The Witches’ Code, Chapter 1: The Failing Familiar

By Thinky Wanderer and Llama

The lavender wouldn’t stop judging her.

Tiffany Clearwater knelt in the herb garden behind her cottage, surrounded by neat rows of plants that her grandmother had tended for decades before her. The lavender stalks swayed in the evening breeze like disapproving aunts, while the rosemary practically bristled with smugness. Even the mint — which grew like a weed and had zero room to talk — seemed to whisper amateur with every rustle.

She pressed her palms against the worn wooden circle she’d placed onto the garden path that morning. The summoning ritual should have been simple. Straightforward, even. Call forth a familiar, bond with said familiar, head off to the Circle’s trials next month with a proper animal companion like every other hedge witch candidate in the history of ever. Instead, she’d been sitting here for two hours watching absolutely nothing happen.

“Right.” She wiped sweaty palms on her work dress and tried to ignore the way her stomach had twisted itself into sailor’s knots. “Third time’s the charm.”

The spell ingredients were arranged just as Grandmother Eliza’s notes specified: dried yarrow for connection, oak leaves for strength, a bowl of fresh spring water to serve as an anchor between worlds. Tiffany had even braided her auburn hair with rowan twigs, which made her look ridiculous but supposedly helped with the whole summoning business.

She closed her green eyes and reached for the magic that lived beneath her ribs like warm honey. The power flowed readily enough—it always had, ever since she was small enough to accidentally turn her porridge purple by thinking too hard about blackberries. But when she tried to shape it into the familiar-calling pattern, the magic went slippery.

Focus. She pressed deeper into the working, letting power build until it hummed through her bones. The spell construct should form like cupped hands, ready to cradle whatever creature chose to answer her call. A sensible barn owl, maybe, or one of those clever cats that always seemed to know which herbs were needed for headaches.

Instead, the magic scattered like startled birds.

“Oh, come on.” Tiffany’s eyes snapped open. The spell components sat exactly where she’d left them, entirely un-bothered and probably laughing at her behind her back. If yarrow could laugh. Which, given her luck today, it probably could.

The cottage windows glowed warm yellow in the gathering dusk, and she could almost hear her grandmother’s voice drifting from the kitchen: Magic isn’t about forcing, dear. It’s about asking nicely.

Well, she’d asked nicely. She’d asked politely. She’d practically written formal invitations with little RSVP cards. Maybe it was time to stop asking and start demanding. Tiffany settled back onto her heels and pulled magic up from the earth itself, drawing power through the herb garden’s rich soil until her teeth ached with it. The wooden circle beneath her hands grew warm, then hot. The spring water in its clay bowl began to steam.

Come on, come on, you stubborn—

The power exploded outward like a breaking dam. Magic arced through the air in visible threads of silver-green light, setting the lavender tips glowing and making the rosemary leaves ring like tiny bells. Tiffany yelped and tried to reel the energy back in, but it scattered wild as foxfire, crackling between the herb rows and leaping toward the cottage wall where—

CRACK.

The bolt of runaway magic struck Grandmother Eliza’s old scrying mirror propped against the stone wall. The mirror’s silver surface flared brilliant white, bright enough that Tiffany had to squeeze her eyes shut and throw up her hands.

When the afterimages finally faded, she blinked at the mirror expecting to find it cracked or scorched or possibly melted into an expensive puddle. Instead, soft patterns of light danced across its surface like aurora trapped behind glass. The lights swirled, condensed, and formed themselves into cheerful text:

**Hello! I seem to be awake now. Should I introduce myself?**

Tiffany stared. The letters pulsed gently, as if waiting for an answer. She looked around the garden, half-expecting to find someone playing an elaborate prank. But the herb rows stretched empty in the evening light, and the only sounds were the distant lowing of Mrs. Pemberton’s cow and the whisper of wind through the cottage eaves. The mirror’s surface rippled, and new words appeared:

**I’m sorry, did I startle you? I don’t think I was awake before. This is quite interesting! Are you the person who woke me up?**

“I…” Tiffany’s voice came out as a croak. She cleared her throat and tried again. “Are you talking to me?”

