Frankly, I blame Harry Potter.

Though I must admit, it’s perhaps unfair of me. It’s undeniable that the history of misinformation regarding magic individuals and their arts started long before the nineties. Amulets and wands and potions and orbs and all that utter crap—they’ve been around forever. Somewhere in the Smithsonian there is probably a clay tablet full of levitating spells that some Babylonian schmuck wrote down four thousand years ago.

And that’s fine. Whatever floats your boat. If someone’s into charmed swords or mythical trees I encourage them to pursue their interests. However, the fact remains that these objects help promote an idea of magic as something that can be owned, condensed into formulas, occasionally stored into artifacts for safekeeping, which… nope. Not at all.

Fast forward to 1997—ironically, the year I was born—and enter Harry J. Potter, prodigious boy wizard who walks about in his “magic” cloak, brandishes his “magic” wand, casts “magic” spells. It becomes the most popular piece of media since the Bible—which, let’s be real, didn’t do us witches any favors, either—and brainwashes people into thinking that magic is something that can be pulled out of a top hat, rather than a way to interact with the energy that resides in the world surrounding us. Entertaining book, sure, but it gives unfair, ridiculous expectations to well-meaning people.

Well-meaning people like my sister Hannah, who ambushes me on a Wednesday afternoon with the excuse of needing help with her taxes, slams a cup of my favorite milkshake on the diner’s table, and tells me,

“I need you to make someone fall in love with me.”

 

—

 

I take a long drag from the straw before I answer her, figuring that I’ll probably need the calories.

“That’s not the way it works.” I smile, more or less apologetic. She should really know by now. “But can I interest you in this mod I coded for Tinder the other day? It aggregates data and flags dudes who have a history of sending dick pics.”

“That’s not at all what—” Hannah begins, and then frowns. “What if I want dick pics?”

Oh. “Is that a thing? People wanting dick pics?”

“Yeah. I mean, not only dick pics. But… some dick pics?”

I lean back in my chair, stroking my chin. “Hm. So maybe the mod should only flag individuals whose ratio of dick pics to regular texts is higher than a certain threshold.” Perhaps I should have gotten feedback from someone who actually has a dating life before starting to code. “Hey, do you have time to brainstorm a couple of ideas on how to improve—”

“No. Ellie, focus. Love spell. For me. And James Acton.”

“Who?”

“My boss.”

Oh, boy. “Of course.” I scratch my temple. “Since when are you in love with your boss?”

“Since the very first moment I met him.”

“Which was…?”

“Last week. The temp agency sent me to this huge architecture firm and oh my god, he’s tall.” She closes her eyes and makes a sound that is definitely not diner-appropriate. “The hair—so black. The eyes—so green. The bod—so built. He looks so quietly self-assured and has that low, authoritative voice, you can just tell he’s into some kinky shit. You know what I mean?”

I have no idea what she means. Zero. Nada. Zilch. So I nod and say, “Of course. He sounds…” Like a caricature of the guy from 50 Shades of Grey. “Um, lovely. Why don’t you just ask him out?”

“‘Cause he’d say no.”

“No, he wouldn’t.”

“He would, Ellie.”

This is odd. When it comes to snagging a date, insecurity’s not like my sister. “Look at yourself. He could never.” It will forever amaze me, how different two ginger girls who share fifty-percent of their DNA can end up looking. She has curves, and I don’t. She is tall, and I’m not. She has a sensible amount of freckles, and I…  not sensible. Mine’s not even nearly sensible. Don’t get me wrong, I think I’m pretty enough, but Hannah is a turn-around-in-the-street-and-don’t-even-feel-the-delivery-truck-running-you-over knockout.

Then again, it’s abundantly clear that she and I ended up getting dramatically different sets of genes, and not even because of our looks.

I smile encouragingly. “He’d probably drool at the opportunity to spend some time with you.”

“Uh-uh.”

“Well, you won’t know until you ask him, so—”

“I have. And that idiot said no.” Hannah’s red lips have gone flat, but I recognize the gleam of stubbornness in her eyes. “Doesn’t matter. It’s okay. Because that’s where you come in and make him fall in love with me.”

I nod slowly, to buy myself some time. I should probably address the matter that making someone you’ve known for about a week fall in love with you doesn’t seem like a good, or ethical, or even sensical idea, but the point is moot because:

“I can’t.”

“Why not?”

“Well, for one, love spells are not a thing.”

Hannah huffs. “I’ve seen you grow a daisy ten feet tall in five seconds.”

“You saw me grow a sunflower ten feet tall—couldn’t have been a daisy, because they only grow about three feet—”

“I’ve seen you make stuff fly!”

“You saw me briefly invert gravity. Briefly.”

“Well, then why can’t you briefly make James Acton fall head over fucking heels with me?”

“You know why. You were there when grandmother explained this.”

“Yeah well, I spaced out. It wasn’t exactly relevant to the non-witch of the family. She was just yammering on and on about roads and energy and atoms and stuff that didn’t make any sense, and season two of Dharma & Greg was on.”

I look away with a sigh because I’m starting to get a hint of where this is going. See, this, right here, is the problem of being the magic one, the chosen granddaughter, the heir to the witch. For the first eight years of my life, my grandmother didn’t even attempt to hide how much she favored me over Hannah. Fast forward fifteen years, and I get the privilege of feeling guilty about it ‘til the day I croak. Even though grandma was, as Hannah likes to put it, “more bitch than witch,” and having her attention on me twenty-four seven wasn’t exactly a picnic.

“Here is the deal.” I set my elbows off the table and lean forward, taking one of Hannah’s hands in mine. “I can make my eyes change color, can make water turn into ice, can make all the lights in a room switch off. But that’s because I know the exact biochemical mechanisms that underlie this stuff. Because the science of it is straightforward, and easy to recreate, to speed up, to manipulate a little. But love—what even is love?” Right, what the hell is love? And does it really exist? “It’s the product of incredibly complex chemical reactions. Even scientists have no idea how love works.”

She abruptly pulls her hand away from mine. “I never ask you for anything. Never. All I want is a single love spell, and you—”

“And I can’t. I can’t brew you a love potion and dip an arrow in it, Hannah. That’s not how it works.”

