Chapter One

Our heroines meet.

Rise and shine! Glow! Brighten the whole room and wake up your husband! Explode like an aging star! Good morning, everybody. Welcome to Estersage University radio. Louise couldn’t be in today, something held her up. Luckily, I’m here, and reliable, like a knight. A brave, courageous knight. Or, as a text from Louise herself has just informed me, a golden retriever. Love you too, Lou. Love you too.

 

Louise turned the volume on the radio up with a flick of her wrist as she wandered from her tiny living room to her tinier kitchenette. There was no visible divider between the two rooms, other than a mild change of atmosphere. The air became a little thicker, the paint on the walls a little peeled. This was due in part to some cooking mishaps, smoke, and fire, but also the spellcasting Louise resorted to in order to resolve them.  Magic sucks up parts of the air, like that.

 

First round of announcements for those of you who are up this early, catching the train or the nearest flying carriage to class; Advanced Necromancy 201 has once again increased the standards within its screening process. The Department of Necromancy and Cadavers would like to once again remind applicants that a MGP of at least 6 is required, as well as the satisfactory completion of at least 12 units of Magical Law and Ethics. Don’t bother otherwise. No, you can’t get special consideration. Yes, they will think you want to raise an unholy, undead army. So stop asking, Timothy.

 

With a snort, Louise shook her head at the tone in Aahana’s voice, her lilting accent, and short, clipped diction. Aahana really had a voice for radio. Smooth enough to be pleasant, but quick enough and interesting enough to keep everyone’s attention. As Aahana continued the morning announcements (which, being not even 6 am, she would have to repeat in an hour or so), Louise turned on the coffeemaker, and listened to it grind while she flipped through the letter her mother had sent.

 

“My Dearest Lou-Lou, blah blah,” she mumbled aloud, “Hope Estersage is treating you well, et cetera, et cetera…”

 

After moving from home up north a few years ago, Louise and her mother spoke regularly, either on the phone or in the odd crystal ball, when one was around. But it was bizarre not seeing her every day, or having something tangible to touch and connect to. So they started sending letters, too. It wasn’t that Louise was a baby, or anything. She was an adult. Mostly.

 

It’s just " and she’d explained this to Aahana over beers not two weeks ago, after a particularly harsh stab of homesickness " when you grow up with your mother as your best friend, leaving home is more than just leaving the nest. You feel like you’ve abandoned someone who needs you. Especially when, like Louise’s mother, you have another six mouths to feed. It wasn’t that Carrie needed Louise, particularly, or desperately, but another pair of hands to juggle some kids would probably help.

 

Maybe Louise needed her mum more than the other way around. Maybe.

 

As her eyes scanned the letter, which arrived a few days ago and had been read several times before, they lingered on a few lines of her mother’s swirly script.

 

“I worry that you worry too much, and we’re not able to worry together,” Louise read aloud, somewhat incredulously, before double and triple checking the name and address of the therapist her mum was making her go to.

 

A therapist. Honestly.

 

There wasn’t a proper therapist’s office in Estersage, so Louise would have to take the train about an hour away into the city to get told she’s an anxious ball of energy. So basically, Carrie was paying however much for an hour of stuff Louise already knew.

 

Now that the sun’s officially risen, I’ll say good morning again. Good morning, Estersage. Drink some coffee. Go to class. Try hard. Stay hydrated. Tell someone you love them. Praise whatever goddess you like, or praise yourself. Cast a spell or two. My name is Aahana Gupta, filling in for Louise Cotton, this is Estersage University Radio, and it’s going to be a beautiful day.

 

Louise caught herself chewing on her nails. Removing her hand from her mouth, she flicked her wrist and the radio turned off. It clicked silent with a short hiss of static, and the flat once again slipped into comforting almost-silence. The coffee machine was broken. The churning had stopped. The not-too-distant sound of wheels on gravel, birds singing, and soft chatter from the street signified a world about to wake up.

 

With a sigh, Louise swept her hair off her face, and slumped her shoulders in resignation. She folded her mother’s letter, placed it carefully in her handbag, and made for the window, which she then promptly leapt from. Muttering a brief anti-gravity charm, she hoped to land on the footpath and not her neighbour’s rose bush.

 

Whatever, it’s hard to be accurate from the fourth storey.

 

 

“You’re la-ate,” Scout sang as Diana burst through the kitchen doors, a flurry of long limbs and dark brown hair.

 

“I know, I know! Is Mrs. James here? ” Diana asked, before stopping, turning, and taking a good look at her coworker. Scout sat, perched on a stool, idly flicking through a magazine. One of those horrible gossip rags. Things like DIVORCE! LOVE POTION SCANDAL! SECRET MER-FAMILY! were emblazoned across the front.

 

“So, what, I’m late but you’re just sitting around reading trashy magazines?” Diana huffed, a small smile playing on her lips and betraying her façade of annoyance.

