Epilogue
Two girls attended a magical ball, but one burned it to the ground.
Then built it anew.
A week after Stratton Mansion burned, the remaining triumvirate member returned to Avalon-on-Hudson with his hat in his hand.
Cautiously, they let him inside Mistfield’s bare and damaged halls, courtesy of the guards’ ruthless search. Jimmy had already
begun repairs, and Emmy was eager to help, but the strange new relic was far weaker at amplifying her conjury. It’d taken
her a long time to transform Caleb’s and Jimmy’s faces back to their own.
Jack had offered to separate the two relics, but the four friends were in agreement: they were not ready to tamper with something
powerful enough to bring back the recently deceased.
With grief-tinged eyes, Keeper Windsor disclosed his two orders of business.
First, he issued formal apologies to Emmy and Jack for their wrongful imprisonments. Though they gripped each other’s hands,
they managed to remain blank faced as Keeper Windsor walked them through the consequences against those who had framed them.
Grace and Clara were in Grimsbane. Oliver and his father were dead.
And second, Keeper Windsor offered Jack his father’s position as commander of the guard.
The four of them stared at the man before Jack laughed uproariously.
But as Keeper Windsor described the need to rebuild the Society from the ground up, Emmy knew that a tendril of hope still flickered inside Jack, a stubborn candle that refused to be extinguished.
It flickered inside her, too.
The Society could be a place for all charmed folks, they whispered to each other that night, after Jimmy and Caleb were fast
asleep. Not as a social club, but as a place for people of all social classes to learn. To help each other. To use their gifts
for good, in a city full of people who desperately needed a bit of goodness.
And so, leaving the tranquil isolation of Mistfield, they returned to the city.
Each day, Jack and Emmy left for work early in the morning, sharing a too-brief kiss on the stoop before he made his way uptown,
and she, downtown. Jack held meetings with what remained of the Society’s old guard. More times than not, he came home burning
with indignity at whatever snobbishness stood in his way.
It wasn’t supposed to be easy, Emmy reminded him.
With Caleb’s help, Jack began taking the Society’s old guard to meet the charmed families Emmy had found downtown. He showed
them the wonderful, untapped power that existed within the city limits, gifts that were being wasted while charmed folks worked
sixteen-hour shifts at menial jobs, simply to eat. He brought them to Grimsbane, forcing them to sit in the same cell he’d
languished in for nearly a year, to taste the same paltry food served to all prisoners. He walked them through his plans for
reworking the system, for laws that were fair and trials that gave due process. With Jimmy’s gentle guidance, he learned to
listen past their cries about change, their moans about the Society becoming a charity. He learned to hear their unspoken
fears. About their families’ security in this new system. About change itself.
By the time the first snow fell, Jack was coming home reenergized more often than he was grumbling. He even, Emmy dared to
say, liked his position. Which was a gift, really, because Emmy loved everything about her own project: a school for children from the poorest tenements, one in which they could learn to read, and write, and dream of something more.
And if that embroidered snake on Clara Claremont’s fabric shifted when a child held it, they’d learn conjury, too.
Her growing student body never went hungry, not with Emmy’s seemingly endless supply of treats and meals to take home. And
the students loved when their beloved headmistress stopped by their flats, bringing gifts for the whole family. A visit from
her brought good providence, the students believed, for afterward, they often had a stroke of luck: torn boots mended themselves,
lost coins suddenly appeared on the mantelpiece, and sweets found their way into the cupboard. Practicing her conjury each
night, she made so much currency Jack teased that she alone would be responsible if the dollar crashed. But it was not enough.
The machine of greed still devoured New York’s poorest inhabitants. No one could better their circumstances when they were
starved and worked to the bone.
Jimmy was the one who first began researching labor unions. By Christmas, he’d attended his first meeting, then implemented
a forty-hour work week within his flourishing construction company, which was quickly becoming a favorite among charmed families,
even without Zhao Rui. Within the year, Caleb had declared, he’d have more new builds than Cornelius Vanderbilt.
With any luck, Jimmy would have enough clout—and money of his own—to lead the charge against the Chinese Exclusion Act.
It was Jimmy’s success they were toasting one blistering February night, crammed into the room Emmy insisted on calling a
library, though it held hardly fifty books. Jack kept offering to flood the shelves with tomes from Mistfield’s vast collection,
but Emmy wanted to hand select each and every one.
As Jack clinked his mug to hers, his free arm pulled her deeper into his lap.
She’d never grow accustomed to touching him like this, wherever and whenever she pleased.
