In making her a hedgewitch, Blackthorn had given her purpose. It had given her a way to put down roots. She couldn’t cook the food Jiddo had grown up eating, or speak Arabic, which was his and her parents’ first language. She had never visited the place where they’d been born. Her roots weren’t there; they were here in Blackthorn, not only because she’d been born here, not only because her parents had chosen it, but because it had chosen her. And Aziza chose it back. That was how you made a place your home: You put work into it. You carved out a role for yourself. You made yourself belong even
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