Praise for The Very Secret Society of Irregular Witches“Mandanna crafts a cast of winningly quirky characters, each with theirown part to play in Mika’s path to belonging. . . . This charming romanticfantasy is a gem.” —Publishers Weekly (starred review)“Sangu Mandanna spins a bewitching tale of found family, magic, and thepower of love. Dark humor and bright writing abound in The Very SecretSociety of Irregular Witches, and readers are sure to be charmed.”—Award-winning author Suleikha Snyder“Full of endearing characters, romance, and found family, it’s the cozymagical romance you’ve been waiting for. I absolutely adored it!”—Tasha Suri, author of The Jasmine Throne“Adorably witty, and features an endearing cast of characters and awonderfully tricky and romantic plot.”—Louisa Morgan, author of A Secret History of Witches“This gorgeously cozy romantic fantasy sparkles with real magic, love, andjoy. A perfect comfort read.”—Stephanie Burgis, author of Scales and Sensibility and SnowspelledOceanofPDF.com OTHER TITLES BY SANGU MANDANNATHE CELESTIAL TRILOGYA Spark of White FireHouse of Rage and SorrowA War of Swallowed StarsThe Lost GirlColor Outside the LinesKiki Kallira Breaks a KingdomKiki Kallira Conquers a CurseOceanofPDF.com BERKLEYAn imprint of Penguin Random House LLCpenguinrandomhouse.comCopyright © 2022 by Sangu MandannaReaders Guide copyright © 2022 by Sangu MandannaPenguin Random House supports copyright. Copyright fuels creativity, encourages diverse voices,promotes free speech, and creates a vibrant culture. Thank you for buying an authorized edition ofthis book and for complying with copyright laws by not reproducing, scanning, or distributing anypart of it in any form without permission. You are supporting writers and allowing Penguin RandomHouse to continue to publish books for every reader.BERKLEY and the BERKLEY & B colophon are registered trademarks of Penguin Random HouseLLC.Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication DataNames: Mandanna, Sangu, author.Title: The very secret society of irregular witches / Sangu Mandanna.Description: First edition. | New York: Berkley, 2022.Identifiers: LCCN 2022001449 (print) | LCCN 2022001450 (ebook) | ISBN 9780593439357 (tradepaperback) | ISBN 9780593439364 (ebook)Subjects: LCGFT: Fantasy fiction.Classification: LCC PR6113.A487 V47 2022 (print) | LCC PR6113.A487 (ebook) | DDC 823/.92—dc23/eng/20220113LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022001449LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022001450First Edition: August 2022Cover art by Lisa PerrinCover design by Katie AndersonBook design by Nancy Resnick, adapted for ebook by Kelly BrennanIllustration by Tanya Antusenok / Shutterstock.comThis is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of theauthor’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead,business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.pid_prh_6.0_140667116_c0_r0OceanofPDF.com CoverPraise for The Very Secret Society of Irregular WitchesOther Titles by Sangu MandannaTitle PageCopyrightDedicationChapter OneChapter TwoChapter ThreeChapter FourChapter FiveChapter SixChapter SevenChapter EightChapter NineChapter TenChapter ElevenChapter TwelveChapter ThirteenChapter FourteenChapter FifteenChapter SixteenChapter SeventeenChapter EighteenChapter Nineteen Chapter TwentyChapter Twenty-OneChapter Twenty-TwoChapter Twenty-ThreeChapter Twenty-FourChapter Twenty-FiveChapter Twenty-SixChapter Twenty-SevenChapter Twenty-EightChapter Twenty-NineChapter ThirtyAcknowledgmentsReaders GuideAbout the AuthorOceanofPDF.com To Steve, because it’s past time I dedicated one of these to youOceanofPDF.com he Very Secret Society of Witches met on the third Thursday of everythird month, but that was just about the only thing that never changed.They never met in the same place twice; the last meeting, for instance, hadbeen in Belinda Nkala’s front room and had involved freshly baked scones,and the one before that had been in the glorious sunshine of Agatha Jones’sgarden. This meeting, on a cold, wet October afternoon, happened to betaking place on a tiny, abandoned pier in the Outer Hebrides.A pier. In the Outer Hebrides. In October.Of course, they weren’t actually called the Very Secret Society ofWitches. They weren’t called anything at all, which was why Mika Moonhad decided to come up with a name for them herself. She had cycledthrough several alternatives first, like the League of Extraordinary Witchesand the Super Secret Society of Witchy Witches. She was still rather fond ofthe latter.The ridiculous names were mostly to annoy Primrose, the ancient andvery proper head of the group, a position Primrose had presumablybestowed upon herself at some point in the past hundred years or so. (Thismight