A Witch's Guide to Magical Innkeeping

Sera is beginning to lose hope that she will be able to get the restoration spell to work. When she finds a ghostly puddle in the hallway outside Theo’s room, she realizes that the house is telling her that a hole is forming in the roof. She finds the damage but is sad that she cannot fix it with magic like she once would have.

One day, Theo (who lives with Sera because his parents are afraid of his magic) comes home from school upset. He doesn’t want to talk, and Sera gives him time and space. Later, he explains that they made family trees at his nonmagical school, and he was one of only three kids who don’t live with their parents. Though there was no need to explain his circumstances, the other two kids did. They have nothing to hide, and he does; he couldn’t and didn’t want to admit that his parents are afraid of him. Sera says that Theo is entitled to his feelings, and she asks if he’d like to speak with a therapist. She explains that she saw a counselor before, back when she “couldn’t really feel anything except the big, dark space where everything [she] was missing was supposed to be” (151). She says that that person is a version of herself that the house isn’t supposed to show her.

Verity tasks Luke with researching whether it is possible to steal someone else’s magic. She seems to believe that it is only a matter of time before Albert tries to do such a thing, and she wants to be prepared. He finds a spell that will allow someone to steal another person’s magic, but the book states that the spellcaster will pay with what is theirs for trying to take what is not theirs. Sera wonders what everyone thought of her when she broke magical law by resurrecting Jasmine, but they are suddenly interrupted by a scream.

They realize that Matilda screamed when Jasmine fell while trying to catch Posy, who is now floating near the back wall of the inn. The narrative also reveals that Matilda is secretly in love with Jasmine. Sera comes running and tries to explain away the levitating child, but Matilda says that she has been watching teacups burst into bloom and listening to talking foxes for two years. After witnessing the wanderings of a skeletal chicken, she doesn’t need explanations. Nicholas has also heard Clemmie talking and admits that this is a bit odd.

Instead of making up a story, Sera tells everyone the truth about herself, Theo, Posy, and Luke. Matilda asks Luke if she can homeschool Posy. Luke tries to explain that he can’t really assess what Posy knows, but most people underestimate her. Matilda reassures him.

Jasmine doesn’t realize that Matilda loves her, and she believes that she is ugly and unlovable because that is how her family treated her. Sera reassures Jasmine that she is not ugly, regardless of what their family said. Jasmine can’t understand why Sera can be so kind to her but not to herself.

Sera purchases several “heart” trinkets from the Medieval Fair to use in her spell, but the teapot rejects them. Luke isn’t surprised because none of them are deeply important to her. He says that she needs to use things that are strongly connected to her identity. Sera reasons that maybe she should look around the garden. Suddenly, she realizes that the artichokes that Matilda grows have “thorny hearts”; when she attempts to use an artichoke for the spell, the teapot accepts it with a puff of smoke.

Luke decides that he and Posy will stay at the inn for one more week. Matilda asks him to befriend Nicholas, whom she claims is in need of a friend. Luke agrees to take Nicholas to the pub, and they realize that Matilda also told Nicholas that Luke needs a friend. When they arrive, they find Sera, Malik, and Elliott playing darts. At one point, Luke takes a call from his father and goes outside; Sera follows him and overhears him refusing to wake Posy up so that their parents can say hi. When he hangs up, she says that her parents are on a boat somewhere off the coast of Argentina; she only sees them once or twice a year.

As Sera and Luke talk, Luke explains that no one ever believed that Sera was like Albert because, unlike him, she was never cruel. Sera asks about his friends at school, and he says that he didn’t have any and that people accuse him of being “cold.” Verity first referred to Albert as the “Great and Powerful Wizard of Oz,” but when her other apprentices heard about this, they started calling Luke the “Tin Man.” Sera says that part of the book’s point is that the Tin Man actually has the biggest heart of all the characters. Now, when she looks into Luke’s eyes, she sees how raw the memory makes him feel. He tells her that her heart is the reason why her spell on the inn protects the people who need it rather than harming those who hurt them.