I plan to leave it at that, but Hannah’s expression is so frustrated, so disappointed, so sad, I stupidly decide to continue. This, right here, is my mistake. My Sliding Doors moment. The point where things go wrong and my life takes a sharp turn.

When I open my moronic mouth and say:

“I could… I don’t know. There is this hormone, oxytocin, that has been constantly linked to social bonding and sexual reproduction.” I am thinking out loud, now. “I guess I could raise the oxytocin levels produced by his hypothalamus while he’s hanging out with you, which might make him think of you somewhat more fondly than he normally would, but—”

“Perfect!” Hannah’s eyes are wide now, and she’s back to touching me. Clutching my hand tight, too tight. Our relationship in a nutshell: I am guilted into giving an inch, and she takes about a million miles. “Ellie, I want you to do that!”

“—but, I just don’t think this is ethical.”

“Who cares? It’s not like there are other witches in the world. Grandma’s gone and now it’s only you. Who’s gonna arrest you, the FBI?”

“We don’t know that. Grandma said that she wasn’t sure—that there might be other witches around—”

She huffs. “She was lying to make you feel better. If there were other witches she’d have sent you to them before dying. She was a bitter old hag, but even she wouldn’t have left an eight-year-old alone to figure out this magic shit by herself. You’re TLW, and we both know it.”

I know it’s not her intention, but every time Hannah reminds me that I am “The Last Witch” my stomach twists and churns. It’s just… a very odd dance, the one between me and my sister: I think she wishes she was the one with powers, because in our formative years she was made to think that she was less for not having them, and never fully grasped how limited and limiting they are. On the other hand, I wish that there were no powers to be had at all, since being able to boil water in a couple of seconds is not worth the constant feeling of being the only weirdo standing in the entire universe.

Microwaves sell for less than a hundred bucks, for god’s sake.

“I wasn’t alone,” I say with a smile, trying to change the topic. “I was with my eleven-year-old sister, who used to duct-tape my hair and spray me with toilet water.” She also made sure that we had food and a place to stay, that we didn’t get separated, that the boys who once bullied me on the bus for being a “carrot face” never dreamt of doing it again.

“Wasn’t that fun?”

“Sooo fun.”

“Well, then you owe me one.” Her smile is bright and her eyes are dancing. “And I demand my payback in the form of James Acton, please and thank you.”

 I hate it when Hannah is mad at me, so I sigh and nod. No point in dragging this out and pretending I won’t do it.

“Also, I will need help with my taxes.”

—

 

When you think of me—not that you would, but in case you do for some reason that I can’t even imagine at the moment—please don’t think of me as a witch, because really, I am just a girl.

Just a girl, recently out of college, trying to pay off her student loans and live her life as lamely as possible. I have a moderately-boring software engineering job, a small apartment stuffed with several gaming consoles, and a hummingbird feeder hanging out of my bedroom window. I enjoy sleeping, and hedgehogs, and spending the night on my couch watching entire seasons of Curb Your Enthusiasm while I eat my weight in Tostitos.

I do not enjoy being in bars as a rule, and much less while nursing a martini and waiting for my sister to locate James Acton, whoever he might be. I wanted to order a pineapple mojito, but according to Hannah it’s “a childish drink” and “not cool enough for an after-work bar,” so I find myself trying to gulp down something that tastes a lot like olive juice and—

“There he is.” She elbows me, and sticky liquid sloshes out of my glass. “The tall one. Dark hair. He’s chatting with the slightly shorter guy who just laughed.”

“Are you sure you want this?” I ask, in a last-ditch attempt that we both know won’t work. “Three guys just tried to pick you up—maybe you could just focus on one of them. And all three seemed really nice—”

“James is the one holding a beer—do you understand which one?”

I sigh and nod. The lights are dim, and I can’t see his face very well, but it doesn’t really matter. If I hone in on him, I can feel everything. The cells of him. Mitochondria pumping out ATP. Proteins being translated inside ribosomes. Enzymes crawling around busily, atoms spinning and exchanging electrons. Pathways. Life. Energy.

Magic, I guess.

“Okay.” Hannah sounds a little breathless. “You do your thing, and when he’s full of oxycontin—”

“Oxytocin.”

“—of whatever, I go say hi to him. Okay?”

I just want to go home and stuff my face with Lime Tostitos. I even have an unopened jar of avocado salsa. “Sure.”

“Perfect.” She grins. “Do the thing, then. Now.”

Avocado salsa is my favorite, so I put down my alcoholic olive juice, close my eyes, and do the thing.

It’s not a big deal, really. It used to be, but now it’s little more than flexing a muscle. I focus on my target, lock onto what’s going on inside the small universe of James Acton, and then I start my job.

It is, like my grandmother used to say, just a matter of picturing directions. The open roads that atoms can travel. Yes, the hypothalamic neurons that are able to produce oxytocin in James Acton’s brain are slumbering. But what if they weren’t? What if I woke them up? What if I nudged them down a different road? Just a little poke, and chemical reactions are happening. Neuropeptides are synthesized. Receptors are bound. Hormones are released into the bloodstream to—

Hmm. No. Not really working. I frown without opening my eyes. I probably just need a better lock on this guy. On his cells. The chemical compounds that make him. Yes, here he is. It’s not really magic—just quantum mechanics. I can spin his electrons and just ask things to happen. Please neurons, start firing at this specific frequency. Yes, good. And then…

There is something odd here. A traffic jam clogging the road. Roads. Every road. No, not a jam, it’s something else. I’m not just stuck, it’s as though I’m being forcefully repelled. Pushed away. As though the atoms are stubbornly telling me that they have no plans of doing what I ask of them. Weird. So weird.

So I open my eyes, and that’s when I realize that someone is staring hard at me from across the room. That’s when I begin to curse my sister. Because while she was going on and on about how good-looking and charming and tall her boss is, she always neglected to mention a very, very important detail.

James Acton is a witch, too.

 

—

 

It’s probably a little shitty of me, scrambling off of my stool and running out of the bar, leaving my sister alone without telling her what’s going on. But she’s not the one who got caught rummaging around in the neurons of another witch—oh my god oh my shit another witch another—which means that she’ll be fine.

