2. 2

"She's had quite a bit of work done. That porch is brand new, and I think the roof is as well. I can't imagine who she's hiring to do all this in the middle of the night, although I suppose that's the only time she can trick someone into coming out."

"Do you think maybe she's going to leave on her own?"

It was odd, the way she was able to pick out and isolate voices when there was no other stimulus to overwhelm her senses. At any other time, Ladybug only ever heard a fraction of conversations, even and most especially when they were directed at her. Overhead lights and other patrons in shops, combined with her hyperarousal as she attempted to focus, meant the panic had a way of outrunning all else, superseding her attention and ensuring she heard nothing but her own inner monologue.

"You can only assume, right? Although Millie Tonguegrass said Ansleth was talking ordinances at the last meeting, so they might not have a choice."

At that particular moment as Ladybug walked up her driveway, there was nothing to distract her at all. The visual stimulus of the women was hidden behind the tall, dense hedgerow of holly, leaving nothing to distract her but their words.

The voices belonged to the troll next door and Kestra Kittredge, a fox-tailed kitsune who lived across the street. Kestra was what Authricia would have called a professional busybody, with her nose in the whole neighborhood's business and an eye on becoming chair of the town's planning committee. Ladybug realized she was the she in question. The prickle of paranoia that had been itching beneath her skin since that day in the post office bloomed on the surface at last, and she wasn't sure if she felt vindicated that for once her read of the social situation had been accurate or heartbroken that she'd been right.

They were talking about her. Her and Anzan. And they think you're going to leave. That all of the work Anzan had been slowly doing to rehab the house was for the purpose of selling it, and not to ensure that it stood for another hundred-and-fifty years with Brackenbridge witches beneath its roof. What do they mean ‘ordinances?'

She had come around the side of the house from the garden, carrying a sack of green waste to contribute to the community garden compost bin, catching the conversation from the other side of the hedgerow. As she moved beyond the protective cover of the holly, Ladybug heard the two women shush themselves, locking bright smiles into place by the time she'd reached the end of the privacy hedge.

"Good morning, dear!" the troll called out sunnily. "Can you even believe this weather? I just told my husband this morning I wanted to get over to the garden center this week. May as well take advantage of the early spring and get the seedlings started!"

"This is the fool's spring," Ladybug answered, gripping her sack a bit tighter. "We're bound to have snow at least twice more. That's–that's why it's called the fool's—"

"The fool's spring," the troll finished flatly, the levity in her voice vanishing. "I was just telling Kestra that you've had so much work done to the old girl this year. It's really looking nice; the street value alone would sell it for you at this point. Are you looking for an agent? You know, Torvah and Norsh up the street are both in the business. I can tell them to stop by."

She had continued the short journey down the drive to drop her sack in the green waste bin, peeling off her gloves as she returned to the edge of the holly. Her new gardening gloves, a bright Kelly green, dotted with tiny radishes and carrots. One of the many little gifts from Anzan, thoughtful and specific to her. And these women don't see any of that. They don't care to see beyond his legs.

"A real estate agent? I-I'm not selling my house." She thought it best to be straightforward, just in case she was mistaken about their motives. "This house has been in my family for more than a hundred-and-fifty years. The Brackenbridges have been here since before Cambric Creek had a name. I'm not going anywhere."

Ladybug wondered, after an awkward goodbye, if she was simply being paranoid. Always having to guess what other people really meant despite the plainness of their words resulted in occasionally guessing wrong, when she hazarded a guess at all. Why can't people simply say what they mean? Why does every conversation have to have a hidden protocol? She would likely ever know the answer. She'd been asking the question all her life and wasn't any closer to knowing.

The black cat was there, sitting on the edge of the porch railing, his body facing the hedgerow. She flushed, wondering if he'd been listening. Perfect. Now you have to worry about being embarrassed in front of eavesdropping cats.

Straightening up, she resisted the urge to stamp her foot in the cat's direction, pulling open the side door instead. The staircase up led directly to the attic, and that's where she would go. Ladybug decided it would be best to put the conversation with the women out of mind, filing away the notion of ordinances for another time, seeking Anzan's many arms and quiet consideration to slow the panic that was suddenly jumping in her veins.

The night of the dark moon, Anzan fired up the patio heaters he'd bought her for Yule, and she'd stepped out onto the flagstones, shivering in her robe.

The cat was there, watching her from the garden wall as she moved through her ritual to the dark mother, but Ladybug decided she could not begrudge his presence that night. It's his dark mother as well. Chalice, athame, ring. A circle unbroken beneath the moonless sky.

Every once in a while, the dark night was punctuated with a shower of rainbow color, neighbors celebrating the start of the lunar new year. As the fireworks increased, Ladybug moved through her ritual positions joyfully. As she spun and whirled, the cat joined her, like a shadow at her feet. Here was the camaraderie of the absent circle, no coven required. She was not the only one who celebrated the moon.

By the time Anzan had helped her slip back into her robe and they were sipping the deipnon wine, the cat had vanished.

"I will never get tired of watching you sing your strange songs to the moon, my little bug." He was holding her aloft, so that she did not freeze her toes on the icy cold stones, once her ritual was complete. "Every month I think perhaps it will seem more of a commonplace routine," he went on, pushing a lock of her hair behind her ear, gently tracing the curve of her cheek with the hooked talon, "and every month I am struck by your beauty as if it was the first time."

She breathed into him when he kissed her. They were the same, and she would never tire of watching him either.

