Chapter 23
CALLIE
The Nightshade Cove Convention Center was a marvel of modern witch architecture.
Moonlight streamed through the enchanted glass of the soaring ceiling, shifting the light into ever-changing colors.
I watched the purple and silver beams dance across the faces of the witches milling about, all of them buzzing with energy and ambition.
Behind me, Maddox grunted as he struggled with my luggage. We were only here for three days, but I’d heavily over-packed, just to make it hard on him. I glanced back to see him looking queasy, his face still clammy an hour after we’d arrived via teleportation.
“How are you holding up?” I asked.
“Still nauseous,” he muttered, adjusting his grip on my bags.
I suppressed a smile. I had told him that everyone felt sick the first time they teleported.
The truth was, avoiding teleportation sickness was only a matter of casting the magic correctly. And wouldn’t you know it, I’d somehow made some “mistakes” when transporting Maddox here.
“I’m sure you’ll feel better soon,” I said breezily, turning back to continue my survey of the convention floor. Row after row of booths stretched before me, each one representing a different magical career path. I’d already considered so many possibilities, none of which clicked.
Education, fashion, architecture, medicine, historical research, marketing, urban planning… I drifted from booth to booth, my interest flaring briefly at each stop as I saw how magic was transforming these fields.
But doubts always came rushing in right after. Teaching seemed noble, but I didn’t think I’d be good at corralling entire classes of students. Archival work looked fascinating but lonely. Healing I’d always been awful at, and the years of specialized study it required were too much to take on.
A booth for magical wedding planning caught my eye. Despite how it turned out, I loved planning my own wedding, and the thought of bringing that joy to other couples gave me a warm feeling.
But as I chatted up the witch there, I was unsettled how quickly she warned me about the major drawback with most of her clients: human couples whose requests for a magical wedding were so outrageously unreasonable, they amounted to demands to bend the laws of reality.
“As humans learn about the limits of what magic can do, I believe it’ll become more manageable,” she reassured me.
But the specter of such entitled bridezillas had already turned me off the idea.
The same pattern repeated at booth after booth. It felt like repeatedly spotting outfits that looked great on the rack, but the minute I tried them on, they just didn’t hang right on me at all.
I glanced back at Maddox, who was wiping sweat from his forehead with the back of his hand. The sight of him struggling prompted the usual smile from me, but did I really want him to see me like this? Wandering aimlessly, unable to commit to anything?
So, I better ensure he remained focused on his own problems. For the ninth time in the last hour, I silently cast a spell to increase the weight of my already-overstuffed luggage another ten pounds, and immediately I heard a pained grunt from him in response.
I had to be nearing the maximum that even his muscles could handle.
A commotion near the entrance made me turn. The crowd parted, witches stepping aside with murmurs of recognition and respect. “The High Priestess is here!” a witch near me whispered to her friend.
My mother swept into the convention center like she owned it.
Which, in a sense, she did. Astrea’s presence always commanded attention.
She wore a deep purple gown that seemed to shimmer with its own light, and her dark hair was swept up in an elegant style that showed off her ornate silver earrings.
Her eyes found mine immediately, and her face lit up with genuine warmth. She glided over to me, her arms outstretched.
“Calliope! Darling!” She pulled me into a hug, then held me at arm’s length to look me over. “You look wonderful. How are you finding the fair?”
“It’s incredible,” I said, keeping my voice light and confident. “There are so many possibilities here. I’m weighing my options.”
Astrea’s eyes narrowed slightly. She knew me too well.
Her gaze shifted past me to Maddox, and her expression curdled. “And you brought your baggage along, I see.”
Maddox looked like he wanted the floor to open up and swallow him. Since he had always declined to accompany me on any visit back to Nightshade Cove, he hadn’t seen my mother in years.
“Astrea, it’s good to see you again—” Maddox attempted.
Astrea snapped her fingers, and suddenly there was a sock stuffed in his mouth, with such abruptness that he was still speaking, his words suddenly muffled and unintelligible.
I burst out laughing. He set down my bags and reached to his mouth, sheepishly pulling the sock out, then looking unsure where to put it.
Astrea turned her attention back to me, her expression softening. “Come, let me walk with you. I want to hear what’s caught your eye.”
We strolled through the aisles together, Maddox trailing behind us like a pack mule, gradually falling further behind. I pointed out a few booths that interested me, trying to sound more enthusiastic than I felt.
“The magical architecture was fascinating,” I said. “And the wedding planning felt like a match for a minute…”
“But?” Astrea prompted.
“But... I don’t know. Nothing’s totally grabbed me yet.”
She nodded thoughtfully. “That’s perfectly normal, you know. You don’t have to choose your entire future today. The important thing is to keep an open mind. Explore. Try things. You’re capable of anything you set your mind to, Calliope. Don’t let uncertainty hold you back.”
“I know,” I said, though I wasn’t sure I believed it.
