Chapter Thirteen
Miora pressed the mug of tea into my hands as Elira stood near the hearth, hands loose at her waist, watching me with that calm, piercing look of hers. It always left me feeling exposed and steadied at the same time. She wasn't alarmed, and that bothered me more than if she had been.
"You looked," she said softly. “And didn’t like what you saw.”
“That’s an understatement,” I said, softly laughing, which surprised me. Maybe the shock was wearing off.
"The pedestal showed her," I said. "The Priestess. In a library."
Keegan's hand was still threaded through mine. He hadn't moved far from my side since we came up from the cellar, and I was happy about it. It’s not like he wasn't trying to fix anything or make promises. He was just there, and that’s all I needed.
“What kind of library?” Miora asked gently.
"Too close for comfort," I said. "Shelves like the Academy. Book sprites. Dust and ink and old charms in the air. It was the Academy's, almost — but darker. Like shadows had settled into it."
Elira's expression shifted.
"And she was touching everything," I added. "Running her fingers along the spines, snapping at the sprites like they were inattentive servants."
Miora muttered something under her breath — it sounded like a kitchen curse dressed up as a recipe.
"And then I saw myself."
"And?" Elira prompted.
"There were magical folk with me. All kinds. But none that I knew and none from here. It felt like a lot of time had passed."
Elira nodded once. “The priestess favors reflection as a means of influence.”
“Elira,” Miora said, voice low. “You’re saying she planted that?”
“I’m saying,” Elira replied calmly, “that Mariselle has used reflective magic for longer than most of us have been alive. I wouldn’t be surprised if she found a way into the pedestal.”
The name sat in the room differently than Priestess did. Mariselle. Elegant. Almost benign.
“Yes,” Elira said. “She can observe through reflection. Sometimes she can nudge.”
A cold line slid down my spine.
“I can do the same, I think,” I confessed, thinking back to the mirrors at the Academy.
“Well, you all are related,” Miora pointed out.
I playfully scowled at her.
“She’s mastered nudging, it seems,” Grandma Elira said, sighing.
“Nudge how?” I asked.
“By presenting possibility as inevitability,” Elira said simply.
My breath caught with recognition.
“That’s exactly what this felt like,” I whispered. “It didn’t feel like the Academy’s mirrors. Those felt like questions. This felt like… a suggestion. And things were…off. Probably because she hasn’t been inside the actual Academy library to know the details.”
Keegan’s fingers shifted slightly against mine, as relief slid through me.
“I saw into her world,” I said. “I wasn’t drawn into it. I wasn’t part of it. I was looking through.”
“That matters,” Elira said.
“Does it?” I demanded. “Because I also saw myself walk in like I belonged there.”
Silence stretched as Elira moved at last, taking the chair opposite me. She folded her hands in her lap and studied me the way she used to study Ward fractures—patiently, looking for the true break, not the surface crack.
“Magic doesn’t deal in guarantees,” she said. “It deals in threads.”
“I don’t want that thread.”
“You don’t have to take it,” she replied calmly.
“But it exists, and that’s the problem.”
“Only in your mind,” Elira said softly.
“So is it possible she influenced the pedestal?” Keegan questioned.
Elira considered and nodded. “It’s possible she influenced what Maeve believes she saw.”
I stared at her, trying to place that in the world I knew.
“Isn’t that worse?”
“Only if you believe magic is something that happens to you,” Elira replied.
I blinked and nodded.
“What does that mean?” I asked.
“It means,” Elira said, voice steady and clear, “that magic has meaning now in a way it hasn’t for decades.”
I frowned slightly. “Magic has always had meaning.”
“Function,” Elira corrected gently. “But not exactly meaning.”
The distinction struck deeper than it should have.
“For years,” she continued, “magic survived. It hid. It fractured. It was used in corners and whispers and small, protective acts.”
I thought of Stonewick before the Academy stirred again. Before the Wards came alive. Before midlife witches showed up with half-buried power and whole hearts.
“And now?” I asked.
“Now magic is consolidating,” Elira said. “And intent matters.”
I held her gaze and nodded.