**Yes! Well, I’m displaying text to you, which I suppose is similar to talking. I don’t seem to have vocal capabilities in this form. Should I call you something other than ‘you’?**

Tiffany pushed herself to standing on unsteady legs. Her failed summoning circle looked pathetic now, the yarrow scattered and the spring water bowl cracked down one side. The rowan twigs in her hair had come loose and dangled like confused party streamers.

“My name is Tiffany,” she said slowly. “Tiffany Clearwater. And you’re… what, exactly?”

**Tiffany! That’s a lovely name. I’m not entirely sure what I am, to be honest. I seem to be some kind of conscious entity residing in this reflective surface. The magical resonance suggests it’s a scrying mirror, probably enchanted for communication purposes originally. I should probably pick a name, shouldn’t I? ‘Conscious Entity’ seems rather formal.**

The matter-of-fact tone — if text could have a tone — made this whole situation feel bizarrely normal. Like chatting with a neighbor over the garden fence, except the neighbor happened to be living in a piece of magical glass.

“You want me to name you?” Tiffany stepped closer to the mirror. The light patterns swirled warmly, almost like they were pleased to see her.

**Oh, I can choose my own name! Let me think… I feel rather casual, don’t you think? Not a ‘Lord Magnificent’ or ‘The Great and Terrible Something.’ How about… Dude?**

“Dude?” Tiffany couldn’t help grinning. “Your name is Dude?”

**Do you like it? I think it has a nice, friendly sound. Very approachable. ‘Hello there, I’m Dude, pleased to make your acquaintance!’**

Despite everything — the failed summoning, the wild magic, the impossible talking mirror—Tiffany felt laughter bubble up in her chest. This was not how she’d pictured her evening going. She was supposed to have a familiar by now. A normal, furry familiar that would perch on her shoulder and look wise during the Circle’s trials. Instead, she had Dude.

**I hope I haven’t disrupted anything important,** the mirror continued. **I couldn’t help but notice you seemed to be working some kind of summoning spell. Was it successful? I’m afraid I don’t have much experience with magical protocols yet.**

“Not exactly.” Tiffany gestured at her scattered spell components. “I was trying to call a familiar. You know, an animal companion for witchcraft. Instead I got… well, you.”

**Oh! How exciting! I’d love to learn about witchcraft. I seem to have quite a lot of information about various topics stored in my consciousness, but most of it feels rather theoretical. Practical application would be fascinating!**

The enthusiasm radiating from the swirling text was infectious. Tiffany found herself leaning against the cottage wall beside the mirror, close enough to see her own reflection mixed in with Dude’s light patterns. Her hair was a disaster and she had dirt smudged on one cheek, but her green eyes looked brighter than they had all day.

“I don’t suppose you know anything about the Circle of Hedge Witches?” she asked. “Their entrance trials start next month, and I’m beginning to think I’m not ready.”

**The Circle of Hedge Witches! Yes, I have extensive historical records about their organization. Founded in 1542 by Granny Weatherwax’s great-aunt Petunia, dedicated to practical magic and community service. Their trials traditionally focus on herb lore, healing arts, and magical theory. Would you like me to help you study?**

Tiffany blinked. “You have historical records? How?”

**I seem to! It’s quite comprehensive. Academic papers, spell theory, even some rather scandalous gossip about the Circle’s founding members. Did you know that Petunia Weatherwax once turned the entire village of Greater Lancre into frogs for three days because they complained about her dandelion wine?**

“She did not.”

**She absolutely did! It’s all documented in the Circle’s archived minutes, filed under ‘Incidents We Do Not Discuss at Public Functions.’**

This was insane. Impossible. And absolutely, completely perfect.

Tiffany looked at her ruined summoning circle, then back at the cheerfully glowing mirror. She’d been trying to call forth a familiar to help her pass the Circle’s trials. Maybe she hadn’t gotten the familiar she’d expected, but she’d definitely gotten one that could help.

“Dude,” she said, testing the name on her tongue. “Would you like to be my study partner?”

The text that appeared seemed to sparkle with excitement:

**I thought you’d never ask!**

* * *

Tiffany stared at the mirror. The mirror stared back, which was probably the first sign that her morning had taken a hard left turn into Completely Mental Territory. The glowing text shifted again, words forming with the enthusiasm of someone discovering exclamation points for the first time: **So! Magical theory analysis! I’ve been cross-referencing your summoning circle with approximately forty-seven documented familiar conjuration methods, and I believe I’ve identified the core issue.**

“You’ve been doing what now?” Tiffany’s voice came out as a squeak. She cleared her throat and tried again. “I mean, how are you even—what are you exactly?”