The fireworks had not abated when she and Anzan headed back into the house, only now the bright explosions of light were being accompanied by the black cat caterwauling on her roof. She was reminded of how inhumanly fast Araneaens truly were when Anzan reared back, launching the apple he'd held in one of his hands at the roof like a cannonball. The cat screeched, ducking out of the way at the last possible second, disappearing from the roof line.

She had learned much about Araneaen mating culture. Anzan would go into heat twice a year, putting out that thick, plummy smell that wrapped around her like a fog, and his cock would be a turgid agony until his seasonal lust was slaked. Otherwise, his segmented shaft remained asleep, nestled in his chitinous carapace, and she would need to be the one secreting the pheromone to arouse his ardor.

It was something she was working on in secret, dabbing her efforts at her pulse points like perfume, hoping the smell would catch his nose and leave him pacing and desperate, but she'd yet to produce anything with a noticeable effect.

That didn't mean their intimacy was restricted to his heats, not that she would have minded if it was. Sex was an expression of adulation to the seasonal goddess, the mother and her consort, to be experienced with anyone who was taking part in the ritualistic worship . . . or else it was an act of the most sacred bond between lovers. She was used to being alone in the world and satisfying a biological impulse was like scratching an itch, something she could do herself. Ladybug had fast discovered scratching her own itches was no longer necessary. Araneaen culture being matriarchal meant he was nearly fanatical in his desire to pleasure her, with his hands, with his tongue, anyway he could.

They had created their own devotional routines. That was how she found herself back in the attic, pitch black in the moonless night, suspended from the ceiling. The webbing he'd bound her in was a harness, a beautiful braided bridle that curved around her breasts and over her hips, holding her legs open for her.

"My beautiful little witch." His voice was a low croon against her skin, his breath moving down her stomach.

She loved letting him have her in the dark. Ladybug was barely able to make out his outline in the confined space, but Anzan's many eyes were just as keen now as they were in the middle of the sunny afternoon. She was blind and helpless, completely at his mercy, and she loved it.

"So small and soft. I shall never tire of celebrating your dark moon, little bug."

Ladybug whimpered when his mouth closed over her cunt, his tongue serpentining through the petals of her sex like a snake through a garden, coming to alight on her clit. He licked over her slowly, worrying the little bud with his tongue, back and forth, until her breath came out on a shuddering moan. She was unable to see the action, but she knew the instant he pressed his tongue to one of his fangs, carrying a single drop of his potent venom to her most sensitive spot.

Fire flooded her. It was as if her blood was gasoline and he'd lit a match. Ladybug arched against her bonds, whining and helpless. One drop was enough, they'd learned. One drop of his venom to the exposed bud of her clit, its hood pulled back as he laved the aphrodisiac venom directly onto it, all of her nerve endings catching aflame at once.

"Let me hear how I please you, my little mate."

He didn't need to make the request. She wouldn't have been able to hold in her high keens if she'd tried. Anzan's tongue moved with speed and precision no human would be able to replicate, and her panting breaths came out as high-pitched wheezing whines, the first shallow orgasm tightening through her. He did not slow. She would come like this several times more, and every time she flooded his mouth, he would pluck a string of webbing and change her position, letting her come against his tongue as he drank her up.

The cat began to yowl sometime around her third or fourth release.

Ladybug could not be bothered to sit up angrily at the added noise, for Anzan had just filled her with the two fingers whose claws he kept short and filed for this exact purpose, stroking her inner walls as his tongue stroked her clit, the tension within her ratcheting ever tighter. Control was slipping away, and she was glad to surrender it.

The dark moon was a time of renewal. New projects, new plans, new resolutions. Tomorrow, she would need to address the Holt issue. Tomorrow she would need to send him off for good, to remind him that Willow was gone, that there was nothing left here for him. Tomorrow.

Tonight, she was going to sleep like a stone, cradled in her monstrous mate's arms, after he made her shake apart.

The room was lit with red light, a renewed burst of fireworks sizzling through the sky as she fell apart. Ladybug arched a final time, the noise ripping from her throat nearly a scream as she came against his tongue, clenching around his fingers. The caterwauling from the roof was a discordant counterpoint, but as her head dropped back, bouncing in the springy confines of the web, the sound receded. The after-effect of the fire was that the world went black, consciousness abandoning her as readily as she'd abandoned control, but it didn't matter. Anzan would be there, cutting her free, gathering her in his arms, keeping her warm and safe.

Tomorrow she would deal with all that needed dealing with, but tonight was for rituals beneath the new moon . . . and their ritual together.

The following morning, she walked down to the work kitchen with purpose, never slowing as she crossed the room to the back door.

New moon, new beginning. No more putting it off.

Swinging open the door to the garden, Ladybug took a deep breath, stepping out for the confrontation she'd been avoiding for days. For the first time in more than a week, nothing shot out of the bushes or slinked around the house, attempting to slip in behind her. He was not there on the garden wall, nor was he sitting on the low roof. The cat was nowhere to be found.

Of course. Because why would you ever count on a cat to do what you want.

The rest of the morning passed silently, as did the next day, and the next. He'd left, it seemed, all on his own. Ladybug spent several days emptying a shelf in the work pantry, requisitioning the shelf space for overflow product she'd not managed to move yet. She filled her work cauldron with water, adding two sliced lemons and three of the licorice-scented pods from the plant she'd grown from the seeds Anzan had gifted her all those moons ago, knowing he would smell it when he woke.