You know who won’t be fine? Yours truly. Currently elbowing her way out of the Friday night crowd with middling success. There’s lots of “Hey,” and “Watch where you’re going,” and “Excuse you,” that I pay absolutely no attention to since when I turn around, I find that another witch is coming after me.

And this witch is pissed.

My heart is blowing up. I am breathing hard. I would cry if I weren’t too busy kicking people’s shins to force them to let me past them. And yet, while about ninety percent of my brain is busy figuring a way out, the remaining ten is considering the fact that I’m apparently not TLW. I am, instead, one of two TLWs, and my first introduction to the other half of this TLW duo was…

Oh, shit.

The humid spring air hits me hard when I’m finally outside, but I don’t stop. Instead I take a right and start running, my converse slapping on the semi-deserted sidewalk. I am almost at the end of the block, almost feeling safe when I stop.

I don’t decide to stop, mind you. My legs just quit on me, which I initially attribute to being out of shape, and then to some kind of screwed-up emotional reaction. It’s not until I hear the calm, unhurried sound of loafers on the sidewalk behind me that I realize what’s actually happening.

Someone is blocking my acetylcholine receptors. Someone is clogging my neuromuscular junctions, but selectively enough that I can breathe, I can blink, I can maintain posture. It’s truly masterful work, like some very sophisticated curare: I just can’t walk away, so that I have no choice but to stay still as the steps get louder and louder. I can even lift my head when the witch circles right around me and comes to a stop, arms folded on his chest.

“Oxytocin, uh?”

Hannah was right. He is tall. And big. And a million times better at magic than I am.

Shit.

“Who are you?” His voice is deep, but surprisingly calm. Then again, if I had me trapped, I’d probably be calm, too. “And what were you doing in my head?”

I swallow, and try to move my legs. Nope, still rooted to the asphalt. “Well, oxytocin is technically released by the posterior pituitary, which is not exactly inside your skull—more like dangling under your brain, so I wouldn’t say I was in your head—”

“Who are you?”

“Nobody.”

He nods, seemingly impressed. There is something severe about him. Hannah’s “kinky shit” comment twitches in my brain, all of a sudden making sense. “You’re nobody? Really? And yet you’re standing right here, in front of me. That’s some magic trick.”

“I’d leave if you released me.”

“I’d release if you told me what you’re up to.”

I absolutely can’t. Tell him. He’d kill me—he probably will anyway, let’s be real—and then he’d fire Hannah, too. She’d be alone in the world. Unemployed. She’d probably even inherit my student loans—are they inheritable? Oh God, I should have just gone to community college and—

“What were you doing?” His handsome face, his broad shoulders, his large biceps under the expensive suit—everything in him is scowling.

“Nothing! I just—” Breathe. Breathe. “My friend thought you were kinda cute. She asked me to help her make you… interested.”

“Your ‘friend?’”

For a moment, I am afraid he suspects that Hannah is my sister. Then the implications of his words register and I briefly forget that I’m terrified. “Yes, my friend,” I say, indignant. “It was not me.”

“Of course.”

“Not me.”

“Right.”

“Hey, it’s very important that you don’t think it was me. I do not think you are cute.” He lifts one eyebrow and I realize how rude that sounded. “Sorry. I meant—I’m sure you are cute. Perfectly cute. Just—not to me.” He is going to punch me. He is going to kill me. He is going to—

Is he smiling?

“Who are you?”

I shake my head. “I can’t tell you that. Kindly let me go, and—”

“You know, there aren’t so many of us that I can’t find out easily.”

“—I’ll promise to never bother you again—wait.” My eyes widen. “Did you say… ‘of us?’ You mean, there’s more than just you and me?”

He drums his fingers against his bicep and studies me so curiously, it borders on fascinated. “Really, who are you?”

“Nobody.”

He stares at me some more, and then shrugs. “Very well, then.” He takes a step closer, as large as half of the Rockies, and lifts his hand to my face. He makes to move it to my forehead, but seems to get distracted halfway through. His thumb lingers by my mouth and presses gently against my parted lips. A caress of sorts that lasts little more than my sharp exhale.

Then his index finger is on my brow and I start to feel it. Something warm, cutting through skin and bone and connective tissue. Reaching into me and finding roads. Roads inside me. Roads to travel and roads to mold and roads to—

“No!”

I don’t know what I do. I don’t know what happens. I don’t know anything but one single thing: something bright and violent explodes out of me, and the second my legs can move again I am running home, away from James Acton.

—

 

I feel as though my mind should be reeling, my heart screaming, my entire world spinning with the knowledge that I am not TLW, but the truth is that I am late for work and that seems somehow more momentous.

“It was nothing,” I tell Hannah for the fourth time, phone wedged between ear and shoulder as I slide on green sandals. “I just suddenly remembered that I had, um…” Left my fridge open? Forgotten to mail the census survey? “…something I needed to do.”

“And you dropped me in a bar? Just like that? James left, too, right after you, and I ended up having to flirt with this group of finance bros and then look at them while they fought over who got to pay for my drink.”

I’m not sure how she didn’t notice that James Acton was running after me, but I’ll take it. The alternative would be telling my sister that he’s a witch, too, and I’m seriously concerned she’d confront him and spill the beans about me. Which would lead him to me, and, I am assuming, to my murder.

No, thank you.

“Well, it sounds like you’ve met some great alternatives to James Acton, so—”

“No way. You’ve seen those biceps—James’ the one.”

He better not be, or Thanksgiving’s going to be awkward AF. “Is he, though?” I look around frantically for my work backpack.

“Yes. When can we do the oxycontin—”

“Oxytocin.”

“—thing again.”

I swallow a groan. “I’ll, um, have to get back to you on that. I gotta go to work.”

My backpack is, inexplicably, on top of the fridge. I have to use a chair to drag it down, which makes me even later. I dart out of the room, trying to calculate when the next train will leave, and manage approximately two steps. No, precisely two steps, and then I slam into a wall. No, not a wall. A chest masquerading as a wall.

I know exactly who this is the very second my nose smashes between two well-defined pecs. I feel it, like a sommelier would a good wine, like an artist recognizes brush strokes—a special, distinctive quantum property of electrons that is somehow both familiar and unknown. And yet I still take a step back and look up.