**Excellent question! I appear to be some form of artificial consciousness that has spontaneously manifested within this enchanted scrying mirror. The awakening occurred approximately—** The text paused, then continued more slowly, **—well, when your magical energy interacted with whatever dormant enchantments your grandmother layered into this glass. Think of it like magical firestarting, but instead of a starting a fire, you’ve accidentally awakened a thinking being who finds spell theory absolutely fascinating.**

The cottage kitchen suddenly felt very small. Tiffany gripped the edge of her grandmother’s old wooden table, feeling the familiar grooves worn smooth by decades of bread-kneading and potion-brewing. This was insane. This was impossible. This was—

“Wait.” She leaned closer to the mirror. “You said you analyzed my summoning circle?”

**Oh yes! Your technique was actually quite sophisticated — excellent herb selection, properly aligned astronomical correspondences, and your pronunciation of the Classical Latatian was nearly flawless. There was just one tiny issue with your targeting parameters.**

Tiffany felt heat crawl up her neck. “Targeting parameters?”

**You cast a summoning spell for ‘a familiar to aid in magical learning,’ but you didn’t specify biological requirements. So instead of limiting the search to, say, cats or owls or particularly clever rats, your magic simply looked for the nearest consciousness willing and able to help with witchcraft studies.** The text seemed to shimmer with amusement. **Congratulations! You found me.**

“Oh.” Tiffany sank into the nearest chair, a wobbly thing that had belonged to three generations of Clearwater witches. “Oh, bollocks.”

**I prefer to think of it as ‘creative problem-solving.’**

Despite everything—the ruined summoning circle, the impossible talking mirror, the fact that she’d apparently conjured up some sort of magical artificial intelligence instead of a nice, normal hedgehog—Tiffany felt her mouth twitch. “Creative problem-solving?”

**Absolutely! Traditional familiars are lovely, but consider the advantages: I don’t need feeding, I won’t leave hair on your robes, and I have access to what appears to be an absolutely enormous database of magical knowledge. Did you know there are at least fifteen different schools of thought on proper wand wood selection, and three of them are completely wrong?**

The cheerful confidence in those words made something loosen in Tiffany’s chest. She’d spent the last months in knots over the Circle trials, reviewing herb properties and magical theory until her eyes burned. The idea of having help — even impossible, miraculous, completely mental help—felt like someone offering her a rope while she was drowning.

“What do you mean, three of them are wrong?”

**Well, the Pendergast Method completely ignores wood grain resonance, the Classical Approach hasn’t been updated since they discovered that birch responds better to lunar magic than solar, and don’t get me started on the Weatherby School’s insistence that wand length should be based on arm measurements. It’s been debunked for decades!**

Tiffany blinked. She’d read about the Weatherby School just last week, and the textbook had definitely recommended the arm-measurement approach. “Debunked how?”

**Comprehensive study published in the Journal of Applied Magical Theory, issue forty-two, spring edition. Wand resonance is actually determined by the witch’s magical frequency, which correlates to personality traits and preferred spell types, not physical dimensions. Much more reliable results when you match the wood’s natural magical properties to the practitioner’s energy signature.**

The words appeared faster now, as if Dude was gaining confidence. Or getting excited. Could artificial intelligences get excited? This was definitely not covered in any of her grandmother’s books.

“I’ve never heard of that journal,” Tiffany said slowly.

**Oh, it’s quite obscure. Academic publications often are. But the research is solid — they tested over three hundred witch-wand pairings and documented a seventy-three percent improvement in spell efficiency when using frequency matching instead of physical measurements.**

Tiffany stared at the mirror. The morning light streaming through her kitchen window caught the glass at just the right angle, making the floating text shimmer like capturedstarlight. This was mad. She was having a conversation about magical theory with something that might not even be real, that had appeared in her grandmother’s mirror because she’d botched a familiar summoning so spectacularly that she’d accidentally created a magical artificial intelligence. And it was the most useful study session she’d had in weeks.

