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“I could make tea with a sprinkling of a chamomile calming spell?” Fia offered, surprised when the words slipped out of her mouth, but she’d wanted to reassure them too, and she couldn’t very well say she knew the cold wasn’t a curse—that there wouldn’t be any more curses—because she and Penbrook had secured The Book of Ribs.
“Please,” the girls said together, as did Skye Blackwood, who’d up until then been sniffing the selection of silver-tinned candles the way Fia sniffed books.
“I’ll be right back.” Fia swept off to the kitchen, glad to have something to keep her hands busy, her heart happy. Something normal that didn’t have anything to do with curses or thieving. Or grimoires that forced their way out of graves and wardrobes.
That didn’t have to do with Penbrook.
She bit her lip, starting the water boiling, pulling tea tins down from the cupboard. But no, she liked him here—in her thoughts, in the shop. Just in the bedroom across the hall.
What had he been looking for, though, in the store’s ledger?
The kettle whistled, and Fia swung it from the stove, pouring the simmering water over the tea leaves and reciting her calming spell. Collecting everything onto a tray, she returned to the shop with steaming mugs, the tea smelling of cherry and almond, and a few extra cups in case anyone else came in out of the cold and needed warming.
As she passed the drinks around, she thought of what her mother might have said had she been there. That this was a spellshop, not a tea shop, and that the lot of them could go to the unnamed café if they were thirsty. But Fia wasn’t made quite the same as Sable, and this small rebellion—or so it almost seemed—felt like her and how she wanted the shop to be. Making everyone feel welcome and cozy, like the world outside faded away for just a moment.
Skye had tucked herself into the tufted blue chair by the fireplace, sipping her tea and paging through a book she might or might not buy but was clearly enjoying. Annalise and Norie were chatting with Penbrook, tugging at the ends of their brown and blond hair, their ruby and rose illusions gone, the same as the golden butterflies.
These days it wasn’t just Fia alone (and lonely) in the shop, writing out some few-and-far-between spells. It was like Andromeda had said only yesterday, how altogether more fun something could be with company.
“Mr. Madbury—” Annalise was saying.
“Penbrook,” he inserted, as he so often did, lounging against the nearest shelf like a melting candle.
Fia imagined him wholly different from his father, whom Penbrook might have thought of each time someone called him Mr. Madbury. The man probably never slouched, never yawned, never took a moment to dabble in magic just for the fun of it the way Penbrook was now, returning the girls’ hair to their vibrant shades of pink.
Tea in hand, Fia slipped behind the counter. Finnick was right where she’d left him, stretched long across the worn wood. He accepted a belly rub before she turned to the ledger.
A quick tap of the book initiated the smallest spell ingrained in its thick spine. The pages fanned of their own accord, then fell apart at the last place the book had been opened. Fia hadn’t needed to ask Penbrook what old records he’d been looking at, as she could easily see for herself.
April
Sam Gray
A spell to soothe a sore throat
3 coppers
Dermot Stone
A spell to clean dirty dishes
3 silvers
Ramona Luz
A spell to spin pleasant dreams
7 silvers
Abigail A.
A spell to sour the sweetest berries
1 secret
She skimmed the whole page, then the ones just before and after, but it was all more of the same—spells her mother had written years and years ago.
Penbrook was still busy with Annalise and Norie, sending glittering purple starbursts into the air and drawing the attention of several other customers too, so Fia sipped her tea, thinking back. How grumpy Dermot Stone had been that day, grouching over the price of the spell even though Sable never haggled. How tired Ramona Luz had been, up long nights with her new baby. She’d wanted the sweet-dreams spell for the little one, not herself, Fia remembered.
