* * *
When I get home, Pip is clinging to the bars of his cage, chittering angrily at me. His food cup is turned over in the sawdust at the bottom of the cage, the edges chewed on. “I’m sorry,” I apologize to him, opening the cage and extending my hand so he can climb up my arm. “I didn’t realize how late it was.”
Pipstachio immediately moves to my shoulder-length hair and nestles in it, grunting his distress.
“Right, right, dinner,” I promise my squirrel. I love Pip, but he knows the routine. Wednesday nights are society nights, and therefore I get home late. I head to the kitchen downstairs, not surprised to see that neither of my parents is home. They never are. Mom has left a note on the fridge.
Aurelia is casting. Won’t be home tonight, might not be tomorrow either. Don’t wait up! XOXO—Mom
Dad didn’t bother with a note, but his work schedule is taped up on the fridge. His witch likes to run her business like she’s a corporation, and Dad has a set schedule, along with accrued vacation time and everything. Sure enough, Dad is working until midnight tonight with Diana, and then back at it again all day tomorrow. I pull out a bowl of diced veggies that I keep for Pip, and set it on the counter. “Here you go, baby.”
Pip immediately scrambles down and begins to eat, this time his grunts happy ones. I open a container of pecans and add a few to the veggie mix to give him some variety, and then decide to make sandwiches for myself, Mom, and Dad. I’ve been more or less on my own ever since Mom started apprenticing with Aurelia fifteen years ago, so I know how to cook and clean and take care of the house. I really am excited for my parents. Getting to work with a witch or a warlock as a familiar is the dream of anyone in the society. Right now there are far more aspiring familiars than there are trained witches. It means that we’re all waiting for a hopeful slot to come open. And not every familiar looks at their apprenticeship as a step to becoming a witch or a warlock on their own. Some just view it as a long-term job and are perfectly content to remain familiars all their lives.
Me, I want to become a witch. I want to be able to cast on my own. I want the independence and power that comes with being a caster. Right now, though, I’m not even an apprentice yet.
I sigh, looking around the dusty kitchen. Since I’m the only one without a witch, I normally do all the kitchen chores and the laundry, and I see my parents more in passing than anything else. It’s almost like we’re roommates more than family. Normally that doesn’t bother me, but I guess I’m more down about Derek’s comment than I thought. “At least I have you, right, Pip?”
The squirrel ignores me, eating a pecan and turning it in his tiny paws as he does.
With a sigh, I finish making two sandwiches, and I bag them up for Mom and Dad and put them in the fridge, then make peanut butter and jelly for myself. I sit on the counter across from Pipstachio and pull out my phone, checking social media and then my email.
I have an email from Reggie. Subject line: Can we meet? We need to talk!
Ooh, that sounds deliciously ominous. Excited, I click on it and read the contents.
Hey! So we’ve got a weird sort of proposal for you. I can’t mention it in email but do you want to go for coffee at lunch tomorrow to talk? I’ll call you in the AM!
—Reggie
PS—Nick says we’re on for cards Friday night if you’re game!
Ooh, cards and intrigue! This day is getting better already. Pip moves to my hand and nudges my fingers, a sign that he wants another pecan. Normally I wouldn’t give him more, because he’s kind of greedy, but I’m feeling generous. I pluck two more out of the can and hand them to him, typing my reply to Reggie’s email with my thumb.
Yes to cards on Friday!! I have a new birds deck I can’t wait to try! And also yes to coffee tomorrow! Just come by the office! LYLAS! Penny
Reggie immediately replies via text message. I’m just about to head to bed. What the heck is LYLAS?
PENNY: LYLAS = LOVE YOU LIKE A SIS. Didn’t you pass notes in school?
REGGIE: No! And LYLAS to you too! :)
Night! I text back, grinning. Tell Ben I said hi.
He’s coming with me tomorrow, she sends back. See you then!
Ooh, even more intriguing. I nibble at my peanut butter and jelly and wonder what on earth is going on that both Reggie and Ben want to talk to me about and can’t send via email. Curiouser and curiouser, as Alice in Wonderland said. Maybe my life isn’t so regimented after all if I’m going to be pulled into an exciting, top secret sort of warlock intrigue. I think about Cody and feel a little guilty that I get to interact with someone outside of work that’s as important as Ben Magnus.
Maybe I have hit the pinnacle of what an apprenticing-to-apprentice sort can expect.
That’s a depressing thought.
3
PENNY
Work the next day is incredibly busy. Floralia is coming up—a big springtime festival in the witch community—and that means everyone is putting in requests for spell components. Most of them are fairly generic and crop oriented, but there are so many orders that I spend all morning packing up components in the back and sell only one vape pen up front. It makes the time go by fast, though. I listen to bubblegum pop and dance as I pack order after order of raccoon whisker and thistle cap, and enjoy my day.
I just finish packing up a shipment when the door at the front dings and the computer monitor with the scrying spell on it shows the enormous, lanky body of Ben Magnus and the smaller form of his girlfriend, Reggie.
“Be there in just a sec!” I call cheerfully and toss the package on the scale, then head out front, wiping my hands on my ruffled apron. “Hi, you two!”
The sight of Ben Magnus with my friend Reggie always makes me happy and reminds me that anyone’s life can change in the blink of an eye . . . and you can find love even in the strangest of places. Ben has a terrible reputation among warlock-kind. House Magnus is known for its quirky bloodline, and Ben Magnus is legendary for his surly demeanor, his ruthless spells, and the fact that he never takes an apprentice. He’s extremely tall, with dark, shaggy hair and overlarge features. I’d say he’s definitely more “magnetic” than handsome. Reggie, on the other hand, is the sweetest thing. She’s taller than me and athletic (but still dwarfed by Ben) and has the brightest, most genuine smile and cute freckles. Her brown hair is pulled up into a messy bun atop her head, and she’s wearing jeans and a ratty T-shirt. Her familiar cuff is prominently displayed on her wrist, a sight that fills me with envy. The only cuff I have is one for the Society of Familiars, but it doesn’t mark me as belonging to anyone. Just that I’m a wannabe.