 

“I’ve already been here for over an hour, baking my butt off,” Scout said. “Besides, one of these days, I’m going to marry a very successful, rich witch, and we are going to run away together,” Scout said, matter-of-factly. “Actors and models and singers, or whatever " they’re a good place to start. This is research.”

 

“Research,” Diana nodded, her face serious. “Right. No, that’s sensible.”

 

“And what’s your life plan?” Scout asked. “Befriend as many old people as possible, worm your way into their wills, and cash in on their untimely deaths?”

 

Diana tipped forward from her hips so her mass of brown curls could be controlled into a ponytail, before whipping her head back up and making a face at Scout.

 

“Well, it’s not untimely if they really are that old,” Diana reasoned. “And no. My life plan is nowhere near that diabolic.”

 

Scout shrugged and tucked a strand of cropped auburn hair behind their ear.

 

“Diabolic is such a harsh word,” they said, lightly, turning the page. “And of course your life plan isn’t that. Your life plan is to, like, grow succulents and eat bark and be alone forever.”

 

Diana frowned a little, and tied an apron around her waist.

 

“Nuh-uh,” she muttered, somewhat defensively. “I’ll have, like, cats and stuff.”

 

“That’s even worse,” Scout groaned, leaning their face into the magazine. Just then, the nearest oven binged and Scout sighed, hopped off the stool, slipped on some oven mitts and proceeded to pull out five trays of fresh muffins.

 

“Oooh!” Diana grinned widely and clapped her hands together. “What are these?”

 

“Don’t touch,” Scout slapped Diana’s hand as she greedily made to touch one of the perfectly crisp muffin tops. “They’re hot. And Mrs. James isn’t here, by the way. You know she’s in the city for a week.”

 

While Scout got busy with extracting and organizing the muffins, Diana went to the front of the shop to turn the sign around and get everything set up. At barely six-thirty, the café-slash-bakery-slash-den-of-iniquity (if Scout had anything to do with it) shouldn’t get any business for another hour, at least. The set up of the café floor was something of a calming routine. Taking the mismatched chairs from the tables and tucking them side by side; filling the display case with fresh pastries; turning on the coffee grinder " all part of Diana’s thrice weekly routine when she worked full days between classes.

 

Majoring in Botanical Magic was great. Really, it was. But it meant a lot of time in labs, wearing goggles, cutting things up, waiting hours for proteins to form, cultures to develop, all that stuff. It didn’t involve nearly as much lying around in gardens as Diana thought it would, two years ago. The minor in Philosophy was likewise lackluster. It meant a lot of time in lecture halls, listening to grumpy old witches who thought they were the best things since Socrates, or whatever.

 

Just as Diana was ruefully considering the twenty pages of theory she had to read on her lunch break, the sound of the door opening surprised her. Scout had enchanted the bell to sound like birds tweeting, which was nice and all, but alarming at six thirty in the morning, indoors. Diana started and hit her head on the display case where she’d been placing the paleo granola bars.

 

“Ouch,” she groaned, and pouted, rubbing a hand on her head, and standing to greet whoever was awake and about at six thirty in the morning this side of town.

 

The girl at the door was short, pear-shaped, with olive tan skin and hair that fluctuated between dark brown and cinnamon coloured. Her face and shoulders were covered in a million light freckles, like constellations, and her green eyes had the bright quality of someone who was comfortably awake this early in the morning. She looked at Diana with a kind of polite amusement. The way you look at a parent you don’t know when their child says something kind of funny in an elevator.

 

“Oops, sorry, hi. Welcome to The Flaky Tart,” Diana smiled. “Can I help you?”

 

“Can I get a large soy cap to go?” she replied, coming forward to look at the food in the display case. “And one… what are those?”

 

She pointed to the infamous paleo granola bars.

 

“They’re granola bars,” Diana said, rather obviously.

 

“What’s paleo?” the girl frowned at the tag.

 

“It’s uh, it’s like, this dietary thing?” Diana rubbed her head again. How hard had she hit it? “Sorry, I’m half awake. It means there’s no dairy, no refined sugar, or any of that stuff.”

 

“That’s dull,” the girl shrugged. “I’ll take a chocolate croissant.”

 

She paid, and while Diana made the girl’s coffee, she stole glances at her over the espresso machine. She tapped her feet and chewed her nails. Her nails looked raw, bitten down as far as they could be without being completely gnawed off. That didn’t look pleasant. Diana looked down at her own nails, the kind of long and jagged that comes from neglect and working with your hands. Chipped green nailpolish.

 

After thinking it over for all of a millisecond, Diana slipped a granola bar into the bag as well, and on the receipt, she wrote: JUST TO GIVE IT A TRY.

 

“Thank you for your early morning patronage,” Diana said, handing off the coffee and paper bag.

 

“Thank you for the caffeine, butter, and sugar,” the girl replied, without even blinking. “Cheers, love.”

 

And then, in a flash of freckles and chewed nails, she was gone.

 

“Well,” Diana said, to herself, as usual. “Someone’s in a hurry.”