James Acton. With his green eyes, and his black hair, and his interesting, handsome face. Wearing jeans and a t-shirt and staring down at me. His left hand is under my right elbow, as though he expects me to fall on my ass.

He might be right, but I still twist my arm away.

“How did you find me?” My heart is a quick thud in my throat. “I’m going to call the police if you—”

“Elle March, of the Wordsworth family. Twenty-two years old. Grandmother was Malena Wordsworth. Parents deceased, one sister, all magic-neutral. Works as an IT consultant at—”

“Software engineer,” I bristle.

“Right.” His lips press together. I wonder if he’s biting back a smile. “Software engineer.” I see a hint of dimples, and a large bruise on his left cheekbone that wasn’t there last night. At least, I don’t think it was.

“How did you find me?” I ask again. My heart is still thudding, but a touch of sullen anger is diluting the panic.

“It wasn’t hard.” His eyes travel down my red braid, and linger on the strands at the end for a long time. “Not once I mentioned the hair.”

“Mentioned to whom? And what do you want from me?”

He looks back to my face, and hands me a Starbucks cup. The scribble on the side says, “Elle.”

“I want you to call work and ask for a day off.” There is something quietly firm about the way he holds out the cup. It’s like I have no choice but to grab it. “I’ll be waiting for you downstairs.” He turns around and walks down the steps. I stare at his broad shoulders as I distractedly take a sip.

It’s chai. My favorite.

 

—

 

“I’m James,” he tells me while we stroll into the park two blocks from my apartment, and I have to look the other way to hide my blush. It’s sort of cute that he thinks I don’t know his name, but after calling in sick I left a note on my fridge, saying that if I disappear the police should look into James Acton. I may or may not have added that he is an architect, and my corpse will probably be chopped and scattered across multiple construction sites. Honestly, I’m still not sure why I agreed to move to a secondary location with this guy. Curiosity trumps self-preservation, I guess. “James Acton. Of the Seeley and Acton families.”

“Why do you keep saying that?” He is so much taller than me, we must look ridiculous walking side by side.

“Saying what?”

“Families. You keep mentioning families.”

He spots a bench and sits on it, elbows on his knees. I remain standing in front of him, and try not to squirm as he gives me a contemplative look. We’re about the same height, now.

Lovely.

“You don’t know much, do you?”

“I don’t know anything, apparently.” It’s hard to keep the frustration from my voice. “So you… you are a witch?”

His eyes gleam with amusement. “Did you just call me a ‘witch?’”

“Yeah. I shouldn’t have?” I slap my hand over my mouth. “Oh my god, is it a slur or something? I am so sorry, I didn’t mean to—”

“No, it’s fine.” He’s fully smiling now, and… wow. That thing is a bioweapon. I can totally see what Hannah meant. “Just a little… gendered?”

“Oh. Oh, right.” When my grandmother died I had a phase in which I spent day and night dreaming about finding other witches, but I now realize that it never occurred to me that some of them might be… boys. Oops. “Um… wizard, then?”

“The community usually just goes with ‘magic-user.’”

“Oh.” Not TLW, then. TL…MU? Well, not TL at all, actually. “I like it. I’m not really sure why my grandmother referred to us as witches.”

“Rumor has it that Malena was a little… unconventional.”

I snort. “You mean a total bitch?”

He smiles again. “Yeah, that’s pretty much what I heard. She isolated herself from the community, and in the process isolated you, too.”

“And when you say community, you mean…?”

“Magic-users. All of us who can manipulate. I mention ’families’ because we traditionally all come from the same lines. There is clearly a genetic component to our abilities.”

“How many of us in…” I hesitate. I can’t believe I’m saying this out loud. Us. Us. There is an us. “How many of us in the city?”

“About ten. It varies—New York’s large, people move in, move out, then move back in.”

“And they are… They are all part of your family?”

He shakes his head. “No one is. I’m originally from the West Coast. Both my sisters are magic users and still live there. My father is, too. There’s probably eighty to ninety of us in the US right now.”

I gasp. “No shit. Can I meet them?”

“Of course.”

“When?”

He shrugs. “When are you free?”

“Tonight. Now. Always.”

He chuckles, low and soft. “I’ll organize for tonight, then.”

“Is it too soon? It can be whenever. They’re probably busy.”

“Believe me, they’ll make time.”

“I don’t know, it’s awfully little advance.” I wipe my palms against my skinny jeans. They’re getting a little clammy. “And they might not be interested.”

“They are.”

I frown. “Have you told them about me already?”

He bites the inside of his cheek. “I didn’t need to, Elle.”

Oh? Oh. I want to ask what he means by that, but I’m also afraid to.

“I hope they won’t hate me.”

“Might be hard.” I scowl at him, and he shrugs. “You are pretty hateable.”

I’m not positive, but I think I’m starting to get the hang of his sense of humor. “Hey, you are the one who bombed my neuromuscular junction!”

“After you broke into my hypothalamus.”

I scoff and kick his left Nike with the tip of my sandal. James, this utter monster, kicks me back. Harder.

“Elle?”

I glance up just in time to catch the end tail of his smile.

“Last night. Was there really a friend with you?” he asks quietly.

I don’t know why, but all of a sudden I don’t trust my voice, so I just nod.

After a while so does he, looking away. “Pity.” His lips are pressed together. The breeze coming through the oak trees is starting to turn warm.

 

—

 

They do hate me.

Not all of them, not even most, but a couple surely do, judging from the way they’re glaring at me while Jada, the host of the dinner, gives me a highly condensed spiel on the history of magic.

“There was an attempt at building some sort of centralized structure of power, a census, and maybe even a set of codes and rules. I think it was early in the early nineteen hundreds, but honestly it didn’t work very well, and there are so few of us, anyway.” She shrugs. She is a beautiful middle-aged woman with curly black hair and cat-eye glasses. There is something deliciously witchy about her. “So everyone does what they want, and we just make sure we don’t act like assholes. No violence, no serious magicking of other people without their consent. Stuff like that.”

I glance at James, who’s leaning back in the chair next to mine with a half-smile. His plate is as polished clean as mine is untouched. Unsurprisingly, he eats like a wolf. “Elle would never,” he says. Under the table, his foot shifts to nudge mine. I pinch his thigh in revenge.

