Page 28 of They Were Broom-Mates

Amelie turned her head to Delia, who had begun to fidget with the pages of her book as though she was contemplating something. Then, right when Amelie was about to interject, she sighed, bravado leaving her body as she slumped back in her chair.

“I don’t think I was meant to be here,” Delia mumbled under her breath.

“Why do you say that?” Regina prompted.

Delia pursed her lips and rubbed her eyes. “I just… I don’t have the full skillset of a necromancer. When my twin sister and I were born, she inherited the abilities associated with life, and I inherited all those in death’s domain.”

Shifting in her seat, Delia leaned forward onto her arms. “Stealing life from the living, necrotic and decay-related things, and enfeeblement or anything that has to do with weakening or incapacitating - those are things I can do. I’ve tested the efficacy of my strength in each category more times than I can count. But a true necromancer can also act as a medium, communicate with the dead, heal and preserve living beings, and even raise the dead.

In theory, my sister inherited the ability to do those things, but she never showed any proficiency in any of them.”

Delia shifted again, absentmindedly flipping through her book.

“I’ve done a lot of reading on it, and most witches who don’t have access to both sides of the spectrum end up either just becoming healers or death witches. You can’t be a true necromancer until you master both sides. Walk the blade’s edge, so to speak.”

“So.” Amelie posited. “You don’t consider yourself a true necromancer. Is that why you’ve been so insistent that you don’t know what to do?”

Delia nodded. “It’s also why I kept to myself for so long. I knew that if any of you spent any time with me, you’d know I was a fraud.”

The kitchen was silent save for the gentle, intermittent hisses from the oven as the food cooked. Amelie remembered how she felt coming into the cathedral only a couple of days ago and how unprepared and frightened she’d been. She couldn’t imagine being in the same position but knowing for a fact that she couldn’t do aspects of what she was expected to do.

“None of us think that, Delia.” Amelie reached out, taking Delia’s hand in her own. It was cold but also full of life, pulsing with the undercurrent of an icy magic unlike anything Amelie had directly experienced before. It wasn’t just a void of life as she’d previously thought; it was invigorating in its own way, a magic almost opposite in wavelength to her own.

As she held Delia’s hand, she watched the death witch’s wide eyes meet hers, and she knew that the other woman could feel the resonance too.

Amelie smiled and squeezed Delia’s hand. “None of us know what we’re doing, but that’s why we have each other. Hestia and Regina were able to erect the barrier earlier despite their lack of specialization. You may not be able to do it all by yourself, but that doesn’t mean you can’t do it at all.”

Delia’s eyes widened, and for a moment, Amelie thought she saw tears gathering at the corners, but once the white-haired witch blinked, they were gone.

“So.” Hestia piped up, breaking the bubble that had formed between the pair. “Now that Delia is part of the group, she also needs to answer my question.”

Amelie furrowed her brows and turned to Hestia, wondering what she could possibly be talking about. But Delia, her hand still in Amelie’s, straightened in her seat and faced Hestia head-on.

“Of course. What is it?” Delia replied, a nervous timbre to her voice.

Hestia adjusted in her seat, sat up straight, and folded her hands on the table in front of her. The seriousness of her expression had Amelie worried for only a moment, but when she looked at Regina, the Divination Witch only looked entertained.

“Would you ever fuck a man?”

Amelie choked on her breath as the question hit her ears, and she immediately directed her gaze to Delia, who sat there with her mouth open and face red as a tomato.

“I… what??” Delia squeaked out.

“Well.” Hestia continued as though she hadn’t dropped the most unexpected question possible given the situation. “Regina is pansexual, so she would, and Amelie has, but we are both lezbanese to the core.”

Amelie couldn’t help it; as the laugh tumbled from her lips, it just wouldn’t stop. Soon enough, she had to physically hold herself together with her arms as she gasped for breath as Delia stammered her way through a very embarrassed explanation of her bisexuality and experience of only ever being with men.

When she finally wiped the tears from her eyes and made eye contact with Regina, who was also giggling, a knowing smile on her lips, Amelie thought to herself that she might finally have a bit of insight as to what sort of future Regina had seen.

Chapter eleven

“So, it’s not that I don’t know what to do…” Delia explained. “It’s that I don’t think I can do it.”

The group sat at the table eating dinner as Delia gestured to a page in her book.

“I’ve studied necromancy my entire life.” Delia continued. “And I am pretty aware of my limitations, for the most part. The tricky piece here is that I’ve never encountered undead before.”

Amelie took a bite of her food as she listened. This was the most she’d heard Delia speak in the last two days, and based on Regina and Hestia’s faces, it seemed that the same rang true for them.