They didn't share a sleeping pattern, and while she'd worried at the beginning that they would forever be missing each other on opposite schedules, Ladybug knew now she needn't have worried. He slept throughout the day, short naps that didn't seem especially restful to her, but for him, it was enough. He would sleep deeply in those short bursts, his heartbeat slowing until it nearly stopped, his body in complete stasis, and this late morning hour was the time he slept the longest and deepest, after his morning meeting.

Ladybug had no idea how many of those short, nearly comatose naps he took throughout the day and night, only that he never settled down for bed the way she did and didn't seem any worse for wear because of it. He would tuck her in with a kiss, and then disappear, and she had no idea what sort of mischief he got up to alone.

She'd almost been embarrassed to learn that Anzan was not the indigent wanderer she'd assumed that day he appeared on the sidewalk before her home to see the attic apartment. Far from it. He was a network security architect for a massive data storage conglomerate, a lucrative career, and one that allowed him to work in a remote capacity, meeting with his team several days a week via video conference.

She did know for certain, but Ladybug was positive no one he worked with knew his true species, seeing him only from the shoulders up, week after week, month after month. Having the means to buy a home had not been his problem, she'd learned, nor did he lack the skill to build one.

"Reliable Wi-fi," he'd shrugged when she'd asked, sipping his coffee unconcernedly when she'd dissolved in laughter against him. Internet connectivity and a neighborhood willing to allow him to live within its confines had been the challenge, which only served to fuel her determination to see Cambric Creek and her house become his home as well, as their home together.We're not going anywhere.

He started his workday before dawn, took a conference call as she was rousing herself to wakefulness a floor beneath him, settling down for his late morning sleep as she worked in her kitchen or ran errands. They had parallel lunches and then the rest of the day was punctuated by his frequent trips to her work kitchen to refill his coffee cup and kiss her on the shoulder until evening. Alone, together — and entirely happy.

When he gasped from the coffee pot sometime Friday afternoon, Ladybug nearly fell into her cauldron as she spun in panic. It was not the sort of sound she normally heard from her arachnid companion. Anzan was stoic and stolid, and with the cat situation in her garden resolved, her kitchen had been gasp-free that whole week.

"There is nothing left of my sampler," he said mournfully, revealing the empty shell that had held his Yule present from her, the gourmet coffee sampler having been put to good use over the previous month and half.

"You scared me half to death. I thought you cut yourself! Are you really surprised?" she laughed, shaking her head at his dramatics. "I'm actually surprised it lasted this long!"

He scowled at her, and she giggled anew. This was all brand-new territory, fertile, untilled ground. His humor, the faces he pulled, the way he would chide her gently. All part of their evolution of the past year, proof that he was, in fact, making himself at home with her.

The following morning, she left the house with purpose. The warm spell had not yet broken, and she wanted to take advantage of the unseasonable weather to go downtown, park in the municipal lot and take a stroll up Main Street. She wanted to surprise Anzan with a new bag of coffee beans from the Black Sheep Beanery, and pop into the shop that sold wool carded from their own flock of sheep.

She'd just left the always-bustling coffee shop with a bag of fragrant beans under her arm, when a shiver moved up her back.

You should go to the Makers' Mart.

The thought came to her unbidden, popping into her head like an iridescent bubble. Ladybug swayed.

Every Saturday morning, the crafters and artisans of Cambric Creek gathered their wares and set them up at the community center, filling the massive auditorium space and serpentining up and down the parking lot. The market seemed to grow larger every year. It had begun as a summer festival, but the popularity pushed it to start earlier and earlier, and now any week when the weather permitted, the tents would go up, the doors to the community center would be propped open, and the vendors swarmed. The event drew huge crowds and had taken on the atmosphere of a boisterous street faire, growing so popular that food trucks would ring the block.

There was nothing she necessarily needed from the Makers' Mart, and she wasn't a particular fan of shopping in the huge throngs of traffic the weekly event attracted. Couples walking arm-in-arm, groups of friends together, neighbors, mothers pushing strollers . . . It all made her feel invisible, and while she occasionally liked that feeling of invisibility, of being able to disappear into a crowd, the Makers' Mart was too confined for that, leaving her feeling shrunken and small.

She wasn't sure when she had begun walking, but somehow her feet were moving, carrying her in the direction of the community center. Past the little shop that sold the wool, past the perfumery and the candle shop, past the bakery where she'd planned on stopping, past the corner construction, the wrap-around banners advertising several new businesses opening in the building that was going up the spot that had recently been an empty lot. All a part of the unending progression of Jack's downtown expansion. It was as if she were a puppet, the idea whispered into her subconscious and invisible hands making her body act on it without her full approval. Two turns around the square and a left, her feet propelling her forward until the Marker's Mart loomed.

You're here now. What's the harm? You should go in, take a look around.Who knows what you might find.

Well, she was already here. May as well have a look around.

The first booth that caught her attention was manned by a young woman with bottle black hair and dark-rimmed eyes, selling an array of goods featuring hand embroidered glyphs symbolry. She had a collection of hooped samplers hanging from a pegboard on the table, showing off cheerful obscenities, rendered in her excellent needlework, tote bags embroidered with trees and crows and Celtic knots, but it was the tabletop that made Ladybug take a step closer.

