Page 31 of A Witch in Notting Hill

“Tomorrow, then,” Lola insisted, squeezing my arm then following Min in the direction of the pub.

And while I wanted to resist, to untangle them from this mess, I had to admit it felt good to be invited to something as low-key as the pub. By someone who seemed genuinely interested in this journey.

In LA, everyone’s version of magic was green-juice cleanses and holistic healing and homeopathic remedies in place of modern medicine. People didn’t believe in the occult, but they worshipped at the altars of celebrities and plastic surgeons and anyone with a good tan and straight teeth and a daily Pilates routine.

Here, with the exception of Oliver, far more people seemed to believe magic was possible. Judging by the size of the section in the British Library, people had been believing in the occult for thousands of years. And if this many people believed these spells worked, then maybe I could, too.

“Are you sure you’re okay?” Oliver asked, holding me at arm’s length and lowering his head to make eye contact. “You ran out of there like the whole lot was on fire.”

I sighed, resisting the urge to bury my face in my hands. Though I suspected if I wasn’t looking at him then it was possible the sparking in my chest would stop, and I definitely wouldn’t complain about that. “I was so overwhelmed by finally finding the book, and then the list, and all I have to do to reverse the spell, and I just—”

“Allyouhave to do? I thought it was all your gran had to do?”

Shit.“Oh, it is! It’s just... I have to get the book back to her and then help her with the tasks, and you know how it goes, and that’s a lot of work, so—”

“Is all of this actually for your gran?” He dropped his arms and took a step back, like I’d burned him. Though the sparking was so common by now that I probably had.

“What?” I asked, though I’d heard him perfectly fine; I just needed to buy myself time. Only my plan backfired, because hearing him repeat the question a second time stung more than the first.

“Is this actually for your gran? Or is it for you?”

“Can’t it be one and the same?” I asked in a last-ditch attempt to save face.

“Willow.” He exhaled, running his hands through his hair and looking away just long enough for me to see the firm, unhappy set of his jaw. “All of this can’t really be foryou, can it?”

“Why couldn’t it be?” I didn’t want to confess, but I wasn’t about to let him stand there and make me feel bad about witchcraft, either. Just because he didn’t believe in it didn’t mean it didn’t exist. We all had things we didn’t believe in, but it wasn’t up to us to decide what was real for someone else, and I wasn’t about to let him try.

“You seem... I don’t know. Smarter than that.”

I scoffed so loud a pigeon flew from its spot at our feet. How had this taken such a turn? Sure, I hadn’t wanted to tell Oliver the truth, but that was because I knew he didn’t believe in magic and didn’t want to have to explain myself, not because I thought he was going to turn around and be a dick about it. “So you think witchcraft is stupid?” I asked. “You run an occult bookshop, and not only do you not believe in your products, but you think the people who do aren’t smart?”

“I’m not saying I think you’re stupid,” he said, raising his hands and immediately dropping them again. “I’m just saying I didn’t think you’d buy into all this nonsense.”

“Nonsense? This is how you make a living, Oliver, in case you’d forgotten. And just because it doesn’t make sense to youdoesn’t mean it’s nonsense. Maybeyouaren’t as smart as you think you are if you can’t understand that.”

I hadn’t meant to come to blows outside King’s Cross Station, but I couldn’t just let him talk down on such a fundamental piece of my identity. I could deal with his cynicism, but I couldn’t deal with his condescension.

But at the same time, as soon as the words left my mouth I realized they sounded a whole lot likeI know you are but what am I?, which brought me right back to my childhood days of my malfunctioning powers and trying to explain away every weird thing that happened to me so that the neighborhood kids would stop looking at me like I was growing a second head. I wanted to be proud of this part of my identity, not burdened by it. And I’d be damned if he made me feel that way.

Even if up until this moment he’d been a gentleman. A charming—if edgy—intelligent, considerate gentleman. One who was passionate about books and secretly loved helping people even if he pretended he didn’t. And one who was so impossibly handsome every time he looked at me with those green-gray eyes, my bones turned to liquid.

It didn’t matter much anymore. Not that it ever should have mattered in the first place.

“It’s hardly just a belief system so much as it’s science,” he said. “The universe has laws and rules and things, you know? I’m not saying I don’t believe in it because I’m trying to be an arsehole. I’m saying I don’t believe in it because it would be impossible.”

There were so many questions I wanted to ask. I wanted to know how he could possibly think that when we hardly knew the first thing about the capabilities of the universe. How he could even remotely assume everything that ever happened abided by those “laws” and “rules.”

Instead, I said, “Right.”

“That’s all?”

“I’m not going to argue with you here outside the Tube station. We hardly know each other. And I don’t need you to believe in any of it. All I needed was your help finding the book, for which I’m grateful, by the way, but now we can go our separate ways.”

“And you’re going to complete the list on your own?”

“It’s not like you’re going to help me, is it?” Silence. “That’s what I thought. Have a great rest of the night, Oliver.”

Before he could say another word, rude or otherwise, I disappeared down the stairs and into the throngs of the Underground. Just me and the stolen book and the impossible list and a lump in my throat and six months laid out ahead of me before I could even give this thing a shot.