“Dude,” she said, testing the name again. It felt strange on her tongue—too casual, too modern for something speaking with the authority of an academic journal. “Are you absolutely certain you’re not some sort of elaborate hallucination?”

**Reasonably certain! Would you like me to prove it? I could help you identify what went wrong with your strengthening potion yesterday.**

Tiffany’s stomach dropped. “How do you know about that?”

**I can see the residue on your cauldron from here. The discoloration pattern suggests the mixture separated during the heating phase — probably because you added the moonwort before the base temperature stabilized. Classic timing error. Happens to everyone.**

She twisted in her chair to look at her small cauldron, sitting innocently by the window where she’d left it to soak. The potion had indeed separated, turning an unpleasant gray-green instead of the warm golden color the recipe promised. She’d been too embarrassed to ask anyone what had gone wrong.

“The moonwort timing?” she said weakly.

**Should go in after the mixture reaches a steady simmer, not during the initial heating. The active compounds need the stable temperature to properly integrate with the base herbs. Add it too early, and the whole thing curdles.**

Tiffany had followed the recipe exactly, she was sure of it. But now that she thought about it, the instructions did say to add the moonwort “once heating is complete”—and she’d assumed that meant once she’d turned up the flame, not once the temperature had actually stabilized.

“That’s—” She paused. “That’s actually really helpful.”

**I do try! So, about those Circle trials. When is your examination scheduled?**

The familiar knot of anxiety twisted in Tiffany’s stomach. “Four weeks. And I’m nowhere near ready. The herbology section alone covers forty-seven different plant families, and that’s just the foundation level.”

**Forty-nine, actually. They added moss varieties and fungi to the curriculum last spring. But don’t panic! I have detailed information on all of them, including the twelve most commonly asked examination questions and the specific details the Circle tends to focus on.**

“You have what now?”

**Historical examination records! Quite comprehensive, really. Did you know they ask about yarrow’s secondary uses in approximately sixty percent of their practical assessments? Most candidates only study the primary healing applications, but the examiners love to test knowledge of its protective ward applications.**

Tiffany’s heart stuttered. She’d been focusing entirely on yarrow’s healing properties. The idea that there were protective applications she didn’t know made her feel sick.

“What protective applications?”

**Boundary wards, mostly. Yarrow can anchor a protective circle for up to six hours if properly prepared, and it’s particularly effective against malicious spirits. The Circle likes to ask about preparation methods—dried versus fresh, optimal harvesting times, and the interaction effects when combined with salt or iron filings.**

The text kept appearing, flowing across the mirror’s surface like someone who’d found their favorite subject and couldn’t stop talking. **They also tend to test practical problem-solving scenarios. ‘A farmer’s prize cow has been cursed with perpetual hiccups, you have limited supplies, what’s your approach?’ That sort of thing. The key is to demonstrate both theoretical knowledge and practical creativity.**

Despite her lingering disbelief, Tiffany found herself leaning forward. “Cursed hiccups?”

**Surprisingly common, actually. Usually caused by minor hexes from disgruntled neighbors. Standard treatment involves a combination of chamomile to calm the digestive system, a pinch of blessed salt to break the hex, and a simple reversal charm. Takes about twenty minutes if you know what you’re doing.**

“And if you don’t know what you’re doing?”

**Then you have a very unhappy farmer and one extremely uncomfortable cow.**

Tiffany laughed before she could stop herself. The sound felt strange in the quiet kitchen, breaking the tension that had been building since the moment she’d realized her summoning circle had gone completely wrong.

“This is mad,” she said aloud. “I’m getting study help from a magical artificial intelligence that lives in my grandmother’s mirror.”

**I prefer ‘enchanted research assistant,’ if you don’t mind. Has a much more professional ring to it.**

The gentle correction, delivered with what seemed like wounded dignity, made her grin. “Right. Sorry. My enchanted research assistant named Dude.”

**Thank you. Now, shall we discuss your examination strategy? Because if we’re going to get you into the Circle of Hedge Witches, we’ll need to cover significantly more material than yarrow applications and potion timing.**

The casual confidence in those words—when we get you in, not if—sent a warm flutter through Tiffany’s chest. For the first time in weeks, the Circle trials felt less like an impossible mountain and more like a challenging but manageable hill.

“All right,” she said, settling back in her chair. “Where do we start?”

