The lies Martha had told Faith had done damage, and she carried the scars of abandonment. She went inside and sat on the floor beside Keeper. He had a distant, somewhat removed character and resembled Faith in that way, but now he put his head in her lap and she stroked his fur. Here she was, in her own home, and she was still invisible, her true self lurking in the shadows. Every witch wishes for a pair of red boots, and Faith had hoped her mother would grant her a pair as a gift on her thirteenth birthday, but when the day came she was given a sky-blue shawl. She didn’t need protection. She didn’t need luck. She wanted her one and only life and the freedom to live as she pleased. She had been paid well by her clients, which was a good thing. She would order her own boots at the cobbler’s.

Anyone who had the sight and the ability to see inside Faith to her core would see the damage there, the iron wound, the nights in a locked room, the open window, the cemetery in Gravesend, the salty land and the seabirds in the sky, the loneliness, the bitter taste in her mouth, the father who never showed himself, the mother who wished to believe that all was well with her daughter when there was a crack in everything and the world was coming apart. Faith would be ready for magic when she said she was ready, not when her mother allowed it. She had said yes to magic years ago in the flatlands, with the salt stinging her eyes so that she almost cried, not that she had the ability to do such a thing, not then and not now. Maria Owens could cry, but that was unusual for a witch, and was likely a sign of weakness in Faith’s opinion. Faith, herself, was nothing like that. Even if Maria had wanted to see inside her daughter, Faith had blocked her from doing so. It was a murky and solemn spell she had worked at the Minetta Stream, a fitting place for dark acts; she had used her own blood and hair and the bones of a small sparrow, and had thereby grown invisible to the person who loved her best in the world.