A Witch's Guide to Magical Innkeeping

by Sangu Mandanna

Over the next few days, between keeping an eye on Posy, helping her draw pictures of chickens and foxes, learning to navigate his way around the maze of a house, and getting through the boxes of reference materials Verity had sent over, Luke kept himself busy. If he were a different sort of person, perhaps he might have been able to settle into this rhythm. There was a part of him that wanted to, that wanted to believe it was possible for somebody’s life to be nothing but this: the work he loved, his sister tearing around a wild, overgrown garden in bare feet with a smudge of jam on her chin, hot cups of strong tea and scones that crumbled in his mouth, and fairy-tale evenings by the fire with a book. But that, there, was the problem. Fairy-tale. Reality was traffic and steeples and old bookshops in Edinburgh. Reality was tedious meetings with Guild bureaucrats over whether the acquisition of a priceless book was really worth the funding. Reality was the question mark over Posy’s future, and his own, and the cold, secret fear that came late at night and made him wonder if maybe it wasn’t normal, really, to have nobody in your life you could say all of that to. This place, this inn, which was every bit as batty as its ridiculous name promised, was not reality as Luke knew it. This was a place of fables and stories and peculiar magic, and such a place, he was certain, had no place in the real world. So Luke did not settle. He waited, calmly, icily, resigned, for the fairy ta...