have been something of an exaggeration on Mika’s part, but it wasimpossible to tell how old Primrose really was. She wouldn’t say.)Now, huddled as deep into her coat as she could get, Mika rockedimpatiently on the balls of her feet as twenty other witches joined her on thepier. This, she supposed, was another thing that almost never changed: theirnumber. Mika was one of the newest additions to the thing-that-was-definitely-not-a-society, and she’d been part of it for almost ten years,which meant it had been a very long time since they’d welcomed anyonenew. This was not to say that there were only twenty-one adult witches in all of Britain; witches were uncommon, certainly, but Mika knew that therewere others out there. Primrose, who had appointed herself the duty offinding and inviting new witches to the not-society, had mentioned thatsome had turned her down over the years.Mika found it difficult to believe anyone had been able to resistPrimrose’s persuasions (which an uncharitable person might say betterresembled genteel bullying), but still, it was rather comforting to know thatthis small, soaked group on the pier wasn’t all that was left of them.Not that their numbers mattered. These meetings were the only time anyof them were ever supposed to speak to one another. Primrose BeatriceEverly would never dream of telling anyone how to live their lives (so shesaid), but she was of the firm opinion that Rules would keep them all safeand so those Rules really ought to be followed. Too much magic leftunchecked in one place, she said, would draw attention. For the sake of allof them, they had to lead separate lives. There could be no connectionbetween any of them, no visits, no texts, no emails—nothing, in short, thatcould lead anybody from one witch to another.(Primrose, of course, was an exception to the Rules. Mika supposed itwas just one of the many privileges of being the oldest, most powerful, andmost bossy.)Consequently, any sense of community and kinship in the group had tobe crammed into these short hours once every three months, which made ita very nebulous sense of community indeed.As rain dripped steadily down from the cold, muddy-grey sky, Primrosecleared her throat. “How are we all, dears?”“Wet,” Mika couldn’t resist pointing out.“Your contribution is noted, thank you, poppet,” said Primrose,unperturbed.“We’re pretending to be a book club, Primrose,” Mika replied,exasperated. “We don’t need to hide in the middle of nowhere! Whycouldn’t we just meet for a sodding coffee somewhere with centralheating?” “I, for one, think our safety is worth more than our comfort,” Primrosesaid, and then went straight for the jugular. “But, considering the mostirregular way you spend your time, dear, I am not in the least surprised thatyou don’t seem to feel the same way.”Mika sighed. She’d walked right into that one.At thirty-one, she was a rather young witch in a group that mostlyskewed older. While she didn’t exactly have a handy spreadsheet with eachwitch’s age on it, she was quite sure that she, Hilda Kim, and Sophie Clarkewere the only ones this side of forty, so she should perhaps have been a lotmore intimidated by Primrose than she actually was. But the truth was, sheknew Primrose a lot better than most of the other witches here, and she andPrimrose had had a wobbly relationship since before Mika could remember.The problem, really, was that witches were always orphans. Accordingto Primrose, this was because of a spell that went wrong in some bygoneera. Mika was certain this tale was a figment of Primrose’s imagination, butshe also had no better explanation because the fact remained: when a witchwas born, she would find herself orphaned shortly thereafter. It didn’tmatter where in the world the witch was born, and the cause of death couldbe anything from innocuous illnesses to everyday accidents, but it wasinevitable. Some witches were then raised by grandparents or other relativesand, in time, came to discover the existence of their own magic. All thingsconsidered, assuming that they weren’t catastrophically reckless with theirspellwork, they grew up to lead quite normal lives.But some witches, like Mika, were the daughters of witches. And someof those witches, like Mika, were also the granddaughters of witches. Itwas unusual, certainly; most witches, only too mindful of the axe over theirheads, chose not to have children of their own, but it did sometimes happen.And so, when Mika Moon, the orphaned child of an orphaned child of anorphaned child, found herself left in the care of an overworked socialworker in India in the early nineties, Primrose found her, brought her toEngland, and deposited her in a perfectly proper, comfortable home withperfectly proper, comfortable nannies. Mika remembered none