A Witch's Guide to Magical Innkeeping

by Sangu Mandanna

And yet, for some reason, it felt like that was exactly where they were supposed to be. Like this was a thing that had, somehow, become important. Like his lonely and her lonely fit perfectly into the empty spaces at the other’s side, saying nothing, asking nothing, just keeping each other company.

That, Luke could understand. History was how he made sense of the world, after all, and what was history if not a collection of stories to make the incomprehensible comprehensible?

a little boy who never grew any older and never would, either, not until he got to go home again.

Theirs was a friendship built on the unspoken, shared understanding that you can love the home you’ve made with the whole of your heart and still know the land it’s built on will never claim you.

As if that touch, that moment, had crossed the boundaries of time and space, travelled miles of night sky and stardust, and become infinite.

there was, nevertheless, something rather lovely about the weird, wonderful, ordinary everydayness of living.

Sera closed her eyes. And found entire galaxies of stars waiting for her.

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

if you know where to look for it, there is always a little magic in the heart of a person who loves it.