Franny had decided that magic was not so very far from science. Both endeavors searched for meaning where there was none, light in the darkness, answers to questions too difficult for mortals to comprehend.

“He’s not a familiar,” Franny said. “He’s a foundling.”

The kitchen was enormous, with an ancient pine table long enough to seat a dozen and a huge black stove, the sort that hadn’t been sold for decades.

The Grimoire contained instructions on how to craft talismans, amulets, and healing charms.

She’d denied who she was, and when that happens it’s easy enough to become something else entirely, most

Truth felt light and green, but a lie sunk to the floor,

amulets,

No one knew who had fathered her child or could fathom how she came to build such a fine house when she was a woman alone with no apparent means of support.

Here was a repository of a woman’s knowledge, collected and passed on.