Altar cloths, she realized, each laid out to show off the needlework, placed under glass to protect them from looky-loos and sticky-fingered children. Ladybug bit her lip. She wasn't sure if this was completely ethical. Some of these cloths were designed to be aids in summoning rituals, calling forth dark creatures from beyond the veil and the shadow realm alike. She herself had never taken part in such a ritual, but she had been present at them several times in her life. She could tell by looking at the cloths that each of them was missing some crucial detail that would prevent anyone canny enough from taking a picture to replicate at home.

Well, she's smart.Ladybug considered that the ethics were less of a concern with potential copycats unable to replicate the design on their own. If nothing else, she's got a good head for business.

There were trolls selling hand-woven potholders, an orc with a stand full of hand-carved kitchen utensils, weavers and artists, soap makers and purveyors of hand-forged steel. The folks behind their tables were engaged with customers, and the other shoppers were too intent on their purchases to pay her any mind. It wasn't until she passed the old crone that Ladybug was noticed at all.

"You there! Come here, dearie. I know you, don't I?"

Ladybug glanced over her shoulder, her breath hitching when she realized she was the target of the woman's interest.

"Yes, of course I do, you're Authricia's girl. The little quiet one. Always there assisting at the meetings, like a little mouse."

Her breath stuttered, and her pulse kicked up like a small prey animal running from danger. It was an agony running into her former sisters. It didn't happen often, blessedly, and on the rare occasion it did, she did her best to disappear into the scenery, taking her leave from the line or the shop or the farmstand as unobtrusively as possible. She did not recognize this crone, however, and her manners were too deeply instilled to keep walking, ignoring the old woman's words.

"Authricia was my great-aunt," she explained, hoping her voice wasn't as stilted as it sounded in her head.

"Yes, yes, of course. You're Laurel's little one. It's been a long time since I've been to a coven meeting, but these old eyes remember you, dearie."

Conversations like this could be a relief, sometimes. The old woman didn't need her to join in, didn't ask her opinion or seek to share gossip. She only wanted to reminisce about days long since passed, when Ladybug was very young, when her mother was still alive, and then later after she had come to live with Willow and Authricia. To relive the glory days of the past coven, and there was nothing Ladybug needed to say at all, other than nodding her head occasionally and offering an mhm to show she was listening.

While the old woman talked, Ladybug inspected her wares. She was selling culinary spellwork — love potion brownies, law of attraction wafers, and healing beverages — that looked a bit suspect to Ladybug's expert (if she didn't mind saying so to herself) eyes.

There were items for sale on the table that Ladybug herself made at home. The crone's homemade lip ointments were overly waxy, and the bit of body butter she sampled left her hand feeling greasy. The woman was clearly handier with her culinary creations, but Ladybug couldn't help but wonder how many of these patrons were shopping off her table, adding a pot of waxy lip conditioner to their brownies, completely unaware they were taking home such subpar offerings.

She bought a container of the body butter and a plastic clamshell of brownies for Anzan anyway, not wanting to be rude, bidding the old woman an awkward farewell.

"I'm sure I'll see you again soon, dearie. The day for lovers is right around the corner. St. Valentine's celebration, Lupercalia, the Elvish Day of Hearts. Everyone will be looking for a little aphrodisiac to share with their special someone. I brew up a strawberry wine, bottled beneath last season's strawberry moon with added effervescence and a very special ingredient." Making a show of looking around, the old woman leaned in conspiratorially. "Every bottle contains five drops of Araneaen venom, incredibly potent . . . sustainably sourced, of course. Make sure you snatch yours up before they sell out!"

Her mouth dropped open. She could almost hear Authricia admonishing her that she was going to catch a fly that way. Araneaen venom?! It had never occurred to her to use Anzan's venom in her spellwork. Five drops! You have it on tap!

"I-I'll be sure to do so," she stammered, hoping she wasn't blushing too horribly, and if she was, that the old witch would assume she was scandalized. The old crone wasn't in danger of selling out of anything, but Ladybug gave her what she hoped was a winsome smile all the same. "I'll see you the next time I'm shopping!"

She rubbed her fingers together as she walked past a few other stalls of homemade beauty products, more soap vendors than she could count, a few here and there selling their own shampoo and deodorant. Her thumb and index finger slid together on the greasy residue of the body butter. She would need to wash her hands when she got home, she thought. The same way she would need to go home and apply real deodorant if she were to waste her money on one of those silly crystals the vendor on her left was selling. The shampoo she sniffed had a saccharine sweetness covering its medicinal core, while a lotion she had sampled had a whiff of artificial florals that smelled like a decade old potpourri.

You would be able to sell circles around some of these vendors. There's no one here with your skill. No one who respects the craft the way you do, no one who could match you in quality.

She didn't know where the voice came from. It certainly didn't belong to her. Yet, somehow, it rattled through her head as if she herself had spoken the words aloud, and once the thought was placed there, Ladybug found she was unable to focus on anything else.

She already concocted her own shampoos and lotions, lip balms that softened and healed, creams that brightened the complexion, salves for burns and abrasions and a baby's diaper rash. Even a stick that went on like a cream and dried to a powder finish, something she made for herself to slick onto her thighs on warm summer days to prevent chafing beneath her dress.

She crafted herbal steamers that could heal croup and coughs, medicinal crystals and soaks for sore muscles, all the things she made in her kitchen on a daily basis to fill her private orders. The items that overflowed her crowded shelves. Things she could make in her sleep. And that's not even getting into magical aids or serious spellwork.

