Page 25 of The Hearth Witch’s Guide to Magic & Murder (The Hemlock Saga #1)

Saga

It was to both Saga’s amusement and annoyance that Avery absolutely kept to her word. Mostly. She noticed the way Avery kept her in her periphery the entire time while she pretended to study the map, then slunk after her.

She lost sight of her after they both boarded the train, Avery slipping into a different car entirely. As the train lurched forward, she saw the wisdom in her new friend’s decision for space. Riding public transportation had a strange way of triggering introspection.

Her aunt was the current owner of Hudson’s; thus it was reasonable that she had been the one to broker the deal for Avery’s stay, so she had to have at least some knowledge (and knowing Leigh, it was likely far more than she’d ever let on) of the society of fey living among them.

She would also, logically, have intimate knowledge about their family line and that being a bloodline of witches meant something a great deal more than Saga had been led to believe all her life.

Then of course there was Reza. How did he figure into it?

Obviously, he worked with Avery—perhaps as some kind of police contact, but the way Avery had said he was a policeman for their side needled at her.

Yet Avery had then adamantly denied that there were sides—though that had been one of those “complicated” subjects she wasn’t quite ready to get into.

If she took Avery up on her offer—and she wasn’t certain that she was going to—that was something she would want clarified first. Sides implied conflict, and if she was about to enter into some sort of secret war zone, she wanted to know everything she could about it first.

Then there was her grandmother. While she was not directly involved with the current business of Hudson’s, she had to have known.

She’d married a Hudson, after all. Had this all been a surprise to her to back then?

How had her grandfather told her? Was it before or after they married?

Saoirse had always said there was magic in the bones of the café…

Knowing what Saga knew now, what did that truly mean?

Her family line was one of the longest unbroken bloodlines of witches in England.

Avery’s use of “the Hudsons” implied that her family, for either longevity or some other reason, had some sort of status or even infamy within this magical community.

Did her mother know?

Saga dismissed this thought with a scoff the moment she thought it.

It was possible Audrey had been told and merely dismissed it as nonsense.

There was a litany of mental instability epithets the woman kept on hand that she employed whenever referring to her mother and sister.

If she had known about the other side, she could be trusted to denounce it immediately, and therefore anything she hadn’t told Saga was not out of secrecy but simply because she’d deemed it not worth knowing.

This left the other two Hudson women. Leigh, who had almost been more an older sister than an aunt, and Saoirse, who had raised her after her mother surrendered guardianship—the only real maternal figure Saga had ever known. Both liars.

It was a simultaneously sobering and disorienting thought. She nearly missed the call for Baker Street.

She stepped out, and her eyes scanned the crowd.

It was nearly 6:00 p.m. Avery was nowhere to be seen.

She hoped the other woman hadn’t missed the stop herself, but resolved ultimately that a grown being—a possibly immortal being at that—would manage just fine without her, however out of time or place she might have been.

Saga’s evening proceeded with the kind of mundane activity that belied her afternoon.

She did get groceries, order takeout from Amritsari Kitchen, and do her laundry, but inside her mind was racing.

She strained to remember anything that might have been out of the ordinary, things she could have overlooked that would have even given her a hint about her heritage.

But there was nothing. And the more she thought about it, the more she began to doubt what she saw.

What if Avery was lying after all?

She pondered at the ceiling, peering hard as if she might be able to see through the old wood to the apartment above.

She didn’t really know Avery, yet the idea that she had been the one to lie wasn’t something Saga could accept as a possibility.

First, there was no conceivable motive, nothing to be gained from such an illusion.

Additionally, the address had been listed in the file Reza had provided.

There was little chance any sort of setup required for a premeditated prank would have been possible for the stunt with the bay leaf—unless Reza was also in on the joke.

No. Saga was confident she could eliminate this idea as completely impossible.

Which left a startling alternative: it was real. However improbable it might have seemed that morning, she could not deny the truth that presented itself: magic was real.

This in itself was not hard to swallow. As a practitioner, she believed in the power of magic and the energy she put into the world, but this was different. This went beyond setting an intention and doing the inner work that came with spell work and praying to Brigid.

Didn’t it?

She’d fallen asleep asking herself these kinds of questions.

It kept her mind racing even through her dreams so that when she opened her eyes, it felt like she’d no more than blinked.

If dim light wasn’t leaking in through her curtains, if the clock on her bedside table wasn’t claiming it was a few minutes after 8:00 a.m., or if the rain had not started up again, she would have sworn no time had passed at all.

Her eyes locked on the familiar white and gray of a cloudy London morning. She couldn’t see the rain, but she could hear it pelting her windows. London rain had a funny way of never falling straight down but always at a diagonal.

It was the kind of banal thought she clung to when her mind had been turning over far more complicated and unpleasant ones with no satisfying results.

At least the weather gave her extra reason to dress for comfort.

An oversized mint angora sweater hung off one shoulder, draping over black denim pants that she’d tucked into lemon-yellow lace-up galoshes.

Cozy armor. The same sort that armed children against shadows on their wall or a woman about to confront her former guardian about a family secret.

She’d been mindful in her color choice. Green invoked growth in magic, and the shade she’d chosen promoted a sense of calm and emotional harmony.

She wore black for protection, to ward away negativity, and yellow for abundance…

also yellow because she only owned one pair of galoshes.

Her hair merely thrown into a messy bun, she was ready far too early to call upon her grandmother. She knew she’d be awake, of course, but it just didn’t feel civilized to show up uninvited prior to 9:00 a.m. Even if she was family.

She’d decided she would confront her grandmother for two reasons.

The first was that the woman was simply across the street, whereas Leigh would likely not be leaving Primrose Hill on a Sunday.

The second was that she suspected if she confronted Leigh, she would be instructed to ask her cascade of questions to Saoirse regardless.

Saga skimmed her cabinets and fridge and, despite having gone shopping the night prior, found nothing appetizing.

Well, except for caffeine. She reached for a can of Spectral Energy in the enigmatically named Wraith flavor.

Saga wasn’t entirely sure why she felt such affection for this particular drink.

Maybe it was the nostalgia associated with late-night study groups, that it barely passed food safety inspections, or that it inexplicably smacked of precisely how you’d expect the color neon blue to taste, but it had remained a guilty pleasure whenever Saga needed an extra kick.

It was with this can and a handful of scroggin that she wandered back into the living room, looking suspiciously at the statue of Brigid.

She awkwardly shoved the granola, nuts, and raisins into her mouth, sacrificing any dignity in the action for making sure she didn’t drop any pieces.

If magic was more than an intention sent to the universe—if magic could be active…

Did that mean Brigid also was more tangible than she first believed?

She took a long swig, never breaking eye contact with the statue. It was almost as if she was waiting for Brigid to break the silence.

Finally, she cleared her throat. “So…it occurs to me… I possibly should have been a great deal more specific when I said I needed a change.”

Brigid, as usual, said nothing.

“Also if you…are a magical being that is actually listening to these conversations, would you mind…letting me know? It’s one thing to think you’re this all-knowing, all-loving entity that I can picture in my head, it’s another if you have a physical form and can…

I don’t know, see through these things or something?

” She frowned. “The placement of one in my bedroom, for instance, I might have to rethink…” She flinched at the implications of this possibility.

Another long sip. As she drank, the discomfort grew. “You know, I think it would really be fine if I just went over…”

The statue’s soft smile seemed a little too impish. As if she found amusement in Saga’s growing awkwardness.

Saga glanced at her watch. It was 8:30. Well, she’d almost made it. “We’ll talk about this…later.” She locked the door behind her and fled 221 to dash across the street to the small cluster of town houses.