Page 15 of A Witch in Notting Hill

I kept scrolling, feeling strangely guilty for not being able to help her. Without anyone else in the shop, she didn’t quite seem like the powerhouse I’d heard she was on-screen. She spoke softly and her eyes were searching in a way that told me this might have been about more than helping her granny reverse a spell.

“What about this one?” I asked, hovering my cursor overMr. York’sShape-shifting Guidebook: 1896 Edition. “I reckon this might be good for your grandmother.”

She cocked her head to the side, assessing. “It’s, uh, too old, I think. She practices more... modern magic.”

Whatever the hell that meant.

I scrolled on, vowing not to make any more suggestions since I obviously had no idea what I was talking about.

“There,” she said, grabbing my wrist to stop me from scrolling. Her hand was so small it didn’t wrap all the way around, and its warmth sent a chill up my arm. “Click on that one.” She pointed to a title that readRewind: A Manual for Counter Magic, and I opened the link in a new tab.

Rewindwas apparently full of remedies for reversing accidental spells, with chapters sorted by time of day, season, emotion, sect of powers, geographical location, category of consequence—the list went on.

“There’s no way I couldn’t find the answer in there, right? It looks like it has everything.”

“Your guess is as good as mine,” I said, and shrugged.

“Where is it?”

I clicked around a few more times, feeling like I’d been doused with cold water when I came up empty. “How odd,” I mumbled, more to myself than to Willow, trying a few more searches, all of which told me the book had been out of print for the last few years.

“But it has to be somewhere,” she said. “Right? Otherwise it wouldn’t have come up in the database?”

“Is that how the database works?”

“Oliver,” she whined. The sound of my name in her mouth was intoxicating.

“Right, sorry. I’m sure it is somewhere. We just might have to do a bit of digging.”

“I can do the digging,” she said. “Just point me in the right direction.”

“I’m afraid it might not be so easy. The database tracks the inventory of all occult bookshops in the city, so if it was as easy as sending you to another shop, it would say so here.”

“So now what?”

When I turned to face her, she was closer than I’d realized. Her hopeful eyes had just the slightest tinge of desperation, but it was enough. Enough that suddenly I cared about this American celebrity who believed her grandmother was a witch. Enough that I found when I said “we,” I didn’t mean the royal kind. I was actively volunteering myself to find some ancient book of magic with a famous woman hiding from the paparazzi. A beautiful famous woman, no less, whose smoky voice and deep brown eyes had been haunting me since I first saw her in my shop. What could go wrong?

“Now we find the book,” I said, as if it could possibly be that simple. “I have some contacts who might have some ideas, so I’ll get in touch and see where it takes us.”

She pulled her bottom lip between her teeth, and I felt that same freezing sensation I’d felt when she touched my wrist. Was there a window open?

“Are you sure this isn’t something I could do on my own?” she asked. “I don’t want to take too much of your time. Surely you’re busy with the shop, and—”

“Do you want to help your gran or not?” She nodded. “And do you have any other ideas?” She shook her head. “Then we better get to work.”

“I’m going to need you to repeat yourself,” Minho said. “Slowly. Like you’re explaining this to a primary student. Who barely speaks English.”

“Should have paid attention the first time.” I downed the rest of my pint in one gulp, relishing the buzz building in the backs of my eyelids. “Because I’m not going to explain myself again.”

After Willow and I made a plan to be in touch once I heard from my mates at some other shops, I went directly to the pub to meet Minho and Lola. I needed a pint more than I needed to share this information with either of them, but it was bound to come out eventually, so I figured it was best to just rip off the plaster.

“He’s become bloody best friends with Willow James, that’s what he said.” Lola was shouting so loud I was certain they could hear us on the other side of the river.

“That’s definitelynotwhat I said.”

“It’s basically what you said,” she argued. “You’re planning to run around the city together looking for some old book for her witchy granny. What is that if not best friends?”

“My job.”