She had no need to buy the old crone's dodgy love potion, for she could brew her own, more potent than any witch in Cambric Creek. After all, Araneaen venom was valuable for its anesthetic and aphrodisiac properties, and she had it on tap, right there in her attic. You would sell circles around these people without even trying.

By the time she got home, Ladybug could think of nothing else.

Anzan made enough money to support them both comfortably. He'd been worried over causing her offense, apologizing profusely when the overture was made. She'd understood. It was another cultural difference between them, and although she had demurred, she had understood where his heart was in offering.

"It is my job to ensure you are cared for, my Ladybug. That is the role of a mate. To see that you want for nothing. There is no need for you to work, not if you don't want to."

She could pack all of the overflow away, hang her work cauldron for the last time, and spend her days whiling away the hours, instead of sweating in her kitchen.

It is intent that guides magic, Ladybug. A witch's intent is more important than the strength of her spell.She had chosen to be a healer, like her mother. To use her knowledge of herbs and plants and poisons to help people, in her own small way. To serve Cambric Creek, her family home, the community that became her home all those years ago. She was a Brackenbridge witch, and she could not be satisfied sitting back and allowing her skills to go unused, slack in her craft, exactly what they had accused her of when she'd been cast out of the circle.

"I appreciate that," she'd told him seriously, allowing him to enfold her in his arms. "But what am I, if I'm not a witch? I can't let all of my knowledge go to waste."

The Makers' Mart could be the solution she had been searching for. An answer to her problems, an excellent way to attract a wider clientele, to pass out her cards, and fatten her order queue.

Hook them with the beauty.That's what Authricia used to tell the girls in advanced herbals. She could appeal to the vanity of the residents of Cambric Creek — soothing enzyme peels to help with molt, brightening serums, and exfoliators for the lizardfolk and nagas. Cleansing scrubs and clay masks for the trolls and orcs, who often had deep pore issues. Shampoos to promote thick, shiny hair, face masks made from botanicals she grew herself, deeply moisturizing body butter and lotions.

Then appeal to the family. Once they became her customers, she knew they would branch out. Diaper cream for the baby, a cough elixir for the school children. Temporary attractant lures for those teenagers looking for a date to the school dance.

The spellwork would follow. It always did. She had borne witness to more than one frantic neighbor banging on their door well after dark, sobbing after having caught their husband or lover with someone else, or a suffering with a workplace rival who made their daily existence a horror. Willow would read their cards or gaze into a scrying glass, as Authricia pulled together small sachets and totems, instructing her at the cauldron.

"And what do we use for banishment, Ladybug?"

Burdock and cumin, red pepper and caraway, an oil of holy thistle. She would never forget all that she had been taught. She could hook them with beauty, move on to their ailments, and then wait for the requests for real magic. All she needed was a table at the Makers' Mart.

There was only one problem she could foresee.

Ladybug dropped into a chair, letting her forehead thunk against the table. She was the problem. She would need to talk to people, to draw them in, to convince them to stop at her little table in the first place. She'd never been very good with people, and her lack of skill would keep this tiny flame of an idea from catching. It seemed too big a step, requiring a confidence and an ability to interact with the public that she had never a single day in her life possessed . . . but she badly wanted to try.

"Little bug, I do not understand this myopic pessimism. This is very good coffee, by the way. You have been fretting over this market business for nearly a week and you haven't even turned in the application. I'll do it for you, if you don't stop doubting yourself."

Ladybug didn't bother mentioning that it was an online application, for the point of his threat was made. "I'm being silly," she'd mumbled, slumping against the counter, knowing it was true.

"You're being ridiculous," he clarified, setting his coffee mug on the counter, missing her glare. "Ladybug, I watch you standing at this counter every day, working away over your orders."

"But those are orders for customers, customers who already—"

"Customers you didn't have a year ago," he interrupted. "Customers who found you through one channel or another, who rely on you to brew them luck and love, to heal their children. You already have them, and you did it all on your own, because you were brave enough to try. What bad thing could come from trying this?"

"But what if no one buys from me?! What if they don't…"

She'd trailed off with a gulp, moving her gaze to the floor. What if they don't like me?

She hated admitting that she was still an insecure child at heart, awkward and silent where the other girls had sparkled and chattered. The last witch picked as a partner for potions or spellwork or games. The thought of her table of potions and remedies being ignored as she sat there in tongue-tied embarrassment was too much like the memory of being the only girl with no buddy for wildflower foraging.

One of Anzan's giant hands had gripped her chin, raising her face slowly. It never failed to send a little shiver up her back at the thought of the leashed power in those hands, the lethally sharp nails on his long fingers, his very real ability to snap her in half like a cracker with a flick of his wrist . . . and how unfailingly gentle he was with her, always. His thumb brushed over her bottom lip, parting her mouth. Small, black orbs flickered, as his deep blue eyes fixed on hers.

"Little bug . . . who cares?"

She dropped against his chest, letting it swallow her exhausted laughter. She had thought of nothing else since coming home from the Makers' Mart, and it had been nearly a week. She was no closer to making a decision, but neither was she to letting the idea go. It rasped beneath her skin like a splinter she was unable to dig out, burrowing deeper and deeper until it was the only thought she had left.

"Perhaps you need to find a partner."

Ladybug raised herself. "A partner?"

Anzan nodded, adding a selection of candied dates and cicadas to the plate he'd assembled to take back upstairs with his coffee.

