Any Witch Way (The Witch Next Door Book 3)

by Judith Berens

  After a sniff, he took another deep breath and continued to chew. “If you guys are gonna throw spells around all night, I think I’ll keep these with me.”

  “Wait. Do you eat those?” Rosalía pointed at the plastic bag.

  “Yeah.” He chuckled. “They’re actually—”

  “What are you doing? Are you crazy?” The girl leapt to her feet and hurried toward him. “Spit it out! That’ll kill you.” She swiped frantically at his mouth, but he caught her tiny wrist in his hand and leaned away.

  “Woah, woah, woah. Hold on. It’s okay. I know they’re poisonous.” The girl froze, stared at him, and took a sharp breath. Then he remembered having been left out of Lily’s translation spell and repeated everything for her in Spanish while he nodded to reassure her and held her gaze. She continued to look at him like he was crazy.

  “Come sit down.” Lily nodded at the floor, and Rosalía lowered her arm slowly and scowled first at Romeo, then at the bag of purple flowers on the center console. But she turned and went back to where she’d sat across from Lily. “It’s wolfsbane. The flowers. You obviously know that.”

  Rosalía nodded, leaned toward the woman, and whispered, “So why is he eating it?”

  “Well, ironically, wolfsbane isn’t actually poisonous to werewolves. It’s more like a—”

  “He’s a werewolf?”

  Romeo laughed again, his eyes much clearer now. “Yup.”

  The girl squinted at him. “He doesn’t look like a werewolf.”

  “Hey—”

  “Aren’t you supposed to be…hairier?”

  Lily snorted and he said something flippant in Spanish before she raised an eyebrow at him. He shrugged. “Sorry. I only said I’m really hairy as a wolf.” He flashed her a goofy grin and she shook her head.

  “He’s also allergic to magic, basically. Especially if there’s too much of it or it’s really strong.”

  Rosalía frowned. “What I did was really easy.”

  “Well, there are many witches who would find that difficult to do. You clearly have a…special skill.”

  “Not like what you did to those…people.” The girl might as well have spat again given the way she mentioned them. “That’s real magic.”

  “It’s all real magic, Rosalía.”

  “I know. Mine is only making things grow. Yours is about strength.”

  Lily shrugged. “Not all of it. Only a few things.”

  “That’s what I want to learn.” The girl’s dark eyes glittered as she spoke and her face lit up at the possibility of learning how to do things that had taken her teacher years of training with her mom.

  And I still don’t know everything. “Why?”

  The child simply stared as if unable to understand why anyone would ask the question. “To make my people strong.”

  “Oh.” She nodded slowly and tried to hide her surprise. “Yeah, that’s…that’s a good reason.” She glanced at Romeo, who looked a little confounded and scratched the back of his neck. “So you and I can start with something small too, okay?”

  The girl smiled. “Okay.”

  “Something like what you tried to do inside the…van.”

  Rosalía sat up straighter and nodded. “I almost did it. Well, I know it wasn’t exactly right. But you saw it, so it worked. Mostly.”

  “Yeah, I assumed that wasn’t an accident.” Lily took a deep breath. “Let’s start with the light, then. This was one of my first spells too. And you can’t hurt anyone with it, so—”

  “That’s why I tried to do some—” Rosalía thrust her hands out, then quickly retracted them and offered a sheepish smile. “Something that pushes, right? I want to do both of those, so I…” Her mouth hung open when she noticed the woman’s eyebrow raised in warning. “Sorry.”

  “We’ll start with the light. Close your eyes. Now, imagine a tiny, tiny spark in the center of your palm.” Romeo shifted in his chair and she turned to look at him.

  He retrieved the plastic bag of wolfsbane flowers, opened it, and leaned forward to whisper, “I’m only trying to stay ahead of the game, here. Is it weird that this kinda feels like eating popcorn at a movie?”

  Their faces were so close together, she only had to lean toward him less than an inch to press her nose against his. “Yep. Very weird.” She smirked, then focused on her newly acquired apprentice. “Only a spark, Rosalía.”

