A Witch's Guide to Magical Innkeeping

by Sangu Mandanna

“If I’m spotted, at least you won’t be involved—” “Let me be very clear,” Luke interrupted her. “I’m not letting you out of my sight.” Against all odds, Sera grinned. “You know, I never thought the stern, sexy academic thing would work on me, but it really does.” Luke stared at her in incredulous silence. She bit her lip to hide her smile.

His voice grated out an order. “Tell me to stay where I am.” “Do you want to stay where you are?” “You know I don’t.” She bit her lower lip. “Then come here.”

She smiled at him. “Is this what it takes to beguile the stoic, icy historian? A corset?” “It helps.” He smiled back. “That’s not the real answer, though. It’s you. You’re what it takes.”

“Just so you know,” Luke said, his voice low and rough, “I’m not fucking you against the wall of the Bibbly-Bogg library.” She laughed. “There you go, being all sensible.” “If you move about half an inch to the left, you’ll feel just how not sensible I am right now.” “Don’t tell me that,” Sera complained, consumed by regret. “This is hard enough already.” Luke dropped his head, shoulders

“I fucking hate him,” said Nicholas. “Fucking hate him,” Posy echoed brightly.

Lol

“I don’t care what Albert said, Sera. I love the work I do, but I promise you, Verity will find a way to get me to do that work even if I’m not allowed to return to the castle. Besides, when you get your magic back, and you will, you’ll knock Albert Grey off his throne and break Clemmie’s curse, and he won’t be able to keep any of us away anymore.” “That was inspiring,” Matilda said admiringly. “If I wasn’t gay and your grandma, I’d be very attracted to you right about now.” Luke tipped his mug of tea at her. “Thanks.”

This is the life I wanted. This life of contentment and unexpected excitement, of little everyday joys, where I don’t just get to be myself but also get to be embraced as myself. It’s miraculous.”

“Theo,” Posy interrupted, thrusting the picture at him. In the voice of someone who has lost all faith in the good sense of adults, she said, “Theo, sunset.” Theo took the picture, took one look at it, and yelled, “AHHH! Posy! You’re brilliant! OF COURSE! It’s so obvious! Sunset!” “Sunset,” Posy agreed smugly.

Nicholas cried actual happy tears, and Matilda threw open the kitchen door and shouted down the garden at the top of her lungs, “FUCKING TAKE THAT, ALBERT GREY!”

“Well,” said Clemmie, a little too smug for someone who hadn’t actually done anything, “I always knew I’d end up saving the day.”

Some people simply weren’t winter people. Sera, on the other hand, was the most winter person to ever winter.

She still longed for the stars and the sky, because they were a part of her and nothing would ever replace them, but there was, nevertheless, something rather lovely about the weird, wonderful, ordinary everydayness of living.

And maybe if you were somebody else, I’d say okay, well, it doesn’t have to be a serious thing, let’s just fuck each other’s brains out until you have to go, but you’re you. I don’t think I could not do serious with you.” Luke’s throat worked. “I’m not going to just walk away. I wouldn’t do that to Posy and Theo. I wouldn’t do that to any of us. We’ll visit. You’ll visit.”

Maybe there would come a day when he’d outstay his welcome. Maybe there would come a time when he wouldn’t be wanted anymore. Maybe that day would never come. Luke would never know if he didn’t stay. He stood abruptly. “Howard, you’re a very good friend and I promise I’ll see you soon, but right now, right this minute, I’m going home.”

“If I told you that someone thought I was ridiculous, you’d demand to know who so you could run them through with your very shiny, pointy sword.” “Did someone say you were ridiculous?” Nicholas demanded at once, temper igniting.

“Luke, stop looking and get back here,” she complained. He obeyed, crossing the space between them, and, mouth half a breath from hers, said, “If you knew the things I want to do to you.” Heat blazed across her skin everywhere their bodies touched, driving out the last of the cold. “Show me. Show me all of it.” She pulled his mouth back to hers.

“Tell me to slow down,” Luke said unevenly. Sera rocked against his thigh, needing the friction, needing more, needing everything. “Do not slow down.” He swore into her mouth, low and ragged like he was in pain from wanting her, and God, she could relate.

