Chapter Nineteen
The tea shop felt like a pause the world had granted us out of mercy. The scent of bergamot and baked sugar lingered in the air like a promise that some things could still be simple.
Celeste sat across from me, her hands wrapped around her mug, eyes bright and thoughtful in that way that told me she was piecing things together faster than I’d anticipated.
Stella hovered nearby under the pretense of wiping down an already spotless counter, which meant she was listening without appearing to.
“So,” Celeste said carefully, “you were saying your mom was a witch. Grandma, the one who you couldn’t pry from a cruise ship’s rails, is magical?”
I nodded. “Yes.”
She tilted her head. “Not like… just a dabbling witch with crystals and affirmations.”
She knew more than I realized.
I quietly laughed. “No. The real kind. Her instincts kept us safe, and I dare say that was also the magic speaking to her.”
Stella drifted over then, setting down a small dish of sugar cubes between us.
“Celeste, your mom has excellent magical instincts, too,” she said mildly. “Questionable taste in men, but excellent magical instincts.”
“Hey,” I muttered, though I didn’t argue.
Celeste’s brow furrowed. “So she left to protect you.”
“Yes,” I said. “At least, I think that’s the truth of it now.”
She studied her tea for a moment, watching the steam curl upward. “Is that why she was always cold to us, to you?”
Her honesty bit hard because that was the truth of it. The kind mother I remember from my young childhood had been replaced with a guarded shell of a woman once she married my stepdad.
“I suppose,” I admitted. “But it didn’t make it feel better.”
“No, it didn’t. I could never get closer to her.”
“Looking back on it, she probably built walls to protect me and you, sure, but also to protect a version of herself that couldn’t exist in the present.
She left a husband she loved and a place she knew to start a life that was completely foreign,” I said softly.
“She could never utter a word about magic or who she was or the place she came from.”
Celeste’s eyes lifted to mine. “Brutal.”
The words settled between us, heavy and undeniable.
“Yes,” I said.
“And her mother, my grandmother, was…”
“Is the Priestess.”
Celeste didn’t gasp. She didn’t recoil. She just went very still. She knew this information, but hearing it this way meant something different.
“That’s… a lot,” she said finally.
“It is,” I agreed. “And I didn’t know. Not until recently. I grew up thinking my grandmother was just… gone. Or irrelevant. Or someone my mom never wanted to talk about.”
Celeste nodded slowly. “That tracks.”
I blinked. “It does?”
She shrugged. “My grandmother—your mom—always acted like her parents didn’t exist. No stories. No pictures. No ‘when I was a kid’ moments. It was like there was nothing before her marriage to my step-grandpa.”
“Soon to be ex-grandpa.”
Celeste nodded. “What’s funny is she did all this shielding and protecting to wind back up in the village with not one but two magical offspring.”
Something in my chest loosened at that, a quiet ache easing into something like understanding.
Stella made a small, approving sound. “Smart girl.”
“Celeste, you’re incredible.”
She chuckled. “Mom.”
“No, it’s true.”
“Does that mean I should drop out of school and start learning about my history, about what I’m expected to do, and…”
“Nice try,” I said, chuckling. “Real smooth.”
“Fate wants what fate wants,” she teased.
“Truer words…”
I smiled faintly.
“My mom tried to cut the line,” I said. “To end the inheritance. Not just the magic, but the expectations. The reach. The control. History shows that’s not possible.”
Celeste leaned back, absorbing that. “No, it didn’t work.”
“Because magic doesn’t disappear just because you don’t name it.”
Stella slid into the seat beside me without asking, crossing one elegant leg over the other.
“Magic is like mold,” she said cheerfully. “Ignore it long enough, and it grows in interesting places.”
Celeste snorted, then sobered. “So… you grew up without knowing any of this. And then you find out in your forties that your grandmother is basically the most dangerous woman in any room.”
“Yes,” I said. “On top of finding out my shifter dad had magic, my other grandmother is bound to a sentient Academy, and now cottage as a haunt, and half the town has known things about me my entire life that I didn’t.”
“That explains a lot,” Celeste said quietly.
“How so?”
She met my gaze. “You’ve always looked like someone waiting for the ground to shift.”
The honesty of it stole my breath.
“I didn’t feel ready,” I admitted. “Learning all of this so late, learning who I come from, what runs in my blood, it made me feel unstable. Like I’d missed some essential instruction manual.”
Stella waved a dismissive hand. “Instruction manuals are overrated. Most of us wing it and hope for the best.”
Celeste smiled at her, then turned back to me. “So what does that mean for me?”
I reached across the table and took her hand.
“It means I don’t want to repeat the same mistakes. I don’t want to hide things from you because I’m afraid of them.”
Her fingers tightened around mine. “Even if I’m part of it.”
“Especially if you are,” I said.
She hesitated, then said the words again, quieter this time but no less certain. “So I’m a witch.”
I didn’t correct her. I didn’t soften it.
“Yes,” I said. “You are.”
The word didn’t frighten her. It didn’t thrill her either. It simply fit.
Stella smiled into her teacup. “Welcome to the mess, darling.”
Celeste laughed, then frowned. “Does that mean the Priestess is going to come after me, too?”
The room seemed to still, the cozy hum dimming just a fraction.
“I don’t know,” I said honestly. “But it means we’ll be prepared if she does.”
Celeste nodded once, resolve settling into her posture in a way that made my heart swell and ache all at once.
“I don’t want to be used,” she said. “I don’t want to be controlled.”
“Neither did my mother,” I said softly. “And neither do I.”
Stella leaned back, studying us both. “The difference,” she said, “is that you two are talking about it. Secrets are the Priestess’s favorite weapon. You’ve already dulled the blade.”
