I stilled my thoughts and focused my energy out into the night sky, to the constellations far above me.

Now I just had to bring them down.

I closed my eyes. I didn’t need to see the illusion I was creating to know what was happening. Tiny luminous points that were millions of light-years away would suddenly appear to be floating toward us on earth. I could feel the magic running steadily through me, in a way I hadn’t in a long time. It felt natural again. As easy as breathing.

I called the specks of light closer to earth.

My uncle sighed. “It’s beautiful, Brynn.”

“Yes,” Nora said. “Adam would be proud.”

I knew he would.

Suddenly I could see so clearly the look on his face that night on Carmichael’s Bridge. That was the look he would have given me if he were here. The look that was just for me. The one that told me I was pure magic in his eyes.

I would never see it again. Not in this lifetime.

The enormity of the loss gripped me in a way I hadn’t allowed it to in a long time, and I could feel the quickening of power that had been building inside me falter. The pain was pushing the magic away, crowding it out.

That was the thing about grief I had come to know so well. It was always too much. The loss always too big. The pain always takes up too much space. It takes all the room you have until there is nothing left, and then it takes even more.

I couldn’t hold on to the spell. It had gone from something I could feel and touch inside of me to nothing more than mist running through my fingers.

Suddenly someone gripped my hand.

I opened my eyes. Izzy was at my side.

“I can’t hold on,” I whispered to her.

“You don’t have to, darling,” she said, bringing our clasped hands to her chest. “Let it go. You don’t have to keep it inside you any longer.”

Then someone was holding my other hand. I looked over and met Nora’s hazel eyes, sparkling in the light from the lanterns. She held me in her gaze as a single tear slipped down her cheek. She quickly brushed it away, threw back her shoulders, and gave me a brilliant smile. “You can do this, Brynn. You are so strong. A Warren through and through.”

I couldn’t say if I believed her or not, but the strength of her conviction was enough to get me to try.

I closed my eyes again and took a long, slow breath, breathing through the tightness in my chest. The spell swirled through me once again. Though faint at first, it quickly built on itself, growing in power until it reached a point that I knew it had its own life. The sensation wasn’t at all like it had been with the wildfire spell, when my magic had been angry, thrashing at me for release. This was balance and joy, harmony and triumph. It was also love. So much love. All the love I had for my husband but hadn’t allowed myself to feel since he passed.