So I turned the car off and just sat with my head bowed, listening to the ticks of the engine settling and Jasper’s low-grade whine, focusing on my breath. When I’d collected myself about as much as I was going to, I lurched out of the car on travel-stiff legs and let Jas out to baptize the quiet street, then hauled my battle-scarred suitcase and gigantic duffel bag out of the trunk. By the time he came loping back, I’d managed to wrestle everything up onto the columned porch with an admirable minimum of cursing.

I still had my key, but it seemed horribly rude and presumptuous to use it after a five-year absence, so I knocked instead. When the door swung open, I managed to flinch only a little, blinking at the warm light spilling from within.

“My darling,” my mother said simply, stepping out to greet me. Her voice was characteristically composed, all British stiff upper lip, but her green eyes—my eyes—were suspiciously shiny. Glossed with the same stifled emotion that burst at my own seams.

“Mom,” I half whispered, a lump rising in my throat.

It wasn’t like we hadn’t laid eyes on each other in five years, because this was the twenty-first century. Even a magical haven like Thistle Grove got decent reception and Wi-Fi most of the time, barring the odd magical tantrum disrupting coverage. But seeing her face on a screen wasn’t the same, not even close. When I leaned forward to wrap her in a hug, it took all I had not to whimper at her familiar smell, lemon and wildflowers. Though we were nearly the same height, the years between twenty-six and six abruptly melted away. For just a moment, I was small again, and she was the mummy I used to call for in the night after a bad dream, who soothed me with her gentle hands and infinite catalog of lovely British-inflected lullabies.

Then the awkwardness seeped back in between us, like an icy trickle of rain sluicing past your collar. When I pulled away from her, clearing my throat, she bent to offer Jasper the back of her hand.

“A familiar, really?” she said, smiling up at me as he gave her a subdued sniff. “I confess, I’m a bit surprised.”

“Ah, no, actually. Jas is just . . . your average cute pup,” I said brightly, quelling a spurt of irritation that I somehow hadn’t seen this coming. Only in Thistle Grove would your mother assume that your well-trained standard schnauzer must obviously be a familiar. “He usually has more pep to him, too, but he’s a little wiped out. Actually, we both are, do you think we could . . . ?”

“Right, of course,” she said hurriedly, reaching over to wrench my back-breaking duffel across the threshold before I could stop her. “You’ve both had a terribly long drive, haven’t you? Let’s get you settled.”

Inside, the smell of home hit me like a sucker punch: lemongrass floor polish, tea leaves, the melting sweetness of beeswax candles. I abandoned my monster suitcase in the foyer, shedding my denim jacket and hooking it on the coat tree before trailing my mother to the darkened kitchen. Instead of switching on the overhead light, she flicked her hand at the clusters of pillar candles set on the table and granite countertop. Their flames sprang obediently to life, illuminating the cozy breakfast nook with its vase of peachy tulips, yellow curtains, and my old cat-shaped clock on the wall with its swinging pendulum tail. Lighting candles was a small, homey sort of magic, the kind even Harlows could easily do.