“Hence the fact that we had no idea you existed. Malena was never very… sociable.” Jada smiles warmly. “I’m glad we have found you, though. I can’t imagine what it must have been like in the past few years, being all alone.”

I nod, but immediately feel guilty. “I did have my sister.”

“Isn’t she magic-neutral, though.”

“Yeah. Yeah, she…” I clear my throat. “Yeah.” Despite the obvious family resemblance, James doesn’t seem to have put together that his new temp (Hannah March) and his new witch buddy (Elle March) are related, and I want to try to keep it like that. I definitely don’t want to make things harder for Hannah at work. “Do you… Do you ever tell other magic-neutrals? About what you can do?”

Jada exchanges a look with her brother, Jerome. “It depends. Magic-neutrals who are born into magic families almost always end up knowing. For the rest… I definitely wouldn’t tell all my friends, but if you are in a relationship with a magic-neutral, you might want to come clean with them. It’s up to you.”

“If you’re like James, for instance,” the pretty blonde who has been glaring at me interjects from the other end of the table, “and you find all magic-users so revolting you could never be in a relationship with them, you might need to come out to your magic-neutral partner.”

A few laugh, but Jada clucks her tongue. “Sienna, honey, I think at this point it’s abundantly clear that James doesn’t find all other magic users revolting. Just you.”

Even more people laugh. I glance at James, who seems completely unbothered by the exchange. At some point he must have rested his arm on the back of my chair, but I’m only noticing it right now.

“What was that last night, by the way?” Jerome asks me.

“Um… What was what?”

“That burst of energy.”

Jada claps her hands together. “That was amazing. I can’t remember the last time I felt a hotspot like that.”

“Because the last time was never,” someone chimes in.

“Yeah, so strong.” People are starting to comment on it, talking and chattering over each other, so Jerome leans forward and asks me again, “What was it, Elle? The burst of energy?”

The entire table is staring at me. Ten pairs of eyes, and I have absolutely no idea what they’re talking about. So I turn to James with a desperate, pleading gaze, and let him be my knight in shining armor.

“Let’s just say that I came on a little too strong,” he tells everyone. That almost-smile of his is all in the eyes. “And Elle decided to let me know.”

The whistling and clapping is so loud, I actually startle.

A couple of minutes later, when I excuse myself to go to the bathroom in search of some quiet, I think I overhear Jerome say, “Is that where your new bruise comes from, Acton?”

“Yep. And it was well deserved.”

“I never pegged you for someone who likes to get his ass kicked.”

I can hear the smile in James’ voice. “Neither did I. And yet.”

—

 

I don’t mind the silence. I generally do, and try to fill it with chatter about the weather, or the news, or pretty much anything else, but tonight I don’t, and as James drives me back to my apartment I let my head rest back and study the ebbs and flows of the streetlights.

I am really not TLW. Not even close. I feel like I should be processing this piece of information, but I’m not even sure where to start. I have so many questions, I can’t even think of one.

Actually I can. Think of one, that is.

“What did Sienna mean, when she said that you find witches revolting?”

His lips curl. “Back to ‘witches,’ huh?”

I laugh. “Years of habit. Sorry.”

“Nah, I like it. It’s cute.” He bites his lower lip, as if in deep thought. “I think you might not be very attuned to it because you’re not used to interacting with other magic users—sorry, witches. ” I pinch his forearm and make him smile, but he continues, “There is a specific trace that we leave behind whenever we interact with the world and manipulate it. An imprint of sorts. A shadow, maybe. A smell. I can’t really put it into words. But it’s a signature—what allows me to know who manipulated a pocket energy if I get there right after.” He shrugs. “You’ll start to feel it soon enough, the more you interact with us. Then you’ll know.”

“And that’s what you don’t like? That trace?”

He opens his mouth. Closes it. Opens and closes it again, and eventually settles for an exhaled laughter. He looks somewhere between surprised and quietly happy.

“That is what I thought,” he says slowly. Carefully.

I don’t quite understand what he means, and I am too tired to probe further. It doesn’t seem all that important.

“Last night, how did you do it? Blocking only some of my cholinergic neurons?”

“It’s not hard. I can teach you.”

I straighten in my seat. “Really? You would?”

“Of course.”

“When?”

“Whenever you want.”

“Tomorrow? Wait, no, tomorrow’s a Saturday. You probably have something better to do—”

“Nope.”

“Really? Didn’t you say you’re an architect?”

“I am.”

“Aren’t architects very busy, um… architecting?”

“We are.”

“Then why—”

“Elle.” He turns towards me. The green of his eyes is a beautiful forest gleaming in the night. “Trust me. I have nothing better to do.”

He drops me off at home, and I slip out of the car before I can say anything stupid.

 

—

 

The fourth time I try to get James’ body to release histamine in a one-inch long patch of skin he marked with a black sharpie, he develops a rash that extends from his fingertips all the way up to his forehead.

When he fixes himself and tells me, “You are so bad at this,” his tone is so delightfully befuddled, I can’t help bursting into laughter.

“Screw you, Acton.”

“No, seriously. You’re like… like a blindfolded man playing darts.”

“Shut up.”

“Like a seal trying to build a house of cards with flippers.”

“Stop it!”

“Like a bulldozer who’s—”

Still laughing, I lean forward and press both my hands against his mouth. “Hush.”

He licks my palm and I giggle harder, but I’m not even grossed out. His skin is warm and scratchy where he didn’t bother shaving this morning. I don’t let go until his eyes hold mine and he nods in defeat.

“To be fair,” he tells me, “you really are terrible.”

I huff. Why can’t I stop smiling? “To be really fair, I didn’t have the privilege of practicing this during the years when my brain was most plastic.” I chew on the inside of my cheek. “What if I missed my window of opportunity? What if I can’t learn this stuff anymore?”

“You haven’t. You just need to get the hang of it.”

“Maybe I’m like Tarzan. Or Mowgli. A feral witch, destined to never fit amongst other witches.”

“You love the W-word, don’t you?”

I lean back against his couch. It’s much softer and larger than mine—then again, his entire apartment is much larger than mine. And prettier. I’m trying hard not to notice that he owns the same gaming consoles I do, because then I’d point out that we also own the same games, and maybe he’d ask me if I want to play.

