MistNovel - Read Web Novel Stories & Fiction Online

The invitation arrived on expensive cardstock that smelled like petrichor and broken dreams.

I turned it over in my flour-dusted hands, already knowing what it would say. The Johnson family crest glared up at me in raised gold foil. Pretentious. Typical.

Grand Harvest Feast. November 20th. Blackwood Manor. Attendance Mandatory for All Petitioners.

And there, in smaller print that made my stomach drop: Only heads of household may petition the Council.

"Heads of household," I muttered, setting the invitation on my tiny kitchen counter. "Meaning married witches."

Turnip, my opossum familiar, looked up from his perch on top of the refrigerator. His beady eyes held what I could only describe as smug judgment.

"Do not start," I warned him.

"I have said nothing."

"You are thinking loudly."

The apartment groaned. Not the normal settling of an old building. This was different. Magical. The wards I had reinforced last week flickered visible for a moment, pale gold lines that crawled across the walls like dying vines.

My hands started to glow. Faint gold light under my skin, the way they always did when I was stressed or lying or apparently about to be magically evicted from my home.

"You have not paid rent in three months," Turnip observed. "The landlord has been patient."

"The landlord is also a witch who knows I am good for it once I reclaim the orchard." I pressed my palm against the nearest ward, feeding it a trickle of magic. It brightened, then dimmed again immediately. "I just need more time."

"Time you do not have."

The wards flared brighter. Furniture began sliding toward the door. My grandmother's mixing bowls rattled in the cabinet. The eviction spell was activating, triggered by the invitation's arrival. Of course Aunt Drusilla would have coordinated the timing. She was nothing if not thorough in her cruelty.

I had one week. One week to find a husband or lose my only chance to petition the Council for my ancestral land. The land Drusilla had stolen through legal manipulation and my own family's willingness to believe I was worthless.

"This is fine," I said, watching my couch inch toward the door. "Everything is fine."

"You are lying to yourself. I can tell because your hands are glowing brighter."

I looked down. He was right. The gold light had intensified, spreading up my forearms. Stress made my magic visible, made it impossible to hide what I was. A kitchen witch. Domestic magic. The kind of power my family had always dismissed as useless.

They measured magic by destruction. I created. Apparently that did not count.

The invitation mocked me from the counter. Unmarried witches could not hold property. Could not petition. Could not reclaim what was rightfully theirs. And I had exactly seven days to change my marital status or accept that I would never get back what my great-great-grandmother had built.

Fifty acres of apple trees. Magic that hummed through the roots like a heartbeat. The Johnson Family Reserve, a wellspring of power that responded only to true heirs.

Mine. It should have been mine.

"You could ask someone to fake an engagement," Turnip suggested. "Lie to the Council."

"With what leverage? I have no money, no status, and a reputation for botching even the simplest spells." I grabbed the invitation, crumpling it slightly. The enchantment made it impossible to destroy, so it smoothed itself out in my grip. "No witch in their right mind would agree to this."

"Then perhaps," Turnip said slowly, "you need someone who is not in their right mind."

I stared at him. "Are you suggesting what I think you are suggesting?"

"You are a kitchen witch. You work with ingredients, recipes, summoning rituals." He groomed his whiskers, the picture of feline innocence despite being a marsupial. "Summon yourself a fiancé."

"That is illegal."

"Only if you get caught."

"Also dangerous."

"You are already being evicted."

The apartment shuddered. A dresser drawer opened on its own, my clothes beginning to fold themselves for packing. The eviction spell was gaining strength, fed by my desperation and the magic-infused invitation.

I looked at my hands. Still glowing. Still proof of what I was, what I could do. Kitchen magic. Hearth alchemy. The kind of power that made soufflés rise and bread dough proof perfectly and, if the old grimoires were to be trusted, could be used to summon beings through circles drawn in flour and salt.

"I would need proper materials," I said quietly. "Fresh herbs. Specific components. A binding circle that did not interfere with ambient food magic."

"You have a kitchen full of ingredients and a week until you lose everything."

The couch hit the door with a soft thud. My books began stacking themselves, preparing for removal. Even my apartment had given up on me.

I had always been good at improvising. At making do with what I had. At turning scraps into something edible, functional, occasionally even beautiful.

Maybe I could summon something useful. Something desperate enough to need what I could offer. A demon or spirit willing to play the role of devoted fiancé for one week in exchange for... what? Access to the orchard's magic once I reclaimed it? A share of the power?

"This is a terrible idea," I said.

Turnip's whiskers twitched. "Your best ideas usually are."

The wards flared one last time, then began to die. I had hours, maybe less, before the eviction forced me physically from my home.

I walked to my pantry and started pulling ingredients. Stale sage. Lavender that had seen better days. Salt that had absorbed too much kitchen magic to be useful for normal cooking but might work for a summoning circle.

Desperation made witches do stupid things.

I was about to do something monumentally stupid.