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“Mags, I promise you, that was not a man who was kissing you because he pitied you,” Liza said. “That was . . . that was a man who’d been wanting to do that for a very, very long time.”

Margaret didn’t answer that. Obviously, she’d picked that up from Silas’s flirtations—among other indicators. She knew that the attraction she felt was mutual. But she worried just the same.

“So, when will you be finishing what you started?” Liza asked, cutting through her thoughts.

Margaret bit back a groan. Liza was like a dog with a ball. She’d never let this go.

“Help me understand,” Liza said. “Was the kiss bad?”

“God no,” Margaret said, far too quickly.

“And you’re both consenting, eager, single adults?” Liza asked. “He doesn’t have a secret wife back in the non-magical world?”

“Not to my knowledge,” Margaret said. “No, definitely not.”

“Then what is the problem?”

Margaret sighed. She paid for one of Norma’s bouquets, a mixture of blue and white blooms that shimmered in the morning sunlight. They stepped out of the shop and onto the lane, which seemed to have become busier just in the few minutes they were away from it. With Christmas inching closer, shoppers were descending on the village en masse. Normally, the sight would’ve thrilled Margaret, as at least a portion of this crowd would’ve been trickling into her pub. After last night, however, she had her doubts.

“Mags?” Liza asked, nudging her in the ribs. “You okay?”

Margaret nodded.

“I asked you what the problem is,” Liza said. “And then you went all quiet and weird.”

Margaret pointed out at the shoppers bustling past, carrying their bags and laughing together.

“I’d just hoped some of them would make it to the pub,” Margaret said, daring to be honest. “And they didn’t. Not one.”

“I did,” Liza said. “Well, I mean, I was late, but I made it. And so did Silas.”

She said this last part pointedly as they wound their way to Sarah’s. Liza ordered them some hot apple cider, and they sat down at the back, watching through the glass as several children built snowpeople just outside the shop.

“I know,” Margaret said. “And I appreciate it. I just . . . don’t know what to do. And I . . . I should’ve listened to Silas. He suggested doing a relaunch to counter the grand opening. And you said basically the same thing, didn’t you? God, I’m so stupid. Maybe, if we’d done something like that . . . Now it feels too late, and I don’t know what to do.”

Liza leaned her head on Margaret’s shoulder.

Margaret’s voice got very small now.

“I wish I could ask my mom.”

Daphne Nettle would’ve known what to do about the pub. She wouldn’t have hesitated. Daphne Nettle had no problems making decisive decisions. Margaret could see her now, whipping out her wand to fix this and hang that. She wouldn’t have balked at Fox Bar and Patrick Kerrigan. She wouldn’t have given up, not for a second. She would’ve gone all out, from specialty drinks to Christmas decorations that might’ve even given Liza a run for her money.

Was that, actually, when you got down to it, why Margaret refused to decorate for Christmas? Because her mother had always done it so perfectly, had arranged the holly and the garlands and the twinkling, floating stars around the pub in a way that felt like stepping into a dream? Because the box of decorations upstairs—the one her mother had gotten so Margaret could decorate, as well, once they knew she wasn’t magical—had last been packed up six years ago by her mother, and Margaret didn’t want to disturb the box and ruin that last sliver of well-organized perfection that her mother had left behind? Or was it that, in Margaret’s darkest moments, she thought it seemed wrong that Christmas should exist at all when the people who had made it worth celebrating were gone?

“I wish you could ask her, too,” Liza said gently, drawing Margaret back to the present with a soft touch on her arm. “But I also feel like you already know what she would say.”

Margaret hiccupped. “I do?”

Liza nodded. “She would tell you to keep doing your best and to rely on your friends.”

Margaret smiled. It did sound like something her mom would tell her.

“And . . . she would tell you to give the nice man who’s clearly into you a fighting chance.”

Margaret laughed, rolling her eyes. “I don’t know about that.”

“Oh, she definitely would,” Liza said. “And she’d also say that maybe you should let him give you a screaming orgasm.”