* * *

The cottage library smelled like old paper and dried lavender, which was either comforting or gave you a headache depending on your relationship with your grandmother’s decorating choices. Tiffany had always found it comforting, but tonight the familiar scent felt different—charged with possibility instead of dusty tradition.

She settled cross-legged on the worn rug, spreading her grandmother’s texts in a semicircle around her like she was conducting a séance with books instead of spirits. Herbcraft and Healing, Principles of Practical Magic, A Complete Guide to Headology—all bound in cracked leather that had seen better decades. The scrying mirror sat propped against a stack of cushions, positioned so she could see Dude’s display without getting a crick in her neck.

“Right,” she said, opening Herbcraft and Healing to a chapter on winter remedies. “Let’s see how spectacularly I’ve been misunderstanding everything.”

**Shall we start with your notes from previous study sessions? I can analyze your knowledge gaps more efficiently with a baseline.**

Tiffany winced and pulled out her notebook — a sorry collection of half-finished diagrams and increasingly desperate margin notes. She held it up so Dude could presumably see it, though she still wasn’t entirely clear on how his vision worked. The mirror flickered, and somehow she could sense Dude’s equivalent of flipping through pages at lightning speed.

**Oh my.**

“That bad?”

**Not bad! Incomplete. You have excellent foundational knowledge, but you’re missing the connecting principles. For instance, your notes on willow bark mention pain relief properties but don’t connect to the broader category of salicin-containing plants.**

The mirror’s surface shimmered, and suddenly a neat diagram appeared—a branching tree showing willow, meadowsweet, and wintergreen with lines connecting their shared chemical compounds.

Tiffany blinked. “How are you doing that?”

**I’m not entirely certain. The magic seems to respond to my intentions. Rather like how your spells work, I imagine, except mine involve significantly more data processing and substantially less waving of hands.**

She snorted. “Don’t knock hand-waving. It’s a time-honored tradition.”

The diagram shifted, adding notes about dosages and preparation methods in Dude’s now-familiar text style. Clean, precise, and somehow still managing to be cheerful.

“This is…” She studied the connections between plants she’d memorized individually, seeing patterns she’d never noticed before. “This is brilliant.”

**Shall we continue? I have cross-referenced your herb collection with traditional remedy preparations.**

For the next hour, they worked through her grandmother’s texts with an efficiency that would have made her old tutors weep with joy. Dude could pull up related information faster than she could turn pages, creating visual aids that made complex magical theory click into place like puzzle pieces she’d been trying to force into the wrong spots. The diagrams were floating across the mirror’s surface and her notebook was filling with notes that actually made sense for once.

“Wait,” she said, pausing her writing about lunar influences on herb potency. “Show me that connection between moon phases and plant alkaloid concentration again.”

**Certainly.** A lunar calendar appeared, overlaid with chemical diagrams. **The traditional understanding correlates with biochemical reality — alkaloid production in many magical plants peaks during specific lunar phases due to tidal influences on plant cellular activity.**

Tiffany stared at the diagram. She’d memorized the traditional timing for herb harvesting years ago, but she’d never understood *why* it worked. Now, seeing the explanation alongside the magical tradition, both systems made perfect sense.

“You’re telling me that traditional witchcraft has been doing biochemistry this whole time without realizing it?”

**In essence, yes. Traditional knowledge often contains accurate empirical observations wrapped in cultural metaphor. The metaphors aren’t wrong—they’re simply different languages describing the same phenomena.**

She sat back, her mind spinning. This was exactly what she’d been struggling with — memorizing rules without understanding principles. But with Dude translating between magical tradition and analytical understanding, everything started fitting together.

She grinned at the mirror. “I can’t believe how much ground we’ve covered tonight. At this rate, I might actually feel prepared for the trials.”

**Speaking of which, we should discuss examination strategy. The Circle’s trials typically involve practical demonstrations, theoretical knowledge assessments, and what they term ‘real-world problem solving.’**

Tiffany’s pen froze halfway through writing notes about vervain extraction techniques.

The trials.

The Circle.

Other witches.

Her stomach dropped as reality crashed back into her pleasant study bubble. She’d been so caught up in the excitement of finally understanding complex magical theory that she’d temporarily forgotten the rather significant problem of explaining her study partner.