We approached a booth surrounded by basins of water in every shade from murky brown to clear blue, where a witch was mid-demonstration, showing the process of magical purification and desalination, and speaking on its potential to solve global freshwater shortages.
As we got closer, the attendant’s eyes went wide.
“High Priestess! What an honor!” She bowed deeply to Astrea, then turned to me with an expression of delighted recognition.
“And you must be Calliope. We’ve heard so much about you.
” She clasped her hands together eagerly.
“Are you seeking new opportunities? It would be a great honor to have the daughter of a High Priestess join the Aquatic Council.”
Heat rushed to my face. “I’m just exploring right now.”
“Of course, of course. But please take our information. We would be thrilled to have you among our ranks.”
She pressed a glowing brochure into my hands, her smile so wide it looked painful.
I mumbled my thanks, and we moved on, but the pattern repeated at the next booth. And the next. Each time I stopped at a booth with Astrea, the attendants fell all over themselves to court me.
My cheeks burned hotter with each encounter as I remembered it wasn’t just Astrea herself that had once made being her daughter so impossible. It was the way others reacted to me as well. It was unpleasant to always have to wonder if they were interested in me, or in my connection to her.
My mother placed a gentle hand on my arm. “Come. Let’s step away from the crowd for a moment.”
She steered me toward the perimeter of the convention floor, away from the bustling booths and eager recruiters. We walked quickly to open an even wider distance between us and Maddox, and found a quiet alcove near one of the tall windows.
“Talk to me,” Astrea said.
I glanced back at Maddox. Time to stop his progress so he didn’t overhear us.
With a subtle shifting of my fingers, I added another fifty pounds to the bags. He yelped as his knees nearly buckled, and he had to stop to readjust his grip. That should keep him occupied.
I took a deep breath. “I just... I don’t know what I’m doing. Everyone here seems—”
“What did you just do?” Astrea demanded.
I flinched at the bluntness of her interruption. Was this the old Astrea reasserting herself? A favorite move of hers had always been to ask you to share your feelings, then cut you off after two words. “What do you mean?”
“I felt you channel that magic. And then I saw your beast of burden collapse. Tell me what you just cast.”
“Oh, it’s nothing,” I said. “Just a heaviness spell.”
“A heaviness spell,” Astrea said slowly.
“On the luggage. I’ve been adding 10 pounds to it every few minutes since we got here.”
We looked back to Maddox, still a distance away. His sweat-drenched T-shirt clung to his torso like a second skin, outlining every ridge of muscle beneath. His chest heaved with each breath, and his face had gone red with exertion.
A slow smile spread across my mother’s face, equal parts awe and amusement.
“And how did you do it?” she asked.
I blinked at her, confused by the question. “I just reversed a lightness spell.”
“Reversed it, just like that?”
“Yeah, just like that. It’s the same spell you taught me when I was little, just flipped. It’s as basic as it gets.”
Astrea’s eyes went wide. “Oh my gods, child! What do I have to do to get through to you?”
“Get through to me on what?” I asked, flustered.
“Calliope, that’s not the way most witches channel their magic.
” She gestured expansively out at the crowd on the convention floor.
“I doubt there’s one other witch here who knows how to take a spell and just reverse it.
Most witches have to figure out anything new from scratch, not just flipping something they already know inside out! ”
I shifted my weight, uncomfortable with her intensity. “It can’t be that rare. Maybe it’s just not talked about because—”
“And there you go again, minimizing your skill and talent. Calliope, you have incredible magical instincts and a gift for adaptation on the fly.” She clasped my hands.
“Embrace your power fully, and someday every witch in this room will be begging you for a job. Take your time, but just know at the end of this, you will find your purpose, and it will be incredible. I’ve never been more sure of anything. ”
Warmth spread in my chest. My confidence had been building these last few weeks, but clearly it still had further to go.
“Okay, you’re right, mother.” I took a deep breath. “It’s a hard habit to break. But I’m going to stop doubting myself.”
Astrea beamed at me as we stepped out of the alcove to rejoin the job fair.
As we did so, I noticed something that had escaped my attention before.
Now that we were at the periphery of the convention floor, I could see more security witches stationed around than I would have expected.
They were discreet and dressed casually, but I could tell their purpose from their positioning and the way their eyes scanned the crowd.
“What’s with the security?” I asked.
Astrea waved a hand dismissively. “Oh, it’s nothing. The stupid militia is just making noises again.”
That worried me. I had always been concerned that someday the anti-witch militia that had been lurking out among the pines would start causing real trouble in Nightshade Cove.
“You think they’re a threat?”
“Oh gods, no. Those stupid goons can barely tie their own shoes. The security is just an abundance of caution. Nothing to worry about, dear.”
She said it so casually, with such ease.
But I knew my mother well enough to recognize when she was hiding something. Just as she could see through my attempts at false confidence earlier, I could see through her lies.
The security wasn’t here out of an abundance of caution.
My mother was worried about something.