“Did I wake you? I would have waited until the morning, but I thought you’d probably want this back sooner rather than later…” Nicholas trailed off as his eyes moved past her, landed on Luke in her bed, came back to her, noticed that she was a bit rumpled and glowy and wearing very little, and, finally, went hilariously, impossibly wide. He immediately clapped his hand over them. “OH MY GOD! MY EYES!” “Nicholas, everything’s covered,” Sera insisted, ignoring the choked sound of Luke trying not to laugh behind her. “It’s safe to look.” “Er, I don’t think I should. I’m sure there are rules against knights seeing, er—”

The old inn went quiet and still. Sera closed her eyes. And found entire galaxies of stars waiting for her.

Upon regaining her human body, Clemmie had moved into Matilda’s old room and had refused to come out until she was bathed, was appropriately clothed, and had stopped walking on all fours out of habit.

“To be perfectly frank, Sera, the answer’s yes to whatever it is you want. Just get here. Do you want to bring Clementine with you? Fine. Do you want to bring the pope? That’s fine too. We’re the ones who need you.” This was a little overwhelming. “I think I’ll manage without the pope” was all Sera felt able to say.

And you…” She’d turned to the man on her right, but he was only in his twenties and looked frankly terrified of her. “Well, I don’t know who you are,” she admitted, “and you obviously haven’t been here long, so it doesn’t seem fair to shout at you.”

Sera had been right. You couldn’t break a snow globe without shattering the glass, and Clemmie had, and the shattered glass hurt. “It worked out in the end!” Clemmie insisted. “We got what we wanted!” “I’m going home, Clemmie,” was all Sera could bring herself to say. “Without you. After all, you got what you wanted. You don’t need me anymore.”

Albert slowed as he drew closer. The crackling, hateful intensity of his stare didn’t waver from Sera. It was like nobody else existed. “How dare you.” “I don’t like to say I told you so, Albert, but I did tell you so,” Sera replied. “Right here, fifteen years ago, I told you you’d rue that day. And here you are. Rueing.”

If this was the last magic she would ever cast, at least it would mean something. At least it would be extraordinary.

Or was she? Magic for family. Magic for home. Wasn’t she really just trading one kind of magic for another?

Sera waited for those glorious, valiant stars to answer her one last time. They gathered and gathered, coming to her from every fragment of her bones, brushing warmth against her skin, whispering a farewell as her magic, all of it, surged to her fingers and into this last and greatest of spells.

“Duckling.” Matilda’s face grew serious. “Tell me how to help.” Sera smiled faintly. “I’m just a bit sad and a bit tired. I don’t know how long the sad will last, but I promise I’ll get up when I’m not tired anymore.”

And, er, over the last few days, there was a snap election for a new Chancellor and, well…” Sera suddenly saw where this was going. “Luke. Don’t fucking say it.” “Clemmie,” said Luke, sounding both highly entertained and highly appalled, “won.” “Clemmie. Clemmie. Is the new Chancellor.” Luke sighed. “I keep checking the sky for flying pigs, but no luck yet.”

Wait. Wait. There was something. A single flicker of light. A twinkle. A solitary star. She would never be able to cast another spell, but that single, lonely star was still there because, if you know where to look for it, there is always a little magic in the heart of a person who loves it. So that star would stay for Sera, always, flickering in the dark, letting her know she had not been abandoned.

You’re still here, they said, those echoes of all the Seras that ever were. You went up in flames, but you’re still here. You’ll go up in flames again, but that’s okay, you know what to do now. You’ve done it already. The dying wasn’t what mattered. Unfurling your scorched feathers from the ashes and getting up again. Growing. Staying. That was the part that really mattered. So Sera slept. Woke. Unfurled. And got up again.

I told him I could have kissed him.” “Yeah, kissing Howard is very, very out of the question, love.” “He’s not into women?” “He’s not into women his friends are more than a little territorial about.” She laughed. “Territorial?” “My lizard brain’s taken over,” Luke said apologetically. “It’s looking at you right now and thinking mine. I’m sure it’ll calm the fuck down sooner or later.” “Later, I hope.” She shifted the manuscript tenderly to one arm, stood on her toes, and pressed her mouth to his. The laughter vanished from his eyes. He kissed her back, harder. “Later it is.” His voice was all gravel. He gripped the back of her neck, running his thumb over her jawline. “Want to go home?” “More than anything.”