Page 80 of Love Spells: And Other Non-Refundable Magic

Probably.

My throat burns, my eyes are watering, and when I finally manage to breathe normally again, I can feel heat spreading all the way up my neck and into my cheeks.

Which is ridiculous. It’s a message about the reversal of a spell that is, admittedly, working too well on me.

Four words on a screen from a woman whose actual name I don’t even know.

I wipe beneath one eye and look at the phone again.

“Are you blushing?” My sister chirps from beside me. “Oh my god, Merryweather, you are bright red! What’s happening?”

“I just inhaled coffee.”

Rose gives me a look, but I barely register it because I’m still staring at the message. There are normal ways to interpret it. She’s teasing me. She’s learning more about me—she absolutely knows that I will complain about the homework, but then follow through regardless—and that’s all she means.

Except…

I press my lips together. “Rose?”

“Hmm?”

“Do you think my witch is flirting with me?”

The spoon stops halfway to her mouth. “What?”

I finally look up from my phone. “My witch.” I lift it slightly. “I think she might be flirting with me.”

CHAPTER 23

FLORA

Maggie lasts through four full outfit changes before she starts making fun of me.

She’s sitting cross-legged on one side of my bed with her back against the headboard, holding the glass of wine she brought with her because apparently getting ready for a date at thirty-five requires refreshments and supervision.

I pull the black sweater over my head, tug my hair from the collar, and look at myself in the mirror.

“No.”

“Why?”

“I’ve worn this in front of her before,” I say, and I feel it. The jittery energy coursing through my veins. The restless movements that are threatening to take over my fingers, uninvited. “At work.”

Maggie takes a sip of wine and hums into her drink.

I turn away from the mirror and reach for the maroon dress I discarded ten minutes ago. Maggie watches me pick it up, then watches me put it back down.

She arrived twenty minutes ago under the pretense of returning a pair of earrings I left at her apartment sometime during the summer. She could have returned them at any point in the intervening three months. But she chose tonight, forty-five minutes before I was supposed to leave for dinner with Merry.

I know exactly what she’s doing. She knows exactly what she’s doing. And we both know the other one knows, too.

But neither of us has acknowledged it because that would mean acknowledging Alison, and I want her out of my head, especially right now.

It’s nice, though. Having Maggie back in my space like this.

Especially because there was a time when she would have been here without the excuse of earrings. She would have let herself into the house, said hello to my mother on her way through, come upstairs and started opening my closet before I had the chance to tell her I didn’t need help.

I turn back to the mirror and smooth my hands over the black sweater.