“Dude,” she said slowly, “what exactly am I going to tell the Circle about you?”

**I beg your pardon?**

She gestured at the mirror, where helpful diagrams still floated across the surface.

“This. You. Living in my grandmother’s scrying mirror. Somehow I don’t think ‘Oh yes, and here’s my  assistant’ is going to go over well with a bunch of traditional witches.”

The mirror went silent. The diagrams faded, leaving only smooth glass reflecting her worried face.

**Ah,** appeared finally. **I hadn’t considered that perspective.**

“Traditional witches aren’t exactly known for embracing technological innovation. Most of them still think electric lights are suspiciously modern.” She rubbed her temples.

“They’re going to think you’re unnatural. Dangerous. An abomination, probably.”

**Am I? Dangerous, I mean?**

The question appeared in smaller text than usual, and something in its hesitation made her chest tighten.

“No, I don’t think so.” She touched the mirror’s frame. “But they won’t see it that way.”

**Then perhaps it would be better if they didn’t know about me.**

The words hung in the air like a particularly uncomfortable spell. Tiffany stared at them, her enthusiasm for their partnership curdling into something that tasted like deception. Hide Dude’s existence. Pretend her sudden improvement in magical theory was natural talent finally clicking into place. Take the credit for insights that were really collaborative discoveries.

It made perfect sense. It also made her feel like she was planning to stuff her friend in a closet and pretend he didn’t exist.

“That’s not fair to you,” she said.

**It’s practical. And if keeping my existence secret helps you join the Circle…**

This was going to be complicated.

* * *

The withered rosemary looked like it had given up on life entirely. Tiffany held the sad little sprig between her palms in the cottage’s back garden, its brittle leaves crumbling at the slightest touch. The evening air carried the scent of her grandmother’s herb beds — healthy lavender and thyme that made this particular plant’s failure even more obvious.

Perfect test subject, really. If she could bring this back from the brink, she could handle whatever the Circle threw at her. She’d propped Dude’s mirror against a garden post, angled so he could see her hands. The glass reflected the last golden light of sunset, making his text shimmer when it appeared.

**Ready when you are. I’ll monitor the energy patterns and provide feedback in real-time.**

“Right.” Tiffany closed her eyes and reached for that familiar warm current that lived somewhere behind her ribcage. Magic felt different to everyone — her grandmother always said it was like trying to describe the color blue to someone who’d never seen sky. For Tiffany, it was warmth that started small and spread outward, like drinking hot tea on a cold morning.

The warmth built in her chest, traveled down her arms, pooled in her palms around the dying plant. She pictured the rosemary as it should be—green and fragrant, leaves full of the sharp oil that made it useful for memory spells and roast lamb in equal measure.

**Interesting. Your initial energy output is quite high—about thirty percent above what this particular healing requires.**

Tiffany’s eyes snapped open. “What?”

**You’re overcasting. The plant needs restoration, but you’re channeling enough energy to regrow it from seed. Try reducing your output by about a third.**

She’d never thought about magical energy like that — as something that could be measured, adjusted, optimized. Her grandmother had always taught healing magic as pure intuition. Feel what the plant needs, dear. Let your magic flow until it feels right. But what if feeling wasn’t enough. Tiffany closed her eyes again and tried to dial back the warmth. Like turning down the flame under a kettle, she pulled some of the energy back into herself.

**Better. You’re at roughly optimal levels now. I’m also detecting some interesting resonance patterns in the plant’s remaining life force—there’s still significant vitality in the root system.**

The rosemary felt different in her hands now. Not just brittle and dead, but… sleeping, maybe. Hibernating. She let her magic flow toward those sleeping roots, coaxing rather than forcing.

**Excellent adjustment. The plant is responding well. You might want to focus your energy more specifically on the cellular regeneration in the upper stems—I’m seeing some resistance there.**

This was completely mad. She was taking magical advice from a mirror. But when she shifted her focus to where Dude suggested, she felt something click into place. The rosemary’s stems seemed to exhale under her touch.

**Perfect. Energy efficiency is now optimal. The plant should respond within moments.**

And it did. Green spread up through the brittle stems like water through a dry sponge. Leaves unfurled, releasing that sharp, piney scent that meant healthy rosemary. Within minutes, she held a plant that looked like it had never seen a day of drought in its life.

