Chapter Twenty-One

6.30 p.m.: sunday 31 october

Ashworth Hall

The Wedding Reception

On the way down to the massive function room, Kay did her best to stuff her discovery about Harry's feelings for her away. It reminded her of trying to get one of those pop-up snakes back into its can, but she was determined. There was nothing she could do about it at the moment. Nothing necessarily to be done about it ever , unless he wanted to ask her for more than a dance.

What if he never did? What if he was content to draw a line under them because it was all such a mess? Loving someone didn't always mean it would work.

Stop thinking about it.

Until the speeches and first dance were done, she wasn't going to have an opportunity to get hold of Becca. And that meant she was going to have to brave the reception without functional glasses. That was enough to try to cope with for the moment.

She'd have taken the empty frames off her face, but then it would have been obvious to all her family that she was using her gift, and she had no idea how they'd take that.

Harry's reassurance that he never expected her to stifle her gift if she didn't want to rushed like a sweet spring breeze through the brittle limbs of a winter-stripped tree. He knew that she knew now.

Stop.

The room was full and immediately the overlapping threads of colour made it appear like the guests were all swimming in a rainbow fog. To think she was supposed to not be using her magic at all and here she was in a room full of more people than she'd ever been around while using her gift. Twenty-five times the number. She wasn't just tearing up the rulebook, she was dousing it in gasoline and setting it alight with an eternal flame spell.

She made her way to the head table, smiling despite the distraction and waving to family and friends as they spotted her, and then taking her seat next to her mother.

Tallulah pressed her hand to her chest. ‘Oh thank the Goddess, Kay. I thought we were going to have to send out a search party. I was worried about you.'

Kay hoisted a smile onto her face, grateful beyond words that her mother couldn't pick up on her reeling emotions at that moment. There was a flute of champagne on the table in front of her. ‘No need to worry. Is this for me?'

‘Yes. For toasting the speeches.'

‘Great.' She took a big gulp and directed her gaze out onto the room. For the moment, letting the colours flood in seemed easier than trying to suppress them, as she allowed the burble of conversation to wash over her the same way the swirling bonds surrounding her were. She could do this. One thing at a time.

Applause began as the bride and groom came in and took their seats at the centre of the table. She clapped with everyone else and tears threatened when she saw the strength of their love for each other. The relief was like tipping her face up into the rain of a summer thunderstorm. No secrets or hearts for her to break if either of them asked her.

It was impossible not to turn and look at them as the speeches took place, so she did her best to block out their bonds, the way she'd done upstairs. Because even though this day was all about them sharing and celebrating their love for each other, they deserved their privacy.

And she really deserved not to see how horny her brother was for Sandy.

With all the guests facing Joe and Sandy, there was an overlap of so many threads leading up to them that her eyes began to ache and – maybe it was the champagne – but she felt like her brain was expanding at the edges. There was a loosening sensation in her chest, the feeling of pressure she'd been troubled by recently easing. Her magic was flowing and she was communicating with it. She was asking things of it and directing it, instead of just rejecting it …

Was that it? It wasn't the glasses that had caused the block, because lots of witches had to throttle their gifts depending on their circumstances but they still had control of it. So maybe it wasn't about choosing not to use her magic, so much as the reason she was not using it. She'd suppressed it out of fear. Treated it like an unwanted roommate she was forced to live with. Never bothered to get to know it.

But why this year? Had it just reached a tipping point? Or had it been something to do with the wedding? Had her magic started misbehaving before or after Joe and Sandy had announced their engagement? Now she thought about it, the two things had happened coincidentally close together.

Why would that have triggered it though? It wasn't like she wasn't happy for them.

Had it been the concern that Sandy – ever curious and eager to see how magic could be useful to her – would ask for reassurance about Joe's feelings for her? As well as the stress of helping her mum cope with being around her dad for the first time in years. It had pressed on every sore spot Kay had about her gift. The damage it had done in the past. The damage it might do in the future.

But she was realising it wasn't her fault now. The relationship between her mum and dad had been complicated. The bonds of relationships were built over time, like individual fibres twisted into thicker and thicker rope – they were not easily cut through, without severing the bond entirely.

And she'd just used her gift to do something good. It was the application, not the tool. You could use a sewing needle to fix a tear or embroider a pillow … or you could stab it into someone's eye. Intention was important when it came to magic. She had to take responsibility for her gift and set boundaries about how and when she was going to use it, but she didn't need to cut it off from her life entirely. Part of her had never truly wanted to. How could she? Her magic was her.