  Eleven

  Two hours later, the girl had reached the point of summoning an orb of light the size of an apple and raising it out of her hand, but that was as far as she got. Every time the light left her palm, it hovered in the air for three seconds at the most before it winked out. The last time it happened, Rosalía growled in frustration and blinked heavy eyelids.

  “You know, I think that’s enough for tonight.”

  “No!” She straightened again where she sat and shook her head. “No, I want to do more. I can.”

  “I know you can.” Lily tilted her head and fixed her with a firm look. “But it’s late and you’re not gonna be able to focus the way you need to if you’re this tired.”

  “I’m not. I can stay up.”

  Romeo forced a cough and she knew it was because he tried not to laugh.

  “But you won’t,” she said. “We’re done for now. You can practice again in the morning.”

  Rosalía clenched her eyes shut with a fierce frown but she didn’t say anything else.

  Yeah, I know exactly what you feel right now, kid. And I suddenly have a whole new appreciation for the way Mom trained me. She leaned forward and rubbed the girl’s arm gently. “You did a great job.”

  “I didn’t do anything.”

  “Well, you can choose to believe that if you want to. Or you can choose to believe that I won’t lie to you.” That caught her apprentice witch’s attention and the girl stared at her through bleary eyes and looked ten times more exhausted than she had thirty seconds before. “I can make you that promise, at least. If you’re really not getting something, I won’t tell you ‘good job’ simply so it doesn’t hurt your feelings.”

  “You promise?”

  “Absolutely.”

  Rosalía gave her a tired smile and heaved a massive sigh from her tiny chest. “Okay. Maybe I am a little tired.”

  Romeo laughed softly and stood from the armchair. “It’s probably time for everyone to go to bed, right?”

  Lily nodded. “Hey, I found those blankets.”

  He frowned at her. “What blankets.”

  “The ones I was looking for the first night you…stayed in the Winnie. When you slept on the couch.” She tried not to look at Rosalía, because now it seemed a little awkward talking about where everyone was sleeping in front of a kid.

  “Oh…right. First night on the road. When we stopped to camp in Pennsylvania, right?”

  “I think so.” She pushed from the floor and tucked her hair behind her ears. “I’m gonna go get those.” Nodding, she glanced at the girl and stepped down the hall toward the tiny box of a room barely wide enough to fit a stacked washer and dryer. Even on her tiptoes and propped against the dryer, she couldn’t quite reach the extra folded sheets and blankets on the top shelf. With a sigh, she flicked her fingers toward herself and the blankets tumbled into her arms. “Okay, we can probably—oh.”

  Out of all the things that hadn’t woken him—Romeo sneezing, Rosalía screaming in panic about him eating the wolfsbane, the laughter and constant conversation right in front of him—the kid had apparently chosen now as the best time to stir from his heavy sleep on the couch and head to the bathroom. She narrowly avoided bowling him over as he slipped into the bathroom, his eyes still mostly closed, and slid the door shut behind him.

  “Well, I was gonna say we can simply put some blankets on the couch as it is, but now might be a good time to pull out the bed. Right?”

  Romeo shrugged. “Sure.”

  Rosalía helped them haul all the cushions off the couch and stack them neatly on the floor behind the dri
ver’s seat. Lily pulled out the mattress on its retractable frame, and Romeo covered it with sheets and a thin blanket. The minute the pull-out bed was made, Filipe stepped out of the bathroom.

  “Oh. I…don’t think I have any extra pillows. But there’s a—”

  The boy walked past her, his skinny arms dangling by his sides and almost swallowed by the huge gray t-shirt. He climbed onto the bed, wiggled under the covers, turned away from them, and fell asleep.

  “We don’t need any pillow.” Rosalía smiled and shook her head. “That bed looks really comfortable.” She bit her lip and glanced from one adult to the other. “Thank you.”

  “Absolutely.”

