She spilled out the purse he’d given her. Ten silver pieces. A year’s payment for a washerwoman or a servant. The moment she touched the coins, the silver turned black. She could see his panic as he observed this witchery.

“You had best never return,” he said.

“You have it wrong,” Maria told him. “You had best stay away from me.”

That same night, Maria unwrapped the black mirror and looked into the glass, for at last she could see clearly. She spied herself without the sapphire necklace. She recalled what Samuel Dias had told her, that to his eyes the stone did not appear real. She removed it and went out to the lake, where she set it on a ledge of rock. Then she took her Grimoire in hand, the spine of the book in her grasp as she brought it down, smashing the jewel. The stone shattered into a thousand pieces, as glass does when struck, for the gift had been paste and nothing more, as false as the man who had given it to her. Where there was one lie there would always be another. She slit the hem of her skirt, scattering the diamonds on the rock. She stood to stomp on them with the weight of her boot. They shattered also, worthless paste, trinkets meant to buy her love and nothing more, breaking into bright bits of dust.

When you look into your own future, you may see only what you want to see, and even the wisest woman can make a mistake, especially in matters of love.

She’d had the wrong man all along.

Tell a witch to go, and she’ll plant her feet on the ground and stay exactly where she is. Instead of doing as she’s told, she’ll take a knife to her arm and let her blood drip onto the ground, and in that way she will claim the earth for herself and for her daughters and for all the daughters who follow her. It is the future she’s claiming, the right to be a woman who can do as she pleases.

When Maria returned to the cabin, she took out the book, for what is written will open the world itself. As she paged through the Grimoire, she thought of the woman who took her in on a snowy day and gave her the Owens name, who had shared all she knew about the Nameless Art. Own your own life, Hannah had told her. Never depend on others. Protect those closest to you.