Outside, a breeze rattled the paper leaves strung along the street, and inside the tea shop, surrounded by warmth and truth and just enough humor to keep us upright, I realized something quietly profound.
This moment, this conversation, was the magic my mother had been trying to avoid.
It wasn’t about power or magic. It had been about choice. I never had the choice to learn or distance myself from it.
And I wasn’t about to let that be taken from my daughter, no matter who came knocking.
But then I noticed Skonk before I meant to.
It was the way he walked down the sidewalk outside the tea shop, shoulders hunched, steps too deliberate, like someone rehearsing bad news before delivering it.
He paused once to look over at the pumpkins at a doorstep, started to talk to them, and then shook his head as if even they had betrayed him.
My stomach dropped.
I was out of my chair before I consciously decided to move, the table scraping softly against the floor as Stella glanced up in mild surprise.
“Oh dear,” she said as Skonk pushed open the door. “That’s either indigestion, grim tidings, or a bad prophecy.”
Skonk stared at me.
“Maeve,” he said. “Hi. Pastries look delicious. Love the ambiance of this place, Stella. Always have.”
“Skonk?” My brows lifted.
“Well, we’ve got a slight problem.”
Celeste perked up immediately. “I don’t like the word slight.”
“What happened?”
Skonk scratched the back of his neck, eyes flicking briefly to Stella, over to Celeste, and back to me. “So. The cottage.”
My pulse kicked up. “What about it?”
“It… disagreed,” he said carefully.
“With what?” I asked, already knowing I wasn’t going to like the answer.
“With the Academy.”
“What part in particular?” I asked slowly, dreading the answer.
He cleared his throat. “Where’s Twobble?”
“With the toad,” Celeste responded.
“Skonk, stay focused. What part did the cottage disagree with?”
“The Gideon staying part,” Skonk replied. “I would dare to say it disagreed very strongly.”
My chest tightened. “What do you mean, disagreed?”
“I mean,” he said, lifting one hand in a helpless gesture, “the Ward shoved him out onto the porch like a bad reaction, and then Miora and Elira locked the doors behind him.”
The words hit like ice water.
“They locked him out?” I repeated.
“Yes,” Skonk said. “Firmly. Symbolically. With feeling. Because truthfully, the cottage…the Stone Ward itself, said, Nope. Not letting him stay here.”
For a heartbeat, the tea shop seemed to tilt. The Academy wanted Gideon near. It had made that abundantly clear by throwing its own steps at him. The cottage booting him out wasn’t just inconvenient; it was dangerous. Conflicting magical authority rarely ended quietly.
“Oh no,” I whispered.
Celeste, however, leaned back in her chair and shrugged.
“I mean… I don’t mind him getting out of here.”
I closed my eyes for a moment, forcing myself to breathe.
“I know,” I said gently. “And you’re allowed to feel that way.”
Skonk glanced between us. “She’s got a point.”
“This isn’t about whether we like him,” I said, opening my eyes again. “It’s about balance. The Academy wanted him close. The cottage rejecting him creates a vacuum.”
Stella sipped her tea, unfazed. “Vacuum’s a polite word. I’d call it a magical disagreement with teeth. But when you told me that the Academy agreed to a compromise…”
“What?” I prompted.
“Well, darling…the Academy doesn’t compromise.”
My thoughts raced ahead, mapping consequences. Gideon alone. Gideon displaced. Gideon between places that didn’t want him. That was exactly when people like him made terrible decisions or got scooped up by worse forces.
“Where is he now?” I asked.
Skonk grimaced. “Last I saw, he was standing on the path out of town, looking deeply offended and fanning at Karvey, who was circling over him.”
That didn’t reassure me.
Celeste frowned. “Is that bad?”
“It’s not good,” I said honestly. “Gideon isn’t someone you want feeling cornered.”
“And yet,” Stella said lightly, “here we are.”
I paced once, then stopped abruptly as something clicked into place.
Luna.
Our quite timid fiber witch. The quiet, constant one who always seemed to know just a little more than she said, whose shop Gideon had wandered into like it was familiar territory rather than neutral ground.
I turned back toward the window, scanning the street as if the answer might be written between the pumpkins and bunting.
“I need to talk to Luna.”
Skonk blinked. “About Gideon.”
“Yes.”
Stella arched a brow. “Interesting choice.”
“She knows more about him than she lets on,” I said. “She always has. The timing. The way she watches. The fact that Gideon ended up in her shop of all places.”
Celeste tilted her head. “You think she knows where he’ll go next.”
“I think she knows why he keeps ending up where he does,” I replied.
Skonk let out a low whistle. “Well. That’s comforting and alarming.”
Stella set her cup down decisively. “Don’t dither. Go before the universe rearranges itself again.”
I nodded, already reaching for my coat.
“You okay?” I asked Celeste
She smiled, small but real. “Yeah. Honestly? I feel safer knowing you’re handling it.”
That trust my daughter handed to me landed heavier than any prophecy.
“I won’t be long,” I said. “Stay here with Stella.”
Stella smiled sweetly. “I’ll traumatize her minimally.”
Celeste snorted. “Good luck with that. I’ve already been held hostage in Shadowick once.”
I slipped out of the tea shop into the crisp air, heart thudding, mind already racing ahead. Somewhere in Stonewick, Gideon had been unmoored again, and the Academy and the cottage were no longer aligned.
Which meant someone else had stepped into the gap.
And if there was one person in this town who understood the spaces between things, the pauses, the threads, the quiet knowledge that didn’t announce itself, it was Luna.
I headed toward the knitting shop with purpose, knowing with absolute certainty that whatever I was about to learn was going to complicate everything.