Chapter 13
CALLIE
As a glass-walled elevator carried me up the side of the Obsidian Spire, the entire transformed Cove spread below me, buildings shrinking to toy-size as I climbed.
The architectural variety Brie mentioned was even more striking from above.
Gothic stone structures, modern glass, charming low-rises, and some mind-bending buildings that seemed forged from magic itself.
There was a lot going on, yet somehow it all felt harmonious.
The vista changed dramatically as the elevator passed through the coruscating colors of the rain shield, and suddenly I was in a dark thunderstorm.
Rain pounded the elevator windows in driving sheets as lightning arced through the sky.
Now, this ferocious weather was something I found deeply recognizable.
A ding announced we’d reached the top level.
I stepped out into the receiving area and was surprised to see a familiar face seated there. “Velora!” I exclaimed.
Velora rose unsteadily to her feet, slower than the last time I’d seen her. But she was well into her nineties now, my oldest sister still living, so this was to be expected. I rushed to her, and we embraced.
“What are you doing here?” I asked.
“Oh, you know. Sitting at home watching the entire world change around me was getting boring, so I told mom I wanted to be where the action is. I’ve been assisting her for the last year.”
“Wow.” That Velora, or any of my sisters, would choose to spend so much time with our mother was the surest sign yet that a dramatic change had occurred.
“I know,” Velora said wryly, understanding my reaction completely. “But it’s been good.”
We spent a few minutes catching up as Velora walked me to Astrea’s office the long way, giving me a tour of the busy operations as we went.
Office after office of witches working the phones as they made deals for tour groups to come to town, or architects reviewing designs for new structures.
It was impressive, and I did my best to focus on being inspired by all these witches doing interesting work.
I didn’t want to tumble into another spiral of insecurity by comparing myself unfavorably to them.
I resolved to keep them only as positive examples, and not as excuses to beat myself up.
At last, we arrived at the imposing door to Astrea’s office, a massive panel of polished obsidian. Protective runes glowed faintly along its edges, pulsing with a slow rhythm like a heartbeat.
Velora gave me a parting hug and pressed her palm flat against the door’s surface. The runes flared bright purple for a moment, then the door swung silently inward.
I entered and wasn’t at all surprised at how breathtaking Astrea’s office was.
It was circular, with floor-to-ceiling windows wrapping around most of the space, offering a panoramic view of both the storm outside and the town below.
Lightning illuminated the room in periodic flashes.
The furnishings were sleek, modern, and dark: all black leather with chrome and obsidian accents.
My mother stood near the window, her back to me, wearing a perfectly tailored blue pantsuit that showed off her trim figure. Before her, a crystal orb filled with sparkling energy sat on a pedestal. Her hands were on it, and her head was tilted back.
I approached her. “Mother?”
Her head snapped up, and she spun to face me.
As expected, she literally hadn’t aged a day, and still appeared a youthful mid-forties.
“Calliope! It’s so good to see you.” She crossed the room in swift strides and put her hands on my shoulders, studying my face.
“But there’s so much turbulence in your aura, dear. Are you all right?”
Well, if she was going to go at it that directly, I might as well follow her lead. “Maddox has been cheating on me. I’m going to divorce him.”
This is where I would have expected “wonderful, good riddance!” or gloating over how she always knew this would happen. But instead…
“Oh my gods. I am so sorry,” Astrea said earnestly, as she led me to a plush black couch. “Tell mother everything.”
So I did. The story poured out of me—right until I got to the details of the curse.
That felt a bit too embarrassing to share.
Astrea listened without interrupting, her expression shifting from disgust to fury to something that looked almost like pride.
“What did you curse him with?” she asked eagerly.
I felt my face heat up. “I’d rather not get into specifics—”
“With your mother? So I take it your curse hit him in a particularly sensitive area?” she asked with a knowing grin.
I nodded mutely.
