Sorcery and the Single Girl by Mindy Klasky Page A

stayed up past midnight in a long time.”
    Either of them. So Gran was in on the silent conspiracy as well. Anger rose up in my chest, competing incongruously with another yawn.
    Apparently oblivious to my distress, Haylee went on, “I suppose it’s possible that we all drew the wrong conclusion. We might have been thrown by neither of them having a familiar.”
    Well, of course, neither one had a familiar. Neither one had known she was a witch until I’d spilled the beans last year. And it wasn’t as if Gran or Clara could have marched into Macy’s to snatch up a magical helpmeet or two.
    Familiars, I knew from my reading in the past year, were only created with the expense of a great deal of magical energy. When a particularly gifted witch died, she could encapsulate her power in an animal, feeding her spectral energy into its body, storing the raw stuff of magic for other witches to draw upon. Not every witch had a familiar—the valuable resources were generally allocated only to the powerful within any given Coven. So it wasn’t at all surprising that Gran and Clara had no familiars.
    As if on cue, Neko chose that moment to abandon his stalking of the food table. He materialized at my side like a ghost, licking his lips. I wondered how many treats he had stolen while I’d been talking to Haylee. Avoiding my dagger glance, Neko cocked his head to one side and scratched at his ear. I wouldn’t have been surprised if he’d begun to whistle a tuneless little song—anything to make himself seem more innocent.
    Apparently unaware of the tension sparking between Haylee and me, he asked, “Do you think that Teresa Alison Sidney will bring out any more of the salmon canapés?”
    Haylee sniffed, and I immediately realized that she did not routinely speak to other witches’ magical assistants. “Teri is not in the habit of providing extras for familiars.” Again, I felt that strange instinct to defend someone close to me, to explain away Neko’s hunger. “Especially now that people are heading home,” Haylee added before I could speak.
    I looked around, surprised to realize that there were fewer people in the room. The door to the men’s club at the front of the house now stood open. While I couldn’t see inside from my current angle, I could just make out the shadow of a familiar ducking inside and then, less than a minute later, re-emerge with a tall, sleek man.
    The warder had clearly been summoned by the black-clad witch’s servant. Confident and poised, the man crossed to Teresa Alison Sidney and bowed smoothly, raising her hand to his lips. She smiled tightly, expressing equal measures of satisfaction at the honor and world-weariness at the familiarity. The warder rose from his gesture and offered his arm to his witch, guiding her toward the door without a glance in my direction.
    And suddenly, I knew that it was time for David to rescue me. It was time for him to make his obeisance before Teresa Alison Sidney, to say whatever needed to be said, to do whatever needed to be done. I was falling asleep on my feet, and the notion of waiting one more minute for my warder to appear was almost enough to bring me to tears. “Neko,” I said, but he had already sensed my command; he was moving toward the far doorway.
    I turned back to Haylee. “Thank you for your…conversation.”
    “I’m afraid that I’ve upset you. I didn’t mean anything negative about your mother or your grandmother. It’s just that they didn’t have the power we were led to expect. Nothing at all like yours. ”
    “No,” I lied, and then I realized that she might think that I was agreeing with her assessment of my relatives’ witchy abilities. My tongue seemed thick in my mouth as I hurried to clarify, “I’m not upset.”
    “Good.” Haylee smiled and settled the fingers of one hand against the pulse point in my wrist, even as she once again touched the Torch that flickered against her throat. “Because I really do look