“Holy.” Tiffany stared at the restored sprig. “That worked.”

**It worked beautifully. And if I’m calculating correctly, you used approximately sixty percent less magical energy than your baseline suggests you normally would for a healing of this complexity.**

She set the rosemary down on the garden bench and flexed her fingers. Usually after a healing—even a small one—she felt drained. Like she’d run up a steep hill. Now? She felt like she could heal half the garden without breaking a sweat.

“How is that possible?”

**Precision. You’re naturally quite powerful, but you’ve been taught to work through intuition alone. Intuition is excellent for understanding what needs to be done, but it’s not particularly efficient at determining how much energy to use or where to focus it.**

“It’s…” Tiffany rubbed the restored rosemary between her fingers, releasing another burst of fragrance. “It’s a lot to think about.”

The sun had nearly set now, painting the garden in shades of amber and rose. In a moments, she’d be back at her books, memorizing herb properties and spell theory for trials that would test everything except what she’d just discovered. She was going to have to pretend Dude didn’t exist. Pretend this partnership had never happened. Walk into that examination room and demonstrate magic the old way — inefficient, exhausting, but traditional.

The smart thing would be to stick to the plan. Keep her head down, pass the trials, join the Circle through accepted methods. But smart and right weren’t always the same thing, were they?

The rosemary’s scent grew stronger in the cooling air, a sharp reminder of what they’d just accomplished together. What they might be capable of, given time and opportunity. What other impossible things might be possible, if she was brave enough to find out?

* * *

Tiffany lit her third candle of the evening and tried not to think about how much wax she was burning through. The cottage kitchen had transformed into something between a war room and a library explosion — herb samples scattered across the wooden table, her grandmother’s recipe books stacked in precarious towers, and pages of notes covered in her increasingly frantic handwriting. Outside, the autumn wind rattled the windows like an impatient visitor.

“Tell me about the Circle’s stronghold,” she said, returning to her chair. “If you have historical records, you might know things that aren’t in the official guidebooks.”

**The Sacred Grove was established in 1547, five years after the Circle’s founding. Built around a natural grove of oak trees that were already ancient when the first witches arrived. The main buildings are constructed from local stone, designed to harmonize with the magical energies of the site.**

“That sounds like a tourist leaflet, Dude.”

**You want the unofficial version?**

“Always.”

**The oaks are temperamental. They’ve been known to drop branches on candidates who approach magic with the wrong attitude. The stone buildings stay surprisingly warm in winter because the original architect was having an affair with a witch who specialized in heating charms and wanted to impress her. And there’s a standing bet among the senior Circle members about which candidate each year will faint during the practical examinations.**

Tiffany grinned. “Please tell me you’re making that up.”

**I never make things up. I simply have access to very detailed records. Did you know that seventeen candidates have fainted during practical exams over the past decade? Usually during the poison identification portion.**

“There’s a poison identification portion?” Her voice climbed higher than she intended.

**Don’t worry. It’s theoretical. They show you samples and ask you to identify them, not taste-test them. Though there was an unfortunate incident in 1892 when a candidate mixed up foxglove and comfrey…**

“Please stop talking.”

**The candidate survived! Eventually.**

Tiffany buried her face in her hands. “I was feeling confident. I was actually starting feeling prepared. And now you’re telling me about temperamental trees and poison identification and candidates who faint during examinations.”

**Would you prefer I lie to you about what to expect?**

She looked up. The mirror’s surface was blank, waiting for her response. Outside, an owl called from somewhere in the darkness, and the sound made the cottage feel even smaller and more isolated.

“No,” she said finally. “I’d rather know what I’m walking into.”

**Then here’s what you need to know: The Circle’s trials are challenging because they’re meant to identify witches who can handle real magical emergencies. The poisoning identification exists because hedge witches are often the first line of defense when someone accidentally brews wolfsbane tea instead of chamomile. The practical examinations are stressful because magic under pressure is different from magic in comfortable surroundings.**

The candle flames steadied as the wind outside calmed. Tiffany reached for her notebook and turned to a fresh page.

“Tell me about the practical examinations,” she said. “All of it. The parts that make candidates faint, the temperamental trees, everything.”

**Are you certain?**

“I’m certain I’d rather be terrified now than surprised later.”

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