of this, of course, but she remembered growingup in the care of nannies and tutors of all genders, ethnicities, andtemperaments, each of whom was only permitted to stay for as long as ittook to catch a glimpse of something magical (which was not long) beforethey were replaced. So Mika remembered having plenty to eat, a warm bed,and all the books she could possibly read, but very little in the way ofcompanionship or love.And she remembered Primrose, who visited from time to time, usually tohire a new caregiver or to remind Mika of the Rules. Mika’s feelings aboutPrimrose were, thus, mixed. Primrose had kept her safe, for which she wasgrateful, but she also resented having such an inconsistent, autocratic figurein her life. Once she reached adulthood, the nannies and tutors went awayand Mika declined Primrose’s offer to stay. She moved out of the houseand, for the past thirteen years, she had more or less only seen Primrose onthe third Thursday of every third month.While it seemed to Mika that she had never done anything Primroseapproved of, she had not done anything Primrose especially disapproved of,either. At least, not until last year, when Mika had started uploading videosto her social media accounts.Witchy videos.Hence their present feud.For the moment, Primrose seemed to have moved on. “Is anyone havingany trouble?” she asked the gathering.“I’m having a hard time not telling my fiancée the truth about mymagic,” Hilda Kim offered. “I feel like I’m hiding so much of myself fromher, and I hate it.”“You could always try not getting married,” said Primrose, who felt itwas everyone’s duty to make sacrifices for the greater good. “And whileyou ponder that, dear,” she went on as Hilda opened her mouth and thenshut it again as if she’d thought better of whatever she was about to say, “Isanyone having any actual trouble? Any inquisitive neighbours asking toomany questions? Any uncontrollable magical outbursts?” There was a round of shrugs and heads shaking. Primrose shifted hergimlet eyes from one witch to the next, lingering a little too long on Mika.She looked rather disappointed when no one spoke, like she’d been hopingto be able to chastise someone for being careless.“Then,” Primrose continued, an enormous spellbook materialising in herhands, “does anyone have any new spells to share?”There were a few: a spell for more restful sleep, a potion that wouldtemporarily turn cat fur pink (only cat fur, and only pink), a spell for thefinding of a lost thing, and a spell to instantly vanish dark circles under theeyes. (Upon hearing this last one, Primrose, who hoarded her own spellslike a dragon hoards gold, looked incredibly annoyed that she hadn’t beenable to figure it out first.)When the spellwork part of the meeting was complete, Primrose clearedher throat. “Finally, does anyone have any news they’d like to share?”“It’s okay to say it’s time to gossip, Primrose,” Mika said merrily. “Weall know that’s what comes after the spellwork.”“Witches don’t gossip,” sniffed Primrose.This was patently untrue, however, because gossiping was preciselywhat they proceeded to do.“My ex-husband wanted to get back together last week,” said BelindaNkala, who was in her forties and never had time for anyone’s nonsense.“When I turned him down, he informed me that I am apparently nothingwithout him. Then he left,” she added calmly, “but I fear he’s going to besuffering from an inexplicable itch in his groin for a few weeks.”Several witches laughed, but Primrose set her lips in a thin line. “Andhave you been playing such petty tricks lately, Mika?”“Oh, for the love of fucking god, Primrose, what does this have to dowith me?”“It’s not an unreasonable question, precious. You do like to take risks.”“For the millionth time,” Mika said, irked beyond belief, “I post videosonline pretending to be a witch. It’s just a performance.” Primrose raisedher eyebrows. Mika raised hers right back. “Hundreds of people do thesame thing, you know. The whole witch aesthetic is very popular!” “Witchcore,” Hilda said, nodding wisely. “Not quite as popular ascottagecore or fairycore, but it’s up there.”Everyone stared at her.“I didn’t know fairies were real!” shouted Agatha Jones, who was almostas old as Primrose and tended to believe all young people needed to beshouted at lest they miss the import of her pronouncements. “Whatevernext!”“You see, Primrose?” said Mika, ignoring this interruption. “People callthemselves witches all the time. I’m not putting myself or you or anyoneelse at risk. Nobody who watches my videos thinks I’m actually a witch.”It was unfortunate for Mika, then, that at that precise moment, over fivehundred miles away, in a big house in a quiet, windy corner of the Norfolkcountryside, a skinny old man in a magnificent rainbow scarf and enormousfluffy slippers was saying exactly the opposite.