The realisation made her light-headed. Or maybe that was the buzz of energy she was releasing by giving her gift freedom. Sitting upright was becoming an act of sheer willpower in the face of her exhaustion. Between the wedding, the hurricane, Harry and her fritzing magic, she was about ready to crawl into bed for a week. Everything in her life looked different and not just because of the strands of magical bonds weaving through the room. Things she had believed were true for so long, things she'd been anxious or angry about, were falling away. It was freeing, but those beliefs had been like armour too, and now she felt exposed.

She straightened in her seat and tried to put those thoughts to rest and concentrate on the speeches again.

‘I'm so happy to be here today, watching my daughter marry a good man. A man who loves her and whom she loves. It makes me all the more happy because she came to me a year ago, upset after she had found something out about Joe that she hadn't expected to.' Kay tensed, as she was sure almost every witch in the crowd did. ‘It wasn't the thing she found out that had upset her really. It was the fact that she hadn't known it. That she had been dating him for a year, they were about to move in together, and she hadn't any clue. And I told her not to worry about it. She asked me why.

‘People are fathoms deep, I said to her. Trying to get to the bottom of someone, to think you should be able to see clear through to the bottom of them, is asking to drown yourself. You don't need to know everything about each other at once. Where would the fun in that be? Besides – most people don't really even know themselves. I've been married to my beautiful wife for thirty-five years, and she still surprises me.

‘So, to my daughter, the light of my life, I say, enjoy the journey as Joe shows you his hidden depths, as you reveal yours to him, and you both grow together. To the beginning of a long, joyous marriage, full of the thrill of discovery.'

Everyone clapped and Kay blinked, resisting the temptation to rub at her eyes. Everything was starting to get blurry. Becca was still floating around taking photos of the wedding party and guests. Kay would have to keep it together a bit longer before she could approach her to retrieve her lenses. Kay might be learning to accept her gift, but it would take time to get used to using it again for any significant period of time.

She made it through the other speeches, and Joe and Sandy sharing their first dance. The buffet opened and even though she was both starving and desperate to grab Becca, she caught sight of her dad watching other couples joining the bride and groom on the dance floor. She pinched the bridge of her nose, trying not to pick up on his bonds, but she was finding the strain too much. Rose gold and purple ran from his chest towards her, meeting the same colours from her side. He wasn't just the spectre threatening her mother's happiness, he was her dad and he loved her.

She wished she knew more about him. By pushing him away for so long, he was virtually a stranger these days. Thinking of Harry and his dad's time running out, how close he'd come to losing him without knowing if they'd truly mended the breach between them, she realised she could avoid that if she wanted to. There was time. Not endless amounts of time, because no one really knew how long they would have – but they were here now and, regardless of how awkward it would be, she could try, safe in the knowledge that her dad loved her and she loved him.

Another thing her gift could be thanked for.

She stood up, but her mum caught her hand before she could move away. ‘What's going on with you, Kay? You're acting strange. Is there something I need to know?' Her eyes darted between Kay and her dad for a moment.

Kay almost said ‘no'. But that wasn't strictly true. She realised it had never even occurred to her to talk to her mother about the problems she was having with her magic. It had become her – and Joe's – habit to try to shield their mum from any additional emotional trauma. Her gift to sense what others were feeling was overwhelming. Just seeing the bonds between people had been an onslaught for Kay; she couldn't imagine feeling their emotions too. But that meant they didn't lean on their mother for any emotional support. Not since they'd been adults.

Her mother hadn't been angry with her when Kay's gift had come in and revealed that her husband didn't love her anymore. She'd never blamed Kay, but she'd never tried to address it or help them deal with it and move on either. Just because Kay was now ready to try to didn't mean Tallulah would be and they'd have to talk about it if they wanted to avoid further upset.

‘We'll talk soon, Mum. Hopefully tomorrow.' She kissed her on the cheek and shuffled around the guests to reach her dad, doing her best to ignore the spot between her shoulder blades her mum was probably boring a hole into. ‘Dad, would you like to dance?'

He looked at her with that same joy and shock that had infused his expression earlier. ‘I'd love to.'

He finished the last of his drink and led her out onto the dance floor, where he took her hand, putting the other on her waist to hold her in a formal dance pose.

‘So, was this a pity dance for your old man, because I didn't bring a date?' he asked, humour in his voice but also an undercurrent of curiosity, as though he wasn't quite sure what to make of her change of heart.

‘I didn't bring a date either, remember?' she pointed out, but before he opened his mouth to possibly ask her anything about her love life, she carried on. ‘Have you been seeing anyone recently?'

‘Oh. No. Not for a while. I guess I'm getting to the point where it feels like a bit too much effort.' The coloured lights from the DJ's lighting rig caught at the white hairs at his temples.

‘Too much effort? Sounds a little unmotivated of you,' she teased.

