"It depends," Lydia said. "It's something you're born with, I think, although it seems to be quite random...and to run in some families. My Aunt Phillips is a witch, and my baby niece Jane will be, once she's old enough to do more than crawl. But I am the seventh daughter of a seventh daughter, you see, and such a girl will always be a witch, even if it isn't in the family line."

She thought about how to explain something she'd never had to before. "Magic is very intuitive for me, I suppose. I had to learn how to do certain spells and charms, of course, but a lot of it I just make up as I go. The most important thing is knowing how to pay the price of magic, and that's something you just know. Or at least, I might have to figure out how to pay it, but I always know how much it should be. All magic must be paid for, of course," she said. "You know this." See also: he'd just buried his fuckin' heart.