44
Soleil
Seren and I step out of her portal near the demon realm side of the Veil.
Strange, how much easier it’s becoming after just a week of hopping around in the realm-between-realms.
Even stranger that I might have this magick of my own one day.
I might, if…
I can’t finish that train of thought.
I can’t do anything but walk silently side-by-side with my sister toward the glowing portal back to the human realm.
Selfishly, I’m glad Finn’s not here.
I don’t know if I’d be able to leave if he was.
Even now, watching the Veil’s light flicker from ethereal pearl to emerald green and a hundred different shades in between, I don’t know if I’ll be able to do it.
The portal is open.
All I have to do is step through.
And I can’t make my feet move.
“You said you had something for me?” I ask my sister, grasping at any straw to keep me here a moment longer.
“Here,” Seren says, handing me a bundle of soft, supple leather.
It takes me a moment to realize what it is.
A new bag.
Better than my old one—which was never all that great to begin with, just standard canvas I bought when I was sixteen and didn’t have more than my weekly allowance to spend—and practically humming with the magick she used to enchant it.
“You didn’t have to—”
“C’mon, Sol,” she says, shuffling her feet, every bit as bad at expressing emotion as I am. “Yours was falling apart. I can’t believe you never replaced it after all this time.”
“I couldn’t… there wasn’t…” Damn it. When did my throat get so tight?
Seren pretends not to notice how choked up I am, tactfully waiting for me to clear my throat and continue.
“I didn’t have you to help me charm a new one,” I admit. “And I didn’t want… I didn’t want to be walking around without that piece of you.”
“Something to remember me by?” she teases.
“You have no idea.”
The words come out too rough, too raspy, drenched with the tears I’m just barely holding back.
“Help me finish the spell?”
I nod, fully too overwhelmed to speak, and we both lay our hands against the soft leather.
We work together, pull the simple, wonderful magick we dreamed up when we were just kids into the bag, and in the space of a few heartbeats, it’s done.
“You added something,” Seren says as I tuck the new bag into my old one so I can switch everything over later. “I felt it in the spell.”
“A bit of longevity into the leather. Sort of like a healing, knitting the material tighter so it’ll last longer.”
“Clever,” she says appreciatively, then glances toward the Veil. “Well… I suppose it’s about time.”
“I suppose it is,” I whisper.
But I don’t move.
Not yet.
I can’t make my feet take the few steps to carry me out of this realm.
Seren opens her arms, and I step into them without hesitation.
It’s like coming back to myself.
She has, and will always be, one half of me.
The braver half, the more reckless half, the half that wants to dare and challenge and push boundaries.
The half I have missed so, so much.
“Goddess,” I complain, half-jokingly. “When did we become huggers?”
“Since we wasted the last ten years being pissed off at each other,” Seren mutters, then pulls back. “And there’s more where that came from. Even if you become an Ascended priestess.”
She tugs at the end of my braid, then runs her hands over the collar of my dress, fixing it so it lies flat.
It immediately unlocks a memory.
A hundred memories.
How many times did we stand outside Esme’s office or the coven council chambers, waiting to go in for an exam or a private lesson or something equally terrifying?
How many times did we fix each other up, wish each other luck, stand by each other because we were the only people we could trust in that goddessforsaken hall?
“Sorry if I took this chance away from Finn,” she murmurs. “But I thought I’d send you off one last time. Feels fitting, doesn’t it? After everything.”
“It does,” I say quietly, then make myself stand up straight, roll my shoulders back, pull myself to my full height like the Crescent Coven priestess I’m supposed to become. “What do you think? Do I look like someone who’s ready to take on Esme Hawthorn?”
One last adjustment of my sleeve so it falls straighter, and she nods. “You look like you could take on any priestess who stands in your way.”
My smile is wobbly, but I swallow past the tears and keep my composure as we both turn to face the Veil.
“Want me to come with you?”
I shake my head. “No. Thank you, but no. I have to do this on my own.”
Seren gives me one last crooked grin as I step up to the swirling ether. “Don’t you know better by now? You’re never on your own, Sol. All you have to do is ask, and you’ll always have help when you need it.”