‘If the right person comes along, I'll be motivated. Finding the person shouldn't be the bit where you expend all your effort. That's just the fates. It's the relationship once you've found them that you need to work on.'

Maybe her dad had a secondary affinity she'd not found out about and he was reading her mind a little. Because her problem hadn't been finding the person. In fact, he'd flown out to Prague and found her.

‘Surely it shouldn't all be hard work, though. How do you know when you need to stop trying? When you're trying to make a square peg fit into a round hole? Figuring out if you're fundamentally different in ways that will always cause problems.' Like being an influencer with a secondary seer designation and an empath.

He scrunched his nose and gave a small shrug. ‘That is the million-dollar question, isn't it? I would say when the salt water is mostly tears of sadness rather than tears of joy. When it's turned to brine. That's probably when to stop. It's hard for most people to realise, I think … especially when there are kids involved.'

She nodded and they grew quiet, a heavy weight between them. Kay reminded herself that it was not all going to be fixed with one dance. They'd been talking about romantic relationships, but the same was true with all of them really. They took work and time.

‘D'you remember when you used to do this, putting your feet on top of mine?' he asked after a moment.

She smiled. ‘Yeah, I do. Kind of wish I could do that now, to be honest, I'm not much of a dancer.' Her mind leapt to Harry's joking with her about his dancing skills. Would he be able to make it downstairs? Or was he still too wiped out from the anchor being activated?

‘Please don't. Those shoes look like they would do GBH to my toes.'

She laughed and caught her dad looking at her, a tell-tale sheen in his eyes. The bond between them pulsed. Something she'd not seen before. Like the moment had infused it somehow.

The dark and the closeness of all the couples made the colours blur, like she was swimming in marbled ink. It was kind of beautiful really.

The alcohol must be going to her head.

When the song finished, Joe and Sandy came over to them. Her brother's eyes were lit up, like seeing Kay and their dad together, voluntarily, was the best wedding gift he'd received. But he didn't say anything. He just caught them up in a hug, and when the next song started up, Kay danced with him, while her dad and Sandy took a turn around the floor.

That dance turned into another with Sandy's dad, then the best man and all the women from the hen do when a song came on from that alcohol-soaked evening. Kay kept dancing despite her fatigue until hunger drove her to the buffet and she was caught up talking to relatives and Jaz and family friends from Biddicote whom she hadn't seen in years. She tried not to keep looking for Harry, just like she could almost ignore the shimmering bonds all around her, treating them like they were just an extension of the flashing lights for the disco.

Becca caught up with her eventually, motioning for her to follow her and they headed back down to Mr Ashworth's study. Kay's ears rang in the sudden quiet. Someone had put a noise-muffling spell on the function room. Subtle but enough so that anyone not drunk might wonder about it – if the protective magic wasn't working.

But it was. Because of Harry. And because of her.

‘I'm sorry,' Becca said as she fiddled in the zipped side patch of one of her camera bags. ‘I didn't mean to corner you.'

Kay raised her eyebrows. ‘Didn't you?'

‘Well, OK, maybe I did.' She grimaced. ‘But you don't regret it, do you?'

‘No,' Kay conceded, pulling the glasses frames off her face and holding them out. ‘Do you know what happened?'

Becca grinned. ‘Harry messaged me. Thank you. It totally makes sense why it worked now. It was Harry blocking the anchor taking hold. He had to believe in himself.'

Kay laughed tiredly. ‘There's a lot of that going around. How is he?'

‘Normal enough that he tore a strip off me for doing this.' Becca indicated to the glasses, and then she fitted the lenses back into the frames and whispered an incantation as she blew around the edges, then smoothed her thumb over it. ‘My mum used to craft objects with magic – I picked up a few tricks.'

‘Thank you.' Kay put the glasses back on and the slim bond, which was barely there between her and Becca, fell away entirely. ‘Can you do anything for these heels?'

‘Not without ruining them. I do have a pair of ballet flats I keep here though – round the corner in the vestibule. If they'll fit you, you're welcome to borrow them. The very least I can do.' Becca hesitated for a moment and then wrapped her arms right around Kay, pinning her own arms to her side, in a tight hug. ‘Thank you. Oh, and Harry mentioned about your luggage. If you have trouble, let him know and we'll meet up to try to track it down.'

Becca hurried back towards the reception, while Kay stepped down into the cool vestibule that she'd once run through with Jaz and Tina. She found the shoes Becca was talking about and swapped into them, thankful for the good luck that they were the same size.

She was about to head back to the party, when a light outside the small leaded window caught her attention. A tiny blue wisp. You'd have thought she'd have had enough of magical lights, but she couldn't help opening the door to get a better look. And then following it down into the moonlit woods.