"A partner. One who knows how to sell. Someone with experience."

She backed up several paces, until the small of her back bumped the opposite counter. Anzan was completely absorbed in his coffee. A strange prickle moved down her neck.

"Why did you say that?"

Anzan looked up at her slowly, his eyes focusing on her. "Did I say something?"

She breathed steadily, clearing her mind. "You did, just now. You told me I ought to find a partner. Why did you say that? Were those your words, Anzan?"

His blue eyes blinked balefully at her. "Little bug, whose words would they be but mine? I don't know why I asked. Why, do you know someone?"

Walk wary of magic that is beyond understanding, for it owes allegiance to no one.

Her hands balled into fists. It was no accident that she had suddenly had a burning desire to visit the Makers' Mart the previous weekend, no fluke that Anzan was suddenly inquiring into whether or not she knew someone with sales experience. Of course she did. A purveyor of fine esoteric and occultist goods.

He had done this. He had not left, had never left. He had just become more clever about how to manipulate her.

Ladybug stalked across the kitchen, taking a deep breath before opening the door.

The black cat sat on the garden bench, as if he had been waiting. She had done exactly as he'd wanted. Authricia had been right. He couldn't be trusted, but now it didn't matter. The thought of the Makers' Mart would consume her until there was no room for anything else, and to be successful, she needed his help.

He was banished once before, and you can do it again if need be.Burdock and cumin, red pepper and caraway, an oil of holy thistle. A witch's intent is more important than the strength of her spell.

She stepped back and motioned into the house. The cat leapt gracefully from the bench to the flagstones before her, transforming into a slender, black-haired man on his final bounce. His smile was at once familiar and infuriating as he spread his hands to greet her, as if no time had elapsed since last she saw him.

"Elizabeth, my darling girl. It's been too long."

The whole world seemed to sway for a moment, tipping on its axis as if the earth were no more than a styrofoam ball, swinging in some junior coven astronomy project, as Holt stepped over the threshold of her home for the first time since Willow's death.

Ladybug didn't know why she had assumed inviting him back into her home and her life would be insignificant. She supposed she'd thought Holt would come in and she'd be annoyed, that she'd give him exactly three minutes to explain himself and he would bluster. She would show him the door, and that would be that.

Instead, the sight of him entering the work kitchen from the garden, as she'd watched him do a hundred million times before, instantly sucked her back. She was ten years old, diligently cutting herbs at the counter as Willow and Holt entered, bickering. She was a gangly teenager, stirring a cauldron over the fire as Authricia instructed, the sleek black cat nosing its way past the door and trotting through the room with his tail held high. She was an exhausted caregiver, doing her best to concoct something her aunt could keep down, a broth laced with morphine, as Holt paced the length of the room in agitation.

She caught the memories like a blow to the ribs. It was as if the whole of their shared existence in this room was stretched before them, stuck in one of Anzan's webs. The kitchen seemed to vibrate. Anzan's voice sounded echoed and far away, somewhere behind her, laced with concern, but she couldn't focus on anything other than the familiar before her. Holt inhaled deeply, his dark eyelashes fluttering closed. The lights flickered.

"It smells exactly the same."

He wasn't wrong. There had been a solace in returning home to this kitchen every day after school, after each disastrous coven meeting, after running the daily gamut of life outside the walls of this house. The herbaceous smell of fresh-chopped herbs mingled with the more pungent ingredients. The earthy scent from the cold stones of the hearth and the flinty smoke from the always-bubbling cauldron, emitting a camphorous steam . . . this kitchen smelled the same at that moment as it had the day she'd come to live here, and Ladybug knew in her bones that if she were able to go back in time thirty years, fifty years, a hundred years, the work kitchen would still have smelled exactly the same — the scent of witches at work.

Holt, too, was caught in the maelstrom of memories, trapped in the web. Ladybug watched as he whirled towards the table, as if he expected to find Willow there, waiting for him. The hand he raised was bone white, fingers capped in the same, black-lacquered claws that had dug into the front door's frame, marks that were still there.

"She would be sitting right here."

Ladybug nodded at his back, existing in the same memory.

"Right here, scrying with a bowl of water. And Laurel would be —"

He spun again, and then her composure broke. She felt Anzan move to her back as the sob broke from her throat, noisy and inelegant, choking her for a moment as she met the cat man's green eyes, glowing with unshed tears.

"— Right there. Just where you are. Doing the same thing."

So long as there was a Brackenbridge witch in this kitchen, it would smell the same. As long as this house still stood, there would be a witch at work. She would remind Holt of that today, before opening the door for him to leave.

"Don't ever let this house change."

Ladybug breathed out, dropping back against the solid chest behind her. Anzan had angled himself behind her, his snack forgotten, and a fast glance around his body showed two of his arachnid legs reared back, ready to propel him forward. It was a subtle repositioning, but one she knew signified that he was prepared to attack if necessary. Locking her hand around the arm that had snaked around her waist, Ladybug counted through several seconds of thudding heartbeats, slowing her breathing and stroking Anzan's wrist, a silent assurance that she was fine. She hoped the action telegraphed that he didn't need to pounce on Holt, but she was grateful for his willingness to do so just the same.

"Why are you here?" she croaked out, clearing her throat before continuing. "Why? Why are you back?"

He was on the other side of the room, still lost in the memory of what had been, slowly making his way around the table, his fingertips coming to rest on the back of the chair that had been Willow's.

