“What’s that?”

She locked me in her gaze. “It won’t be easy letting your powers go.”

I looked away this time. “Everything’s under control.”

“But if that changes. If you do start experiencing magic that isn’t quite of your making, you will tell me, right? Because that could be very dangerous. For all of us.”

“If things get out of control, I promise I will tell you.”

“Okay,” Izzy said, patting my hand then getting to her feet. “I still can’t believe this is all happening. If I had just done the warding spell correctly, that mallet never would have been planted in the greenhouse, and we wouldn’t be in this mess.”

“Are you sure it’s your fault? Is it possible someone was able to get around it?”

Izzy frowned. “It was a fairly basic spell, but no. In order to get past it one would need to have bathed themselves in, let’s see, skullcap, mandrake, crushed eggshells, and graveyard dirt. Oh! Or the essential oil from a black quartz flower. But given that Nora is the only one to grow them around here, it must have been my fault.”

“Izzy, mistakes happen. It wasn’t intentional.”

“Well, perhaps, but the pull and muzzle spell was intentional. And I do need to apologize for that. I may be her big sister, but she’s an adult.”

I didn’t say anything.

“And you need to apologize too.”

“What for?”

Izzy looked at me.

I rolled my eyes like I was a teenager again. “Fine. I probably should have told you guys I wasn’t practicing magic instead of hiding it.” I knew there had been more to the hot chocolate. She had this planned from the start.

“Wonderful!” Izzy said, clapping her hands together. “So, I don’t think Nora will be down tonight, but tomorrow I’ll make a special family dinner for us, and we can both apologize.”

I didn’t answer, but my feelings on the subject were made clear by my expression because Izzy said, “Careful, your face might freeze that way.”

My eyes widened. We both knew she had a spell for that.

I forced a smile to my lips.

“That’s better.”

• • •

Izzy’s hot chocolate had some lingering effects because when I went back up to my loft in the old carriage house, I changed into my coziest flannel pajamas, then pulled out a box of old photos from underneath my bed.

Rain gently tapped at the windows as I placed the box on my quilt and settled myself in behind it. I lifted off the lid and picked up the first photo lying on top of the stack.

I smiled. It was a Halloween shot. I must have been only five or six, and I was dressed up as Snow White. I remember Nora desperately trying to convince me to choose another costume that year—something with more power—but I was determined to be a princess. She stood behind me in the photo dressed as the Evil Queen, and Izzy was wearing an enormous apple costume. I brought the photo up a little closer to take in the details of my dress. Izzy had bought it at a department store, but Nora had swept it away from her the moment she’d brought it home. I was furious at the time because I thought she was getting rid of it, but it turned out she had other plans. The next morning, when I woke up, the dress was on my bed, except all the cheap fabric had been replaced with real velvet and silk and the plastic beads had been swapped out with semi-precious stones. It was ridiculous given my age, but for that one night I felt like a real princess.