  “Yeah, no problem.” Romeo scratched his head. “I’m…gonna open the windows.” He moved through the RV to do that and squeezed past Lily in what little room was left between the end of the pull-out bed and the spinning armchair.

  “I guess, if you need anything…” She glanced around. It’s not like I need to give them a tour. “Help yourself, okay? Bathroom. Water. Food, even. Whatever.”

  “Okay.” The girl had slipped her legs under the sheets beside her twin brother and sat there, smiling at the witch and the werewolf who’d saved them from being delivered to Oaxaca and who knew what else. “Goodnight.”

  “‘Night, kid.” Romeo winked at her and shuffled past Lily again, putting his hands briefly on her shoulders.

  “Goodnight.” Lily smiled and followed him into the bedroom.

  “Oh, wait.”

  “Yeah?”

  Rosalía leaned forward over the blankets in her lap and took a deep breath. “I only wanted to say…I’m glad you found us.” She nodded curtly at them, which was an oddly adult thing to do in that moment.

  Lily’s stomach tied itself into a small, hard knot. “So are we.” She flipped off the lights in the short hallway and stepped into the back. Romeo waited for her inside the bedroom door, propped with both arms against the doorframe. He stepped aside to let her in, then quietly slid the door closed. With a huge sigh, she turned beside the bed and let herself fall back onto the mattress. “Oh, man,” she whispered.

  “I know.” He stepped out of his sneakers and walked around the bed before he fell backward onto it in the same way.

  She giggled when it bounced beneath his weight and turned her head to see his face upside down next to hers. Then, her smile faded. “You know, out of all the things we’ve gone through on this trip, I think today was the hardest.”

  “Yeah.” His gaze roamed over her face. “But we got them out of there. And tomorrow, they’ll be back home with their family again.”

  “I can’t even imagine.” She closed her eyes briefly. “Is there anyone we can call?”

  “Rosalía said it’s like an hour-and-a-half walk from her village to the nearest phone. And she hasn’t been there and doesn’t know a number to call anyway. I don’t think she’s actually used a phone before.”

  “Well, she knows enough about them to destroy one.” She sighed again and dragged her hands down the sides of her face. “And she obviously doesn’t want anyone to feel sorry for her, which I totally understand. That’s the hardest part, I think. Trying to act like everything’s okay when it clearly isn’t. They were kidnapped. To be sold.”

  “I know.”

  “Like where’s the middle ground between making sure those kids know that what happened to them wasn’t their fault and wasn’t okay and not traumatizing them any more than they already are?” She frowned and turned her head again to look at him.

  “Well, I’m very sure we made it perfectly clear that it wasn’t their fault or okay. Two strangers found them in a van, roughed up their kidnappers, and left those assholes zip-tied and unconscious without phones or keys. Who knows how long it would’ve taken the cops to get there, ask all their questions, and take the kids in. That aside, they could be sleeping in a holding cell right now and probably without anyone willing to head out with them first thing tomorrow morning to take them home. And most likely without the most powerful witch they’ve ever seen sticking around to teach them a few extra spells.”

  Lily’s laugh felt bitter. “I totally agree with you on all those points. Minus me being the most powerful witch.” He smiled and ran his fingers through her hair. “I was talking about how we handled it after that, though. For the most part, everything felt so…normal, I guess. Giving them dry clothes and making dinner and sitting around—even laughing at random things.” She sighed. “It feels… I dunno. Are we doing this wrong?”

  Romeo chuckled softly and shook his head. “I think the only wrong way to rescue someone is to not rescue them at all, Lil. And kids are tough. If anyone knows that, we do, right?” She rolled her eyes but nodded. “What they need is food, a place to sleep, someone who can keep them safe, and to get home to their parents. We’re checking all the boxes.”

  “It doesn’t feel like enough.”

  “Yeah. It probably won’t.”

  She studied his green eyes, which still seemed to glow under the two small lights in the alcove behind the bed. “That’s what I mean. What makes it so hard, though, is there’s no…way to fix it.”