"She's gone," Ladybug reminded him, her insides bunching in grief. "She's gone, Holt. There's nothing here for you."

At that he looked up. "You're here, little Ladybug. Why, you ask? Perhaps I'm simply checking in on you, have you considered that? Looking in on your welfare?" His intense eyes had moved beyond her, taking in the Araneaen at her back. "Ensuring you're making good choices? I did promise that I'd look in on you from time to time, to make sure you were faring alright."

"And you've done a fine job of that, right?" Her voice snapped across the kitchen, her vocal cords acting without the input of her conscious mind, with a will of their own. Her fists bunched, and she used Anzan's broad chest as her springboard, pushing off and propelling herself forward, as if she were the allegedly dangerous and deadly Araneaen.

"Have you given yourself a nice pat on the back? After all, you've done a bang-up job of making sure I'm faring alright. I'm sure she'd be thrilled with how you've kept your promises."

Ladybug wasn't certain when her feet had begun to move. One minute she was standing at the counter with Anzan at her back, and now she was circling the table, having crossed the room in three long strides, her hands clenching around the back of one of the chairs, face-to-face with Holt, with nothing but the aged table between them. He'd straightened up at her words, and she knew she'd struck a nerve.

Stop it! This isn't you. This isn't helpful and it's not going to make you feel any better. Just tell him to leave and put this behind you.Her inner voice was probably right. Wise words, but they were too bitter a draught to swallow. One more thing to put behind her. One more little indignity for her to force down, and she couldn't do it without choking. No. Not this time.

"Perhaps I'm checking in professionally," he countered. "You do know I have a shop, don't you? We're practically family, darling, we ought to have a partnership."

"I know all about your dirty business dealings," Ladybug spat out venomously. We're practically family. The room blurred and her arms shook from how hard she gripped the chair. She was furious, too furious to swallow this down.

She'd spent the past year licking her wounds, vacillating wildly between fixating on the coven that had cast her out — wondering about the sisters who'd turned their backs on her, what they were doing, if a single one of them even noticed her absence — and resolutely putting them out of mind, focusing on growing her own business, putting to use all of the skills she had painstakingly honed over the years, concentrating on her own home and hearth and the love within it. She'd not allowed herself to dwell on the nameless emotion she felt about the particulars of her expulsion from the coven. She did not let her thoughts linger over Holt's role in the whole ugly farce, not wanting to think about him at all.

She had kept this from Anzan, the night she'd told him about Holt and his history with her aunt. She wasn't sure why. It hadn't seemed important to her narrative, maybe, or perhaps she simply didn't want to think about how close to home her downfall had been. To associate thoughts of the familiar with the agony of last year was to taint memories of happier times, and perhaps her heart simply had not been strong enough to reconcile the two realities.

"I know all about your shop, and all about your black-market business," she went on doggedly. "How do you sleep at night, Holt? How do you live with yourself knowing what they did?"

He shrugged with such an air of unconcern that she was tempted to heave the bowl of lemons on the table at his head.

"I am a procurer by trade," he sniffed. "I always have been. If a witch has a need, I can procure the solution. That's it. I don't have a hand in how it is used, Elizabeth."

Ladybug scoffed, shaking her head in aggravated disbelief. Of course he would have an answer for that as well. He'd always had an answer for everything.

The flying ointment had been made since the dark ages, although the particular recipe she had refused had been outlawed for centuries at that point. The High Crone hadn't cared. Render the fat until liquid. She had no desire to have a baby, but that did not mean she would seek to do one harm. It is intent that guides magic, Ladybug. A witch's intent is more important than the strength of her spell.

"Do you even know what happened to me?" she asked, wondering if he hadn't bothered checking up on anything at all. He probably stopped caring the minute he was paid. "Do you know what happened when I said no? What they did to me?"

On the other side of the table, Holt had gone very still. Behind her, Anzan remained silent, as always. The only sound in the kitchen was her own labored breath, and the thunderous pulse of blood in her ears. By contrast, Ladybug could scarcely tell if Holt was breathing, an infinitesimal nod of his head his only movement.

"I do."

Anzan had repositioned himself at the end of her work counter, back legs still angled in a way that would push him forward in a blur. She knew she needed to let him know that there was no need for physicality, to stand down and stay behind her, but Holt's quietly uttered words made her eyes fill with tears again.

Betrayal.

Thatwas the name of the fathomless emotion that had been festering within her since she had been cast from the circle of sisters. Hurt, humiliation, no small amount of relief. She had swallowed them all down, but that feeling of betrayal was stuck like a thorn, piercing her from within.

"Of course you do," she laughed brokenly, not caring if this confrontation was beneath her. "Do you even care? Do you think she'd be happy to know you had a hand in that? ‘We're practically family?' You were a part of my family. And I hope you know you didn't just betray me, Holt. You betrayed her. You betrayed my whole family and all the years you spent here. I hope you know that. And I hope you live with that knowledge forever."

She didn't know where the previously unmastered ability to say exactly what she was thinking in the moment she wanted to say it had come from, but the instant the words were out, her hurt and betrayal laid bare and set free, hanging in the air between them, Ladybug slumped in exhausted defeat. None of this mattered, not anymore. What was done was done.

Foul to fair will foul again, all shall blow away. What was taken must return, and night shall steal day.The wheel never stopped turning. She could almost hear Willow's soft voice, reciting a curious poem about the changing of the seasons. It would be spring soon, the weather turning warm enough for her and Anzan to resume their nightly walks, to work in the garden, to put all of this behind her. She did not need to relive this hurt for Holt's sake. This was beneath her.