“Absolutely not!”This came from Jamie, the scowling librarian, who was not in fact theskinny old man in the scarf and slippers. That was Ian. And the third personin the library was Lucie, the housekeeper, a chubby, round-cheeked womanin her fifties, who sighed as if she knew exactly how this argument wasgoing to go. (She did know, and she was right.)Ian smoothed down the tail of his scarf and replied, in the deep voicethat had charmed audiences in many a small theatre over his eighty-oddyears, “Don’t be difficult, dear. It doesn’t become you.”Jamie was unmoved by this criticism. “You can’t seriously beconsidering bringing that”—and here he jabbed a finger at the dewy,sparkly face on the screen of Ian’s phone—“into the house?”“Why not?” Ian asked.“Well, for one thing, there’s no way she’s a real witch,” Jamie saidirritably. This was not unusual. Most of the things Jamie said were said irritably. “What kind of witch would show off her magic on a platform withmillions of viewers?”Mika would have been immensely gratified to hear this, had she beenthere, but it looked like her double bluff had not hoodwinked Ian.“She’s a real witch,” he insisted.“How the hell can you possibly know that?”“I have excellent observation skills. Just watch part of the video.” Ianwiggled his phone like he was dangling a lollipop in front of a toddler. “Aminute. That’s all I ask.”Jamie’s glare stayed firmly in place, but he crossed his arms over hischest and leaned back against his desk to look over Ian’s shoulder. Gleeful,Ian tapped the screen and the video started to play.The woman on the screen looked like she was in her late twenties or so,and was pretty in the way most people with bright eyes and merry smilesare pretty. Jamie narrowed his eyes, trying to figure out what had caughtIan’s attention. Nothing about the woman seemed out of the ordinary. Herhair was a very dark brown, long and curling loosely around her bareshoulders. Brown eyes, large like a doe’s and framed by thick blackeyelashes, blinked cheerfully out at them from a dewy face that had beendusted with some sort of sort of shimmery powder, presumably to make herlook more otherworldly. She obviously wasn’t white, but it was hard topinpoint her ethnicity beyond that: her skin was a peachy, browny, goldenysomething, but maybe that was the glitter. The name at the top corner of thevideo, @MikaMoon, didn’t offer any answers, either.“The secret,” she was saying, her smile full of mischief, “is to harvestthe moonlight at exactly two minutes past midnight.” Her accent wasEnglish, but he couldn’t pin it down to any one part of the country. She heldup a bowl of liquid silver. “Take a tiny spoonful of the harvestedmoonlight,” she went on, stirring the silver substance with a glass spoonthat tinkled pleasantly against the sides of the bowl, “and add it to yourcauldron.”As she emptied a spoonful of the supposed moonlight into a cauldron,tiny sparkles drifted up from within, dancing in the air like fireflies before fading away.“And there you have it!” she said triumphantly. “The perfect potion for awounded heart.”Ian paused the video. Jamie looked at him in confusion. “Was I supposedto be impressed by the special effects she added to the cauldron? Thenonsense about a wounded heart?”Ian scoffed. “The cauldron? No, I’m not interested in the cauldron. She’swhat interests me. Don’t you see it? She’s practically aglow with magic.”At this, Lucie spoke for the first time. “You’re using your stage voice,love,” she said sensibly, patting Ian’s hand. “It never works on Jamie. But,”she added, this time to Jamie, “I reckon we should hear Ian out. You knowhe has a knack for this sort of thing. If he says she’s a witch, he’s probablyright.”“See?” said Ian, looking rather pleased with himself. “She’d be perfect!”“Ian!” Jamie was incredulous. “Even if she’s a witch, her face is all overthe fucking internet! The risk—”Rolling his eyes so dramatically that they practically vanished into theback of his head, Ian said, “She has fourteen thousand followers. I’m morefamous than that and you don’t seem to mind me being here. Of course,” headded quickly, lest Jamie take the opportunity to inform him otherwise,“we’ll make it clear that if she does come to stay, neither Nowhere Housenor the girls are to appear in her footage in any way.”“And what makes you think this woodland sprite will even want to beinvolved?”“We won’t know until we ask.”Lucie stood, obviously fed up. “A vote is the only way to settle this,” shesaid.Ian shrugged. “Then we’ll need my husband, won’t we?”“Ken must have gotten the girls to bed by now,” said Lucie. “I’ll fetchhim.”“I get the tiebreaker,” Jamie reminded them.“Which is only useful if there’s a tie, dear,” said Ian.