  He looked a little thoughtful, then sucked in a breath and sat up on the bed, straightened his legs, and patted them. “Come here.”

  “What?”

  “Come on.”

  Lily sat slowly with a skeptical smile, and with an exaggerated swoop of his hands, he gestured to his lap again. She rolled over, pushed herself up, and crawled into his lap to loop her legs around his waist.

  He laced his fingers at the small of her back and met her gaze. “You can find solutions and fix almost anything. And if it doesn’t work the first time, you keep one-upping yourself to be better. To be the best, right? Do it the best way.” She simply stared at him, wondering where this was going, and draped her arms over his shoulders. “With some things, though—like what happened to those kids—the best anyone can ever do is to make it better. When someone’s not actually broken, there’s nothing to fix so better is all we have.”

  She wrinkled her nose. “Yeah, I have a really hard time with good enough.”

  “I know you do.”

  “I thought about making them forget the whole thing with a mind-wipe. Then they wouldn’t have to live the rest of their lives with trying to block out the last…however many days.”

  At that, he shook his head firmly. “And they’d live the rest of their lives not remembering anything about the people who cared enough about them to do something about it.” He smirked. “Honestly, they’d probably be terrified of us if they woke up in this RV with the two of us, hours away from their village, wondering why the heck their parents were smiling and totally cool with us when we take them back.”

  Lily grimaced a little sheepishly. “I guess I didn’t think that one through all the way.”

  “Yeah.” His fingers slipped under the bottom of her tank top.

  “It’s a good thing I was too busy with a new apprentice to think about it.”

  “Yeah.” He slid his hands up her back and unhooked her bra.

  “You probably would’ve stopped me, anyway.”

  He nodded, pulled her closer, and pressed his lips to her neck. She sighed and ran her fingers through his curls.

  “You know, she’s actually incredibly talented. It took me at least a month to learn how to summon that light and command it the way I wanted to. I bet she’ll get it in—” He pressed his forehead into her shoulder and began to laugh. “What?”

  When he looked at her, he grinned and raised his eyebrows. “Can we stop talking about the kids on the couch? And magic? For at least a little while.”

  “Sorry.” She grinned and bit her lip. “Yeah. No more talking.”

  “Thank you.” He started another line of kisses under her collarbone, and she pulled his face toward her to kiss him. She gasped when he tightened his arm around her and rolled over with her still in his lap. In the next moment, she was on her back a
nd his lips trailed down her neck to the collar of her tank top. He jerked the hem of her shirt up and slid down the bed to continue the kisses down her ribs, past her belly button and lower.

  The bedroom door slid open with a rumble and banged against the end of the sliding track. Romeo leapt off her with a sharp breath, and Lily lurched onto one hand while the other summoned a burst of flames—literally the only thing that came to mind. The flare of light revealed a very small form in the doorway.

  “Filipe?”

  The boy stood there and stared at them with half-closed eyes. “La cama es demasiado mullida.” He shuffled forward into the bedroom, lowered himself onto his knees, and curled in a ball on the floor at the foot of the bed.

  Romeo uttered a surprised chuckle. “He speaks.”

  “What’s going on?” she whispered.

  He propped himself up with both hands on the bed behind him and turned to look at her. “Apparently, the pull-out bed’s too soft.”

  “Too—” She snorted and managed to choke down anything louder than that. “So we’re gonna let him sleep on the floor?”

  “Well, we’re making it better, right?” He sniggered and pulled his shirt over his head before he dropped it gently on the other side of the bed. “I don’t know how many times I’ll actually get to say this…” He scooted back until he could lift the covers and slide under them. “But now it’s kind of a good thing you were talking so much.”

  Her mouth dropped open and he flinched away when she slapped playfully at his feet beneath the blankets. He hissed out a laugh, and she crawled up toward the head of the bed before she snapped her bra quickly back in place. She straightened her tank top and crawled under the covers with him. “And I don’t know how many times that’ll actually be funny.”