“I’ve never heard that,” I say. My fingers tremble as they run over the white petals, not understanding how Wolfe’s history of the flower is so different from my own. Not understanding why there is no pain, why my life is spared every time I encounter one. This damned flower has pulled on the thread of my life, and if everything unravels, I will know it started that night in the field when a flower fatal to witches proved to be anything but.
“Why doesn’t it hurt?” I finally ask, the words so quiet. So vulnerable. I hold my breath as I wait for his reply.
“Because it isn’t poisonous to witches.” Wolfe’s tone is impassive, but he watches me as if my response matters somehow.
“Why does my entire coven believe otherwise?”
Wolfe’s jaw tenses, and he looks out over the water as if considering his words. “You should ask your mother about it,” he says, and it sounds like a challenge.
“But my mother believes it’s poisonous.”
Wolfe exhales, a long, heavy sound that makes me nervous. “Just ask her.”
“Maybe I will,” I say, my fingers brushing the petals on my wrist, my stomach twisting at the thought of mentioning the flower to my mother. But something in Wolfe’s tone makes me think it’s important, and so I tuck the thought away for later.
“Good. Let’s move on. Every living thing has its own heartbeat, its own energy that it pours into the world.” Wolfe motions to a fern growing at the base of a tree, its leaves rustling in the wind. “As a witch, that energy is accessible to us, just waiting to form a connection.”
He touches his fingers to the plant and closes his eyes. He takes several deep breaths, then moves away from the fern and touches the bare dirt beside it.
“Where once there was one, another.” He whispers the words reverently, and a new fern grows from the dirt, full and vibrant and real.
“How did you do that?” I ask, watching in amazement. I move toward the plant, afraid it will vanish if I get much closer. I reach out and gently brush the leaves.
It stays where it is.
Wolfe touches the first plant again, then takes my hand and covers his own with it.
“Close your eyes and focus,” he says. “What do you feel?”
The fire in my belly rages at his touch, but I know that’s not what he’s referring to. I force myself to focus on everything else, everything other than his fingers under mine.
I’ve worked around plants my whole life, and after several seconds of concentration, I know exactly what he’s asking me. A pulsing stream of cool, clean magic waits in his hand. I feel it as clearly as the heat in my gut and the wind in my hair.
“There,” he says. “That’s it.”
Gently, I pull the magic from him. I don’t know why I think to do it, how I even know it’s possible, but it feels natural to me.
“Where once there was one, another.” I take the fern’s heartbeat and plant it in the earth.
Another fern grows before us.
I plant more and more of them, watching them sprout from the dirt one after the other. I want to plant hundreds, thousands of them, my own secret meadow I can go to whenever I want.
Another, another, another.
I laugh, utterly delighted by the feel of the plant’s energy wrapped up in my own.
It isn’t like this with low magic. We add our magic to what already exists: perfume, tea leaves, makeup, dough. But this tangling of my magic with the fern, with the wind and the sea the last time I saw Wolfe—it’s intoxicating.
It’s how it’s meant to be.
As soon as I think it, I scramble to undo it, but it’s too late. The thought settles, taking root in my mind like the ferns that surround me.
“Thank you for teaching me,” I say. “I’m glad I got to experience this.”
“Is that all you want to do tonight?”
I can feel the magic waking in my body, stirring, wanting more. But that is a dangerous feeling.
“Yes.”
Wolfe nods. “Then you’re welcome.”
We walk back toward the main beach, out of the cover of the trees, and I try to ignore the sinking feeling in my stomach.
Then every part of me freezes with panic. Mrs. Wright is walking along the beach, humming to herself, her dog a few yards in front of her. She’s on the council with my mother, and I stare in horror as she gets closer. A cloud drifts in front of the moon, shrouding Wolfe and me in darkness.
But soon she will see us.
Suddenly, my body takes over. I sense the breeze over the sea and latch on to it, building it up until it’s a strong wind. I send it barreling off the water, sea spray suspended in the air, covering the beach in a hazy mist that moves straight toward Mrs. Wright.