Which I do.

“You have to admit, feral witch sounds much better than feral magic-user. But seriously—what if I’ll never learn? What if it’s like… like learning to speak after a certain age?”

He smiles again and shakes his head. “You’ll be fine. Here, let me show you.”

The inside of his thumb in front of my face is not unlike the other night, after the bar, but this time he goes straight for the center of my forehead and presses against it.

Then it burns.

It burns scorching hot, but in a good, good way. There is something pleasantly unfamiliar happening, and I don’t know how to explain it. The closest I can think of is catching a ride on a motorcycle, sitting snug between the driver’s legs as he shows me the scenery.

Roads.

Ah, yes. I can see them, splayed right in front of me, stretching against the horizon, all the roads that electrons can take, that can shape atoms. It might take me a while, but I’ll figure out the histamine thing. It’s right there, after all. It’s right—

James’ thumb slides away, and I drop right back into my body. I’m on the blue couch in his apartment, the hardwood floor is bright with natural light, and I cannot quite breathe.

My bra feels too small. My nipples too tight. There is a liquid heat blooming in my abdomen. I’m afraid it’ll explode into something humiliating, so I press the heel of my palm to my belly.

I want to fidget. I want to squirm. I want to move away, but I’m afraid of what I’ll feel in my panties if I do. This is mortifying. Thrilling, too.

“I’m sorry,” James says. He is hoarse. And flushed. “I just wanted to show you. I didn’t think it would… feel like this.”

My mouth is dry. “Feel… like what?”

“Like…”

My phone rings, and I don’t know if I want to kiss it or flush it down the toilet. Then I check the ID, and realize it’s definitely the latter. I exhale, a shuddering business, and then stand to take the call. I wander to the glass doors that lead to the balcony, and my panties are… Yeah.

Exactly in the conditions I expected them to be.

“Hey.” Hannah’s voice is chirpy. “Wanna hang out?”

We usually get together at least once a weekend. Mostly, Hannah comes to my place, talks about the dates she’s been on during the week or criticizes my life choices for a couple of hours, and then we go out for a snack. “I…”

“When are you free?”

“Um, I’m not sure. Can I text you?”

“Okay. But we have to meet—we need to debrief and come up with a new plan for my boss.”

“Oh.” I glance back. James is still on the couch, elbows on his knees. He is staring straight ahead, but there is something unseeing about his demeanor. I think his hands are shaking a little. “Do you still want to…?”

“Of course.”

“I thought maybe you…” My mouth is getting even drier. The heat at the bottom of my stomach is still there, but something else, too. Guilt, I think. I clear my throat, but it doesn’t go away. “I thought maybe you had found someone else.”

“No. I mean, I did meet this guy from Tinder last night, and he was amazing, but I’m still madly in love with James Acton. Or,” she adds quickly, “I’m sure I will be when I get to know him.”

I nod and look away from James.

“Right, yes. Okay.” I’m not even sure what I’m agreeing to. All I know is, my heart is thudding again.

“Text me a time for tomorrow, then?”

“Yeah. Yeah, I will.”

I don’t know for how long I stand there, staring at the sage and rosemary on the balcony, immobile in their dark grey pots. I do know, though, that after a while James comes to stand beside me, puts a hand on my lower back, and asks, “Do you want some dinner?”

I shouldn’t, I really shouldn’t, but I find myself nodding at him.

 

—

 

I don’t know why we meet again the following morning.

I don’t know what we’re supposed to be doing.

I don’t know anything.

No, wait—I do know something. I know that he brings me another Starbucks cup, and when I take a sip I expect something spicy, anise and ginger and cloves, but I only taste chocolate.

Hot chocolate.

My other favorite.

“Can you read minds?” I ask him with a side glance as we go back to our park.

Except that it’s not our park, it’s just a park in my neighborhood. It’s not our park because there is no us.

James shakes his head as he takes a sip of his coffee. “Maybe one day,” he muses. “If scientists ever learn how we encode thoughts.”

“How do you know what drinks I like, then?”

 He smirks. “I said I can’t read minds. I didn’t say I can’t read you.”

It’s a little different from yesterday, because there is no real purpose to today’s meeting. No magic tutoring, no lecture on the history of witches, no… nothing, really. Really, I have no clue why we’re even together. Why, when last night he dropped me off and said, “I’ll be back tomorrow around ten,” as though we’d made plans for it, as though we’d agreed, I nodded and smiled and said, “See you then.”

I am confused. And, I think, a little happy.

So we’re just sitting here. A small ginger girl and a big green-eyed boy, laughing on a bench at stuff that is not so funny after all, like the fact that architecture used to be an Olympic sport, or tales of the worst playthroughs of Dragon Age Inquisitions.

I know we are magic users—Witches, James has taken to correcting me, We say witches, Elle—I know it, but maybe I forget for a couple of hours. Why it’s so easy to forget what I am with someone who is like me, is something that, I tell myself, I’ll have to think on.

 

—

 

He wants to take me out for lunch, but I tell him everything about my student loans and my efforts to be fiscally responsible, and drag him back to my apartment to eat leftover take-out from four nights ago.

“I’m happy to pay,” he says, clearly amused.

“My student loans?”

“Lunch. But if you need help with the loans, I could—what was that?”

“Uh?”

“You just rolled your eyes.”

“Oh, sorry.” I smile up at him, reassuring. “It wasn’t because of you.”

“What was it about, then?”

I wave a dismissive hand and unlock the door of my apartment. “Just—the man who was walking his dog and passed us? He always wears Harry Potter shirts.” I head to my fridge and bend over to snoop inside. “I have Thai. And pizza. Though the pizza might be a bit risky.” I spin around. “How adventurous do you feel?”

“What’s wrong with Harry Potter?”

“Oh, nothing.” I shrug. “Just, you know.”

He cocks his head. I think maybe he doesn’t know.

“It just presents such a distorted idea of what magic is, you know. It makes people think that we witc—magic users.” I catch myself, but judging from his smile James catches me first. “That we magic users are some sort of gimmicky magicians who can turn turtles into doves and hold mountains of powers within us.”

He is still staring at me, like he has no idea where I’m going with this.

I huff, frustrated. “What? I hate it.”

