Steaming water from the kettle went in over the leaves. As Mika popped the teapot’s lid back on with a clink of ceramic, she wondered, like she had a hundred times before, what Noah would say if she told him why he was so fond of her tea. There’s more than just tea in those leaves, she imagined herself saying. When you drink it, you take a bit of magic with you for a little while. Noah, like every neighbour and almost-friend Mika had had before him, didn’t believe the jar labelled luck would actually bring him luck. And if he happened to be particularly lucky after drinking it (which he would be), he would brush that off as a coincidence.

She’d never told him or anyone else the truth. Noah didn’t know she was a witch. He didn’t know that she slept on her sofa because there was a greenhouse and pond in her bedroom, which took up so much space that she’d had to get rid of the bed frame the flat had come with. He didn’t know that she moved house every few months, never went back to the same place twice, and had never found somewhere she truly felt at home. She didn’t keep these secrets just because of Primrose’s Rules, either. After a lifetime of going out of her way to fit in with the people around her, after years of perfecting a nice, normal mask to hide who she really was, she couldn’t fathom taking it off.

Pretending to be a witch on the internet? Easy-peasy. Telling someone she was a real witch in real life? Unthinkable.

Noah clinked his teacup against hers. “To your new job,” he said. “What will you be doing?”

“Tutoring kids.”

“As in teaching?” He looked dubious. “I didn’t know you had any teaching experience.”

“I don’t,” Mika admitted.

“You don’t sound very sure about this.”

“I’m a little nervous,” she said truthfully, “but it’ll be okay. I can deal with my doubts. It’s the kids’ that might be trickier.”

As it happened, doubt was not an adequate word for the way Terracotta Nowhere was feeling. And, as Jamie found out that night, she was more than happy to say so.

“Over my dead body,” she said.

Jamie raised his eyebrows at the apparition standing over him, unimpressed. “And how do you plan to manifest that grisly outcome?”

“Okay,” she said, crossing her arms over her chest and sticking her nose in the air. “We can make it her dead body, then. I actually prefer that option. I can murder her in her sleep on her very first night.”

“We’ve talked about this,” said Jamie mildly. “Murder can’t be your first choice every time you don’t like something.”

“You’ve talked about it,” Terracotta replied. “I still think it’s a good first choice.”