Page 98 of This Witch Is Not Wicked

Harriet’s eyes welled with tears. “Her parents died in an attack on Fairwitch Isle a few years ago. That’s when Fiona came to live with me and Maya. She was my brother’s daughter. We did our best, but so much of her light dimmed with them gone. Then we came here, and she met you, and something about you brought her back to life. She’d come home every day talking about this Enid and how smart she was and how funny she was and how much she wanted to be just like her.”

My own eyes welled with tears. Fiona wanted to be like me?

Harriet gave a small shrug. “You brought our little girl back. I can’t thank you enough.”

Everyone else was nodding along in agreement, and my heart swelled. These women didn’t even know me that well, yet they’d come here today to comfort me. To be my . . . friends.

“I just don’t know if Nevan wants the real me,” I said. “He doesn’t know certain things about my past.”

“Has what you’ve shown him about yourself been real?” Harriet asked.

“Well, yes, but⁠—”

“We all have baggage.” Sorrow flashed in Niamh’s eyes, making me think she was reliving some of her own. “Things we don’t want anyone to know.” She swallowed. “So tell Nevan.”

My pulse spiked. I wanted to tell him. I wanted to be honest with him, but I was scared.

“You’re already broken up,” Niamh said. “So be honest with Nevan about whatever you’re holding back. What’s the worst that can happen?”

He could betray me, reveal my secret, hurt me even more than I was already hurting.

Then again, I wasn’t sure I could hurt any more than this. I’d been alive thousands of years, and this was the worst pain I’d ever felt. If Nevan reacted badly, I had options. I could go to Kiln Mountain. I could go to the Otherworld.

“I think the real question you have to ask yourself,” Ceri said, “is will it be worth it?”

Was Nevan worth the risk?

I looked over at the teacup that Nevan had left yesterday, now empty after I drank the ginger tea he’d brought me along with that delicious little cake.

The answer to Ceri’s question was surprisingly easy.

Yes. Yes, it was worth the risk. It could all go very, very wrong, but it could also go right, and I’d take that chance every time for Nevan.

I looked at the women surrounding me. Maybe I wouldn’t just take the chance for Nevan, but for this. For all of it.

I wanted to have a different ending than Merry, but if I didn’t fight for it, I’d never get it.

I stood and got out of bed, my feet meeting the cold floorboards. “I have to go,” I said.

They all erupted into cheers, and I rolled my eyes. “Don’t get too excited yet.”

I dashed toward the stairs.

“Where are you going?” Niamh called.

I didn’t even look over my shoulder as I shouted, “To find Nevan.”

CHAPTER 39

Nevan

Ipaced back and forth in my lab.

Cillian’s head laid on the table, cushioned by his arms, only his immaculate dark hair visible. “Flowers?” he asked in a tired voice.

“No,” I said. “You already suggested that an hour ago.”

Wolfe leaned against the stone wall, gritting out, “Well, if you hadn’t rejected every single one of our suggestions, maybe we wouldn’t have to cycle through them again.”