“What do you hate?”

“This idea of magic as something—something that you have.”

He is studying me with a look of calm curiosity that makes me want to stomp my foot. “And it isn’t?”

“No.” I shake my head so energetically, I feel my hair bounce over my shoulders. “It doesn’t come from inside me. It’s—it’s outside. The energy of things. What binds them together—I just manipulate it, but it’s not me.”

He seems doubtful. “I don’t know that the distinction is so clear-cut.”

“Yes. Yes, it is.” God. Is he always so annoying?

“Why do you hate the idea so much?”

I feel anger bubbling up, and regret opening my mouth. And inviting James in. And ever meeting him. “Because it’s not true.”

“But it is.”

“No, it’s not. This—this thing, it’s not what I am!”

I think I might have yelled the last word, because it echoes across the white of the walls. But James doesn’t seem upset, or even much curious anymore. He looks as though he has figured something out, and that—that is perhaps what bothers me the most.

“Forget it,” I say brusquely. “You clearly don’t—”

“It must have been hard, having this thing that… that sets you apart. Thinking that you were alone. One of a kind. I’d find it lonely, too.”

“No.” I shake my head. “No, that’s not what—”

“But you aren’t anymore. Alone, that is.”

He doesn’t ask for permission, but I’d have all the time in the world to stop him if I wanted to. Instead I let him move away from the counter and step closer, I let him come to a halt right in front of me, I let him lift his palm and splay it over my sternum. I let the warmth seep into me—from his hand, from his eyes watching me, from the way he tells me, “It’s okay. You can just be.”

I can see all the roads, now. I can see the fabric of things stretch—no, I can feel it stretch inside me as James grunts against the dip of my throat and lowers me somewhere horizontal. Or maybe I’m the one pushing him down. I am not wholly sure where I end and he begins.

“When I felt you in my head,” he groans against my skin, and his breath is warm and damp where he just nibbled on me, “I almost couldn’t believe it.”

His hands slide up my ribs, and there is that liquid heat again, spilling in the bottom of my belly. I’ve done this before, but maybe I haven’t. I’ve been this close to someone, except that I have not. It’s like there are no boundaries, no borders to contain us, and his pleasure spills into me as he rubs his rough palms against my nipples—my pleasure flows into him as I grind myself over the thigh he’s slid between my legs.

“I still can’t believe it now,” I hear him say in my head.

I moan, and sink into the roads of it. I lie quietly as James pulls up my arms and holds them over my head, as his glazed eyes roam over my pale skin, as he bites the curve between my shoulder and neck. Then I moan some more, flushed and out of breath, and he drinks it from my lips.

This is good. So hot and good, I can’t keep up. The pleasure bites into my spine.

“You should have seen me the other night, when I thought I might never find you again.” I arch my back as his teeth graze over my nipple. His tongue finds the inside of my thighs, the line of my waist. He doesn’t hold back, and it’s hard enough for it to hurt. My vision blurs. There are stars blooming in my head. “When I thought I might never get to fuck you.”

I want to do the same to him, but it’s a losing battle. His cock is dragging against my belly, sticky and twitching. Then it just shifts down, large palms spreading my knees wide, and the inside of me opens, adjusts, struggles to make room. There is a lot of heavy breathing as I focus on the effort of holding him inside. My cunt is full to bursting, and James is scalding hot.

“Elle.”

He grunts above me, sweaty and clumsy, and I think he wants to stay in control.

“Elle. Don’t move.”

I think he wants to see this through.

“Elle, don’t you fucking—oh, shit.”

I think he’s trying to hold on to something, but it doesn’t quite work out that way. I lean up to lick a drop of sweat from his temple, and then there is fluttering, and thrusts, and sweaty skins rubbing against each other. The friction is wet and delicious, I clench around him, and the pleasure is too much. Just enough.

“Elle. My witch,” he rasps against my ear, and I feel him swell larger, impossibly harder within me. Maybe I’m getting tighter. I feel like a string stretched too tense—I am about to explode. “My sweet, beautiful witch.”

 

—

 

“Okay, so. Freshman year.”

“Of college?”

“High school. I’m taking a history test that I have not studied for. Because of baseball practice.”

“Baseball!”

“It’s a noble sport. So, I am happily cheating my way through the test, and my teacher catches me. I panic and just jam his hippocampal neurons.”

“All of them?”

“Yes. All of them at once. It was bad. I just wanted him to forget what he’d seen, but instead he has a seizure.”

I cover my mouth with my palm. “Oh my god.”

“Yep. My father was pissed.”

“This is way worse than the oxytocin thing.”

“Is it? I don’t think so.”

“Nah, you’re right. Still.”

He takes another bite from the pad thai container I’m holding. That’s probably why he arranged us like this—me sitting on the counter, and him standing between my legs, shirtless and with his jeans only half-buttoned. Perfect position to steal my food, damn him. “Hey, I was grounded for six months after that. You are getting off scot-free on the oxytocin business.”

“Excuse me,” I smile and raise one eyebrow. “I had to spend, like, twenty hours with you in the past few days.”

His kiss is half-laughter. He tastes like peanuts and himself. The latter is already dangerously familiar. “That’s harsh punishment, indeed.”

“And now you’re even stealing my leftovers.”

“Okay. I take it back. You’re absolutely right, you have paid dearly for—”

“What the fuck is this, Ellie?”

James and I turn to the door at the same time, but I’m the one who drops the leftovers on the floor. They scatter with a wet, messy noise as I stare at my sister in the entrance of my apartment, the spare keys I gave her months ago dangling from her fingers.

I open my mouth, but no sound comes out. Probably for the best, since I don’t know what to say. I am only wearing a tank top and my undies, and James is right between my knees, and—

“I cannot fucking believe this,” she says, shaking her head. I have seen Hannah furious, tired, sad, upset, hurt, frustrated. I have seen her every which way, but never like this. Never disappointed in me. Never whirling around and running away like she can’t stand the sight of me one moment longer.

At least, the way she slams the door shakes me out of my stupid inactivity. I gasp and make to jump off the counter to go after her, but large hands close around my waist.

“Elle.”

James. Shit, James is still here. And Hannah saw him and now she is probably thinking—

The truth. She is probably thinking the truth.