She laughed with delight. “You truly are my daughter. You knew just what to do. Even being as rusty as you were! That’s a true achievement.”
“That’s what Brie said too.”
“She’s right. Oh darling, you don’t know how it pained me to watch you set your magic aside. You’d think with thirty-seven daughters—”
“Thirty-seven?!” I blurted. As far as I knew, I was number thirty-two out of thirty-five.
With a pleased smile, Astrea placed a hand on her stomach. “I’m already counting the twins that are coming.”
“Mother!” was all I could think to say. “You’re 252!”
“Yes, and I hope to continue having daughters until I’m well past 400.”
I’d assumed Astrea would be trailing off the new babies well before her fifth century. Probably I just hadn’t wanted to think about younger sisters being born decades after my death. I wondered if the fifteen elder sisters who passed away before I came along had felt the same.
“You’d think with thirty-seven daughters, it wouldn’t bother me particularly what any one of you would do.
Every aspiration I could ever hold for a daughter will be fulfilled by one of you, sooner or later.
” Astrea leaned closer to me. “But having that many children also teaches you how to see them all more clearly. And Calliope, the skill and the potential that you have always had, your inherent instincts for how to channel magic… I always wished you could see just how special you are.”
I didn’t know what to say. Astrea had never spoken to me this earnestly before. “I didn’t feel that special. It felt like no matter what type of magic I tried, nothing felt right.”
“I’m so sorry you felt that way. You have the talent to do any type of magic you desire.” She paused. “Did I undermine your confidence? I’ve wondered many times if your inability to believe in yourself was my fault.”
That I’d never heard! Astrea, wondering if she was the problem!
I also didn’t know how to answer, because she was right. She had undermined my confidence. But right now she seemed so vulnerable. I had a strong impulse to console her, or at least not hurt her.
I tried to respond honestly but kindly by sidestepping the question. “I’m an adult. If I lack confidence, it’s my own responsibility now.” I paused. “You’ve changed so much, mother.”
She gave me a sad smile, and I saw she understood what it meant that I had avoided answering her directly. “I hope so.”
I stood and walked toward the window. “I couldn’t believe it when Brie told me you were the mastermind behind all of this.”
Astrea followed, and we spent a moment regarding the sprawl of Nightshade Cove.
“Well, I should tell you it was all for you, dear,” she said.
“What do you mean?”
“It means that the fact that one of my own daughters had to leave the coven helped open my eyes.”
“But you were furious when I left.”
“That’s true. I was, at first.” She paused. “When you were back two years ago, Maddox didn’t come with you.”
“He had an important work thing,” I said automatically, then cringed at how rehearsed it sounded, and how it popped out at the slightest prompting.
“I know. You explained it to everyone who asked.” Astrea’s expression was pained. “And I watched you make those excuses and try so hard to convince everyone that everything was fine. But darling, your light was going out. I could see it.”
I inhaled sharply. “I didn’t realize it was that obvious.”
“It was to me. And it made me think back to every other time I’d seen you and Maddox together.
” She took my hand. “There weren’t many, but there were enough to see the pattern.
You were always twisting yourself in knots for him.
Laughing at jokes that weren’t funny, pretending to be interested in boring things.
I never saw him make the same effort for you. ”
I looked away, embarrassed by how accurately she’d seen what I’d worked so hard to hide. What I hadn’t seen myself for far, far too long.
“And that’s when it hit me,” Astrea continued. “If the coven life I had created was so stifling and unsatisfying that marriage to that man was something you would flee to, then I had truly failed to create a space where young witches could thrive.”
“Mother, I didn’t leave because of you—”
“Didn’t you?” She raised an eyebrow. “Be honest with yourself, Calliope. You left because you felt trapped here. The only life I showed you was one of isolation and secrecy and endless rules. No wonder you were ready to run to anything else.”
I couldn’t argue with that. It was truer than I wanted to admit.