How she longed for Caleb and Jimmy to experience such joy.
But Caleb and Jimmy were thigh to thigh on the couch, and Jimmy’s hand rested on Caleb’s knee. A small victory, but progress.
One of these days, Caleb would finally tell Jimmy about their own prophecy.
On evenings as lovely as this one, Mary’s absence could still strike Emmy like a stone to her chest, one that sank her good
spirits. It was maddening, to miss someone she’d never actually known. To realize that it had been Grace who had done Emmy’s
hair, who had clasped Emmy’s hand as they jumped in the river. Who had quietly encouraged their schemes to meet her own selfish
needs. But Emmy was determined to bury the life they’d shared before the Society, the moments they’d had while Grace was pretending
to be Mary, anything and everything Grace.
Jack, curse him, wouldn’t let her.
It was his incessant pestering that convinced Emmy to return to Grimsbane Tower with him. For closure, he said, though Emmy
wasn’t sure such a thing existed.
There had been no visiting room when Emmy had been prisoner here, but as Jack spoke to the warden he’d appointed, the guards
led Emmy to a cell with doors on both sides. Folding her hands in her lap, she took a seat at the long table in the center
and, with her stomach in knots, faced Grace.
In the wool uniform, with her blonde hair in a long braid down her back, Grace appeared younger than she had in her ornate
ball gowns. More like the Grace from the tenement house. Still annoyingly pretty, just . . . fragile.
Once the guards left, her blue eyes shifted to Emmy. “Did you come here to gloat?”
“No.”
Silence. Grace’s eyes flitted about the room, taking in every detail. “I can hear the guards talking, so I know Jack Fontaine is the new commander. You lied about his death.”
Emmy said nothing, only stared at her former friend.
Grace slammed her cuffed hands against the desk. “You think you can assuage your guilt by visiting me? By improving the conditions
of this hell on earth? As if a bed and a book are all it takes to forget that I am not free. But I will be,” she added, her
lips curving as she reclined.
Still taunting. When Emmy didn’t take her bait, Grace’s eyes wandered about the room again, marking every stone, every detail.
It hit Emmy then. She was Grace’s first visitor. Her only visitor.
Because Grace had no one left in this world who cared for her.
How wrong Emmy had been about Grace’s motivation. She’d thought vanity was her weakness, that she’d do anything to make the
Society love her. But Grace did not seek the Society’s adoration because she wanted to be loved; she sought it to survive. So desperate was she to not be poor and powerless that she’d betrayed the closest thing she’d had to family.
Survival drove her to pursue someone like Oliver. To not be satisfied by the love of her aunt and uncle. To burn Lizzie Windsor
for daring to stand between Grace and what she deemed hers.
Survival drove her to forge a relic with Papa’s remains. To protect herself.
Grace watched her warily. “Why are you looking at me like that?”
It was not an excuse. It did not justify a single thing she’d done, but still, Emmy felt a smidgen of relief. It had never
been about her.
Grace had done terrible, unforgivable things.
Grace had also suffered. She had been neglected. This was true, too.
As Emmy rose from her chair, she studied Grace one final time. She’d loved her; she truly had. And though Grace would never admit it, she, too, had to miss what they’d shared. Their friendship had been real, even if it had ended in so much pain.
Emmy would see if there was anything they could do for the prisoners without visitors. A priest, perhaps. Or maybe Grace could
have time with Clara, who was serving her sentence for a few more months.
“Ems?” Grace called.
Emmy turned slowly.
“Whoever did your hair did it all wrong. When you part it that way, you look like a man.”
Of fucking course. It was a gift, really, to end on such a note. “Goodbye, Grace.”
With surprising lightness, Emmy slipped out of the cell. Out of Grimsbane.
As she walked with Jack back to the dock, their breath pluming in the winter air, Jack nudged her with his hip. “Would you
like to swim back? Or is it not cold enough for you?”
Emmy gave him a playful shove, but he righted himself easily, sliding his arm over her shoulders. Leaning against him, Emmy
let herself shed this place for good.
The ferry approached the dock lazily, its lanterns illuminating the swirls of fog displaced by the bow. There was a sharpness
to the brisk air, an ethereal quiet that always came when snow was approaching, as if New York was holding its breath.
Time was passing, as it always did.
“So what’s next?” Jack wrapped his arms around her waist, tugging her closer. “Any other secret elitist societies you’d like
to dismantle?”
“Perhaps.” She lifted onto her tiptoes, brushing her lips against her favorite smile of his, the one tinged with mischief.
“After all, there’s always Wall Street.”