For a long moment, Holt said nothing. Anzan slowly adjusted his stance yet again, once more moving to flank her. Ladybug realized he would not attack the familiar unless she gave him the order to do so. Subservient and deferential to her, always. Well, that's not going to happen. This is beneath him as well.

"Heavy is the head that wears the laurel of knowing," Holt said suddenly. His voice was neither contrite nor conciliatory, but neither did he have the same tone of indifference as just a few minutes earlier. "It is not for us to ask why. We do not question the Fates, why they act in the way they do, why they allow us to suffer or be alone. It is not for those of us who see to ask why things are as they are, only to know they are as such for a reason."

He paused, trapping her in his bright citrine gaze for a weighted moment.

"I am sorry, Elizabeth. Whether or not you believe that or accept it has no bearing on the things to come, but please know that I do feel remorse for what you have gone through these last few years. That does not change the path. We are all exactly where we are meant to be, and the things that have come to pass are as they were meant. What doesn't kill us only —"

"That's been debunked," she interrupted rudely. "‘What doesn't kill us makes us stronger.' That's nothing but pseudoscience survivor's bias. That's a lie we're told to tell ourselves. Trauma doesn't make us stronger; it makes us fearful. For as long as you've been around people, you ought to know that."

The smile that moved over his angular face spread like a slow ooze of honey, and his green eyes shone. "Winter falls to spring's allure, summer morns are prey; what is dead shall live again, and night shall steal day."

Ladybug stiffened as he continued the line, plucking the poem from her head as if she'd said it aloud, invading the memory of Winter reciting it to her before bed. Anzan gripped her hand with one of his own, lacing his long fingers with her smaller ones, giving them a squeeze as Holt continued.

"What doesn't kill us only prepares us for how to better react the next time. It teaches us. Fear is a gift, little one. And yes," he added, a bit of his characteristic feline snittiness returning to his voice, "I do think she would be happy that you were freed, and that is what happened. The coven is poisoned, down to its root, and you are well away from it. It is long past time that the rot was ripped out and fresh vines be allowed to flourish."

Ladybug opened her mouth to speak, but Holt had already turned away, moving across the kitchen with the familiarity of someone who knew every nook and cranny, as he did.

"Besides, you've been busy. Look at all this . . ." He gazed up at her mishmash of product, jammed into its overstuffed shelf, whirling to face her a moment later with a smile.

"I'd almost forgotten the whole point of being here today. That is why I am back, dear little Ladybug. You need me. Your spidery friend there even said so. You ought to have a partner."

She cried out in outrage as Anzan made a choked sound behind her. All three of them knew very well that Holt was responsible for all of it, and the grin on his face was that of a satisfied cat before a dish of cream.

"Say whatever you'd like about my sidelines, Ladybug, but what you can't deny is the fact that you do need the help of someone who knows the business. Am I not someone who knows the business?"

Ladybug reminded herself that any violence in her home would undoubtedly become gossip fodder that would make its way around all of Oldetown, only adding to the unfavorable and completely inaccurate view of the Araneaen beneath her roof. She grit her teeth and resisted the urge to turn to Anzan.

"You know you could sell circles around those people," Holt continued, unbothered by her expression. "Increase your business. Expand your offerings. They'll be knocking on your door, pushing each other out of the way to get here first, and what will your former sisters think of that, hmm? When you begin siphoning customers from them with your superior skills?"

His voice had taken on a hypnotic quality, and that, too, was familiar. Holt was nothing if not a showman. He'd had centuries to perfect his schtick, after all. It's more than that. Ladybug pursed her lips, knowing her inner voice was right again. Holt was fanatical in his devotion to the craft. No one could worship the dark mother as fervently as an imp, and there was no imp as devoted as he. He was able to hold a room of witches in his thrall, ignite their fervor and dedication to the craft . . . but she still recognized his manipulation for what it was.

Well, he's not wrong. She did want to see the look on their faces, knowing she was the one taking their business, to reclaim her seat, her standing, to restore her family's good name. She was likely an easy mark for an ageless charlatan like him, and he was playing to all of her weaknesses.

"The Makers' Mart is only the beginning, Elizabeth. We cannot stop the wheel from turning any more than we can prevent what is from what will be. The Moirai have placed us exactly where we are meant to stand. Are you going to be the witch who spits in their eye? Or are you going to be the witch who lives up to the Brackenbridge name?"

The room seemed to vibrate once more, and her hands balled into fists again. She hated him . . . but he was right. She needed him.

She wanted to show her former sisters what she could do, wanted to mend her broken branch on their family tree of witches . . . And the thought of showing up those who had cast her out was simply too good to pass up. As long as this house stood, there would be a Brackenbridge witch beneath its newly restored roof. As long as there was a witch at work, this kitchen would smell the same.

"Fine," she said with more conviction than she felt. One of Anzan's hands pressed to her lower back, a silent communication that he was there, at her side. She wasn't alone anymore, and she could do this. "But I hope you know Authricia would never forgive you for letting them do what they did."

Another blow of memory as he laughed, silky and sinuous and familiar. The worst familiar.

"You're right about that. That battle axe will never let me forget it."

Will never. They were with her still, and he knew it. Ladybug nodded and squeezed Anzan's hand.

"Tell me what I need to do."