“I was angry at first,” Astrea confessed. “How dare my daughter reject everything I’d built? But then I realized something important. Even if what you left for wasn’t working out, you were still brave to take that risk. You rejected tradition and forged your own path.”
“I never thought you’d see it that way.”
“I didn’t initially, but I should have.” She returned to the window, lightning illuminating her profile.
“After that birthday party, after watching you try so hard to pretend everything was wonderful when it clearly wasn’t, I called an emergency session with the council.
And I told them it was time for things to change. ”
I had to smile at that. “And they agreed?”
“Not immediately. But I can be very persuasive when I want to be.” Her eyes glinted with mischief. “And I may have had some additional motivation to move quickly.”
“What do you mean?”
“The Hellebore Coven.” She practically spat the name. “They were already making plans for something similar to this.” She gestured at the thriving Cove out the window. “I heard whispers through my contacts.”
“You have spies in the Hellebore Coven?”
“Darling, please. I have spies in every coven. And I would be damned if the Hellebores were going to be the ones to make this unilateral decision for all of us, dragging us into the public eye because they decided it was time, and then be the ones to reap the biggest financial rewards.”
There was the mother I knew. Competitive, calculating, and always three steps ahead.
“So while they were mired in bureaucratic slowdowns and infighting—which I may have caused—I struck fast. We voted, we built, and we opened to the public. By the time the Hellebores realized what was happening, we had already become the gold standard for witch tourism, and they can only struggle to keep up.”
I smiled with admiration. “You’re devious.”
“I would say strategically minded.” She sat back down on the couch, and I followed her there.
“But the point is, none of this would have happened without you. Your choice to leave, painful as it was for both of us, showed me I had created a cage. And I needed to tear it down and build something better.”
“I don’t know what to say.”
“You don’t have to say anything. Just know that I’m proud of you for having the courage to choose your own way.” She squeezed my hand. “Even if the choice didn’t work out the way you hoped.”
We sat in silence for a moment, watching the storm rage outside the windows.
“I just wish I knew what to do with myself now,” I said finally.
“I still feel so all over the place. One minute, I’m confident and excited for the future.
The next minute…” I trailed off. “Moving back here feels like the right choice, but the way it’s happened, sometimes it feels so…
defeating. Like I’m crawling back with my tail between my legs. ”
“Is that really what bothers you?” Astrea asked quietly. “Or is it something else?”
I looked at her, surprised. “What do you mean?”
“What are the terms that would allow him to lift the curse?”
“He would have to win my forgiveness.”
“Interesting.” Astrea tilted her head. “You gave yourself all the power. He’s permanently cursed unless your feelings change.”
“So?”
“So even in your rage, even casting impulsively, some part of you structured it so that he’d have to come to you. Have to try to win you back.” She met my eyes. “Why do you think that is?”
“I don’t want to stay with him,” I protested.
“Of course not. But what do you want?”
I felt something shift inside of me. “I want him to realize what he’s lost.”
“You want him to realize what a pathetic excuse for a man he is,” my mom continued excitedly.
“I want to see him as broken as he made me feel. I want to take all the pain and humiliation and rage I’m carrying and give it back to him. I shouldn’t be stuck with it.”
“And you can do that. You can make his entire existence into a monument to regret.”
I was talking faster. My energy was rising. “I want to take everything from him. His money, his pride, his dignity, his future.”
“Yes!” Astrea exclaimed giddily. “Break him down until he’s nothing but a sad cautionary tale for all the men who think they can betray women and get away with it!”
The sense of power building inside me right now was deeply clarifying. This was exactly what I needed to move forward with strength. A simple divorce was not enough. I had to grind him down until there was nothing left but the barest shadow of the man he once was.
The night of the curse, Maddox had barged out of our house still defiant and ready to fight. That was unacceptable. I couldn’t truly move on from him until I had reduced him to crawling and begging on the floor.
If Maddox thought he was suffering already just from the curse… he had no idea how much worse was waiting for him.