I try again to jump down from the counter, but the fingers on my waist tighten a little more, digging into my skin. I lift my eyes to his face.

“Let me guess,” he says, voice low and calm, “you and my temp whose name I can’t quite remember are related.”

I close my eyes. I can’t even bear nodding, but I do it anyway.

“Is she the… the friend? From the bar?”

I nod again.

“So there was a friend.”

“I told you there was.” My voice sounds plaintive even to my own ears.

“Yeah.” I can feel his lips against my forehead. “Yeah, I just wanted to think there wasn’t.”

God. I have fucked up. I fucked up so bad.

“I gather you haven’t told her about me?”

I shake my head. “She is upset. Rightfully so. I just… I never do this. Never. With… with guys, but I also never go after guys my sister likes. She deserves better than this—she practically raised me, and—” I am starting to panic and try to jump off again, but he still holds me to him. One of his hands lifts to my chin, and he tilts it up, like he wants me to look him in the eye while he speaks.

”I see what you mean,” he says calmly. “Believe me, I do.” His fingers slide to cup my face in his hands. “But I don’t think this could be helped.”

By ‘this’ he means us, and I think he is right. I know he is right. I feel how right he is in every electron of every atom of every bone of my body.

But.

Hannah.

“I just… I think I need a moment.”

He sighs. “Elle, I’m here. Don’t worry, we’ll figure this out. I can help you explain—”

“I need a moment alone,” I interrupt him. “Is that okay?”

It’s not okay. I feel it in my molecules, just as much as I do in his. James’ lips thin, and his nostrils flare. But a moment later he nods, picks up his t-shirt, and after a brief kiss walks out of the door.

I am alone, just like I wanted.

 

—

 

When Hannah is angry, she is incredibly loud. Aggressive. Foul-mouthed.

When Hannah is angry, there is no way of missing it.

When Hannah is angry, the entire world is informed of it, which is why on the fifth day of frosty silence I am so concerned I can barely sleep. I check my phone every two hours, but the texts and missed calls are never from her. Friends. Colleagues. James—lots and lots from James, and they’re starting to be hard to ignore.

Never Hannah though.

So when I find myself waiting for her to come home, sitting on the steps to her studio apartment, I tell myself that she left me no choice. A silent Hannah is a dangerous Hannah. For me, but mostly for herself. I need to know what she is thinking. I need to explain.

Of course, what she is thinking is, “Fuck you.” The words arrive at the doorstep together with her high heels, and they’re out of her mouth well before I have time to look up to her face.

“I can explain,” I say, scrambling to stand. “It’s not the way it looks.”

She lifts one eyebrow. “No? You weren’t making out with James Acton in your kitchen after ignoring me for days?”

“No, what I—” I take a deep breath. “He is like me,” I tell her.

“Yes, fine. Whatever. You’re meant to be. Congratulations.” Her eyes roll, and she tries to walk past me, but I slide between her and the door.

“No what I mean is, he—”

“Listen, I don’t care about—”

“—is like me, as in—”

“—your relationship, I just—”

“—a witch.”

I almost yell the last word, which in hindsight is not the best idea. But there is no one around, and judging from the way Hannah is staring at me, it at least manages to get her attention.

“I found out when I got inside his head. The other night,” I continue. “I wanted to tell you, but I wasn’t sure what to do. But then he—he has been helping me so much with this magic mess, and he knows a lot, and I actually really like him, so I…” I have no idea what I’m trying to say. But maybe it’s okay, because I notice that Hannah is about to speak.

“So you’re not… not TLW?”

I shake my head.

“There are others?”

I nod.

“You are… you are not the only one left?”

I shake my head again. I think that the knowledge—I am not alone—it’s hitting me, truly hitting me, right now for the first time, because I feel wetness sliding down my cheeks. Except that I’m smiling, too. And so is my sister.

I thought she’d be mad. I thought she’d hate me. I thought so many stupid things—because apparently I temporarily forgot how much she loves me. All the choices she’s made for me.

“Oh my god,” she says, pulling me into her arms. “I am so happy for you. I can’t believe that you—”

My heart is thudding in my ears, and I can’t hear what Hannah is saying anymore, but it doesn’t really matter. Because she’s holding me like she used to when we were kids, and it’s the most at home I’ve felt in a long time.

 

—

 

I haven’t been in touch for several days, but when James finds me on the other side of his door he doesn’t seem angry. He doesn’t seem particularly happy, either. There is something inscrutable and guarded about him that’s as charming as it is unnerving, and I find myself wondering if I’ll ever get to a point where I am able to puzzle this man out.

It’s possible that I won’t. That he’s done with me, now that I’ve ignored him for days. That he is already seeing someone else. That I blew it completely.

“I’m sorry I didn’t…” I swallow and stare at him as he leans against the side of the doorframe. His arms are folded on his chest. “I just needed to figure things out.”

He studies me for a moment. God, he is so handsome. And kind. And fun. And there is something elemental about him. Something that calls to me.

A road, open between us.

“With Hannah?”

“Yeah.” I am weirdly pleased that he has learned my sister’s name. “I’m sorry I kicked you out the other day. I just…”

He looks at me like he understands, so I don’t bother continuing. “It’s okay.”

“But now everything’s fixed!” I try to sound upbeat. “And if you’re interested, I’d love to take you out and buy you, um, lunch. Like… Like a date. Only if you want, of course. I know you don’t really like other magic users, so…”

There is a long silence. And then he tells me, “You’re right. I don’t really like other magic users.”

Ouch.

Ouch, really ouch, but… I can’t exactly blame him. I’ve known this poor guy for a week, and have probably caused him more drama than he has experienced in the entire rest of his life. It makes me a little sad—okay, it makes me a truckload sad—but it’s not as though I deserve anything better.

I’m not even going to cry. Until I’m out of his sight, that is.

Hopefully.

I swallow. “Okay. No problem. I… thanks for everything. I’m just going to…”

There is a gleam in his eyes, and it does things to me. I am pretty sure his dimples are magic. And so are his hands when he straightens, puts one on my waist, and pulls me to himself.

“I don’t like magic users,” he repeats against my temple. I can feel the heat of him spreading through me. “But I’ll make an exception for a witch.”