regulation versus those against. You know who won. A new CSAMM was founded, and the witches in charge opted to lock away all ofthat typeof magic. They decided nobody is allowed to use it, ever, no matter what.”

A chill ripples over me at the thought of a war among witches—the blood that must have been shed. “And earth magic? Alchemy?”

“Strictly regulated and kept a secret, as you know.” She carries her wet towel to a hamper and drops it in, pausing before turning to face me again. “We haven’t seen a serious abuse of magic since 1928. Stuff happens, yeah, or else I’d be out of work. But nothing as horrifying as back then.”

I nod. Freddie would probably tell me 1928 was the year magic died, but Sky’s haunted expression tells me the other side.

“What happened to the people who lost the civil war?” I ask. “The ones who wanted to keep magic free.”

Sky kicks the foam blocks scattered around into a pile. “Killed, imprisoned, silenced. If anyone still believes in free magic, they’re quiet about it.”

Millie comes to mind, the way she looked at my wounded ankle and seemed to wish with every fiber of her being that her illness could be cured by magic. I can’t blame her. Who wouldn’t want the same?

“I’d bet money,” Sky murmurs, barely audible, “that at one time or another, every witch has entertained the idea of trying to find bio magic and consume it in secret. But that doesn’t mean it’s right. And you’d be better off not talking to anybody else about this.”

Guilt writhes inside me. “I won’t.”

She studies me for so long that my face heats up, and I pretend to be interested in what the people in the courtyard are doing.

She definitely doesn’t believe that I happened upon this information while walking around CSAMM. But she also has no way of knowing I called Freddie.