Free Joy of Witchcraft by Mindy Klasky Page A

I still wasn’t prepared for what I saw on his face. I hadn’t expected to see shame .
    Shame, or remorse, or abject apology—the specifics were lost in the hollows beneath his eyes, in the resigned twist of his lips.
    “What?” I asked, moving into the room. Spot shifted with me, and Neko too, but I cast a look at my familiar, a quick shake of my head. He clicked his tongue to get the dog’s attention, and they both retreated to the main basement room. “What are you doing here, David?”
    He braced his arms on the edge of the box. “I need to protect these things,” he said. “The books, the crystals, the runes, all of it.”
    “They’re safe,” I said. “The whole house is safe.”
    He shook his head. “I failed you on Samhain. I couldn’t stop the satyr, couldn’t keep Teresa Alison Sidney from claiming her benefaction. I didn’t keep you safe.”
    “ No one could have kept me safe. You saw the other warders. They did their best, too. Some things are stronger than we are.”
    He shook his head. “That’s not good enough. That’s not who I am.”
    “It’s exactly who you are! You’re not a god, David Montrose. You don’t get to change natural law, to upend the supernatural, just because you want to.”
    “You could have been killed!”
    I started to interrupt him, but I bit back my protest. This all made sense, in some crazy way. This vault was something he had built, something he had mastered. He could control it, control its contents. And Teresa hadn’t discovered it. She hadn’t plundered our treasures. Now David was intent on making everything a treasure. He’d gather together my entire collection; he’d watch over it in the only way he could.
    I wanted to make him stop. He couldn’t swaddle me or my possessions in cotton. He couldn’t keep the world from reaching me, keep me from reaching the world.
    But I held my tongue. Because part of being a witch was knowing what my warder needed. And part of being a woman was knowing what my man needed, my partner, the one I was going to live my life with forever. So, instead of protesting that he was locking the proverbial barn after the horse had fled, I took another tack.
    “All right,” I said.
    “All right?” He didn’t understand. He didn’t have faith in my acceptance.
    “We’ll move the collection. As much of it as we can fit in here. It would be better if we had time for custom-built shelves, but we can make do with the boxes for now. Maybe we should bring down the coffee table from the living room. We can stack books under it and on top. The end tables from the living room, too.”
    David straightened. “There’s a ‘but’ there. What aren’t you telling me?”
    He knew me too well. “But you aren’t doing any more of the work.” I glanced over my shoulder. “Neko? Head over to the barn, please. Tell Caleb and Tony we need their help.”
    “I don’t want strangers doing this,” David said.
    “They’re not strangers. They stood by us at the Mabon working. And we can trust them now.”
    It was hard for him to give in.
    But this time I knew I was right. I said, “I’m not asking you to trust strangers. I understand that you don’t know the new students, you don’t trust their warders. But Caleb and Tony are safe.” I looked back at my hesitating familiar. “Neko,” I said, and I bolstered my command with a nudge along the magical bond between us. He nodded at last and headed for the stairs, snapping his fingers for Spot to come along.
    I took advantage of the privacy to skirt the giant cardboard box. Settling my hand on David’s chest, I spread my fingers to feel the steady beat of his heart. “Thank you,” I said.
    He looked away, but I pressed my free palm against the hard line of his jaw, forcing his gaze back to me. “I mean it,” I said. “Thank you for protecting me. Thank you for keeping me safe.”
    “I didn’t—”
    “You did, though. I’m here, aren’t I? We’re here together.”
    It took