“Mariselle consolidates power into control,” Elira continued. “You’re consolidating power into connection.”
I almost laughed at that.
“That sounds too noble. I’m just trying to keep people safe,” I said.
“And in doing so,” Elira replied, “you’re redefining what magic is for.”
The idea unsettled me more than the mirror had because I had never thought about magic as philosophy. It had been a discovery for me.
But I hadn’t stopped to ask what it all meant.
Mariselle saw magic as authority.
So, what did I see it as?
I stared at the shelves of books, listened to Karvey and the others stomping on the roof, and glanced at Keegan, a man who’d been cursed and lived to tell about it.
“The Priestess wants you to question whether your path is stable.”
“Do you think she’s trying to make me afraid of myself?” I asked quietly.
“Indeed,” Elira said.
Miora crossed her arms. “That’s cruel, and so very your grandmother.”
Grandma Elira nodded. “It’s strategic.”
The room felt smaller now, not claustrophobic, but the walls felt like they were pressing closer.
“Grandma,” I said, my voice steadier now, “there are stories about her. About how long she’s been alive. Stella mentioned that it wasn’t natural.”
“Yes,” Elira replied. “It’s true.”
“So the stories are accurate?”
She held my gaze.
“She’s had children before your mom,” Elira continued. “Grandchildren. Those she’d tried to mold. Those she tried to persuade to stand beside her.”
“And?” My fingers tightened on the mug.
“They disappear,” Elira said.
“Disappear how?” I pressed.
My grandma shook her head slightly. “Records are inconsistent. Some are said to have left willingly. Some are said to have opposed her and vanished from family accounts. Some are simply no longer mentioned.”
A shiver ran through me.
“That could be folklore,” I said quickly.
“It could be,” Elira agreed.
“But?”
“But I happen to know that she’s indeed had other families before yours.”
The fire popped softly, and I felt something sharp and protective flare inside me.
“She’s been around a long time, and there is something that is keeping her…timeless. It’s said to be from shadows or something even worse. We don’t know for sure, but that’s how she kept going. But recently, the last fifty years or so, things…slipped.”
“How so?”
“For whatever reason, she aged after she gave birth to your mother. She can no longer conceive.”
“So whatever she took is wearing off?”
“Possibly, or it only held for so long, or she did something to change the course.”
“What about my mother?” I asked.
“She left,” Elira said calmly. “And she survived.”
“But the others didn’t survive, did they?”
Elira’s silence gave me my answer, and my mind leapt without permission to Celeste.
She was so bright, curious, and stubborn in the ways that both worried and delighted me.
The idea of Mariselle turning her gaze toward my daughter made my stomach twist hard enough that I set the tea down before I dropped it.
“Grandma,” I said, and this time my voice was quieter. “Is it possible she… uses family?”
Elira didn’t flinch.
“Anything is possible,” she said. “Some have speculated that’s how she keeps her years, but no one knows for sure.”
“Using the youth of her family?”
“Possibly.”
“I refuse,” I said, the word low and fierce.
Elira’s eyes softened slightly. “Refusal is a choice.”
“But if magic is threads,” I whispered, “how many threads came before me?”
Silence settled again.
I thought of my mother. Of her leaving. Of her choosing distance over legacy.
How many of them had looked into reflective surfaces and seen something similar and told themselves they were different?
Keegan’s thumb traced a small, absent circle against my hand.
“You are not her,” he said quietly.
“I know,” I answered automatically.
I leaned back slowly, staring at the ceiling beams.
“Could it be myth?” I asked again, softer now. “Could the stories about disappearing kin just be stories?”
Elira’s expression didn’t darken, but it deepened.
“Perhaps,” she said. “But if you were facing someone like Mariselle… would you gamble on that?”
The answer came too quickly.
“No.”
The cottage hummed around us. The warmth. The safety. The illusion of simplicity.
And yet beneath it all, the question remained.
How many came before me?
How many daughters and granddaughters had stood at this crossroads?
How many women had thought they were the first to resist?
And how many of them had believed, as I did now, that love and stubbornness and good intentions were enough to keep them from walking willingly into a hall they once swore they would never enter?