30. Time Shall Grant Your Longing #2
When Luna reached the table, Delilah leaped up to hug her. When she pulled back, she gazed between Luna and Shaw with an expression that was knowing and fond and ever-so-slightly smug. “You’re glowing, both of you. It’s gross.”
“We’re not—”
“You are absolutely glowing.” Delilah grinned. “Go grab plates. Zahir is murdering us all with excessive amounts of breakfast foods. You don’t want to miss out.”
Aphra appeared from the crowd, moving like incense smoke. “Blessed be, you beautiful children. So happy to see nobody spontaneously combusted last night.” She turned to Elias, squeezing his shoulders. “Welcome home, traveler.”
He looked genuinely moved at the comment. “Thank you.”
“One thing, though,” she added, not unkindly, “this get-up is not how we dress. Poor man, are you under the impression that that is how we dress?”
“Scarlett’s handiwork,” Luna explained.
“Ahh, I see.” Aphra nodded. “Well. That’s how you know she loves you.”
Luna tried to steer him toward a relatively quiet corner, but it was hopeless.
Friends swarmed all around. Polly leaned in with some off-color jokes about time-travel romance novels, and the Earls clapped Elias on his sore shoulder until he visibly winced.
Belinda hugged him, announcing she’d known that Mr. Elias Shaw was a hero all along.
Through it all, Luna was hyperaware of his physical presence beside her.
She couldn’t stop touching him. A hand on his arm.
Her shoulder against his side. Fingers linked with his.
He’s here. He’s alive. He’s mine. The thought kept repeating, a steady drumbeat to the melody of the chaotic brunch.
She caught Mama watching them from across the room, her expression unreadable. Kelly Melrose saw everything, always had, and right now she was looking at Luna and Shaw like she was cataloging data for future reference. Kelly stood up, and the room gradually settled.
“Thank you all for coming.” Her voice cut through the remaining conversations with the ease of someone who’d spent decades wrangling three strong-willed daughters.
“I know we’re all recovering from yesterday, but there’s something we need to discuss.
As you may know, before yesterday’s demonstration, I spent considerable time reaching out to magicians.
We had been advised to seek their help with Ashton Vex.
And seek I did. I contacted dozens of them. Every single one refused.”
A ripple of reaction moved through the room: a bit of angry muttering, a few resigned sighs.
“Some were polite about it. Most were . . . less so. In any case, we went into this crisis alone. And that’s unacceptable. This endless feud between witches and magicians must end.”
Aphra nodded slowly, her expression grave. “Old wounds fester if they’re never cleaned.”
“Or maybe they’re just jerks, and we should stop inviting them to anything,” Polly said.
“I’m with Polly but with more profanity,” Scarlett added.
Delilah looked torn. “We can’t keep fighting each other like this. Someone has to be the one to try to fix it.”
“Exactly,” Kelly said. “And that someone is going to be us. First, we need to understand what really happened—not lore, not old tales that get repeated over and over, but the truth. From there, we’ll figure out who needs to make amends and what that might look like.”
The room went quiet again, but this time it was thoughtful, considering.
“I’m not naive,” she continued. “I know this won’t be easy. I know some magicians will never come around. But we have to try. We have to mend what our ancestors broke.”
Luna watched Shaw. He was very deliberately looking at the floor, his jaw tight, clearly trying to make himself smaller. She squeezed his hand gently. He squeezed back but didn’t look up.
Everyone understood, Luna thought. Shaw wasn’t responsible for centuries of magician–witch animosity. The last thing he wanted was to be the “representative magician” in whatever reconciliation process Mama was proposing. He’d already done enough.
“We’ll talk more about this in the coming days,” Kelly said. “For now, I just wanted everyone to know where we stand. Yesterday was a victory, no question. But it wasn’t a complete victory. And we have work to do.”
She sat down, and the room gradually resumed its previous noise level; conversations picking up, Zahir swooping in with more food, the comfortable chaos of a community that had survived something together.
Luna was about to suggest to Elias that they make their escape when the room went silent again. But not gradually this time. Instantly. Like someone had hit a mute button on the entire building.
Louise Demain materialized beside the Bloody Mary bar. She was suddenly just there, just present. As if she’d stepped through the seams of time instead of using the door like a normal person.
People instinctively backed up. Even Mama went rigid, her coffee mug pausing halfway to her lips.
Naturally, Louise paid no attention to the reaction she’d caused.
She focused entirely on the creation of what was certain to be a time-bending cocktail.
A glass floated from the stack. Vodka poured itself.
Tomato juice followed. Garnishes began arranging themselves with geometric precision: an olive here, a pickle there, a spicy shrimp levitating into place.
Kelly cleared her throat. “Louise.”
The time witch didn’t look up. “Kelly.”
“I’m glad you’re here,” Kelly said, not sounding especially so. “I wanted to thank you, for bringing your friend to our aid. Without Chuck, whom we know as Myrna, yesterday could have gone very differently.”
“Myrna the Accumulator required little encouragement. Mortal hubris provides her endless sustenance.” Louise finally turned, and her gaze swept across the room with the casual interest of someone observing insects wriggling under glass.
“The one called Vex dwells in the Garden of Perpetual Regard. He wished for attention. Myrna the Accumulator provides, eternally.” Her eyes flicked in Luna’s direction.
“Melrose welp: do you recall the pleasant afternoon you spent in an Angstloch?”
Luna shuddered, nodded, and to Elias’s questioning expression, she whispered, “Medieval fear hole.”
“Well, my meatsacks, let it be known that entrapment in the Garden of Perpetual Regard will make Vex long for an Angstloch. His screams ring out in seventeen languages.”
“That’s very . . .” Polly started to say, then seemed to think better of it.
“Quite so.” Louise took another sip of her drink, and only then did her attention fix—fully, terribly—on Elias Shaw. “You.” Her voice resonated with harmonics that didn’t exist in normal human speech. “The human male. He who begged for Chicago.”
Every head in the room swiveled toward him. “Well, ma’am . . . yes. I may have, um. Yes. But things have changed. Luna and I—”
Louise tilted her head, her eyes going distant.
“I have observed your yearning across ten thousand probabilities. Chicago, 1926. The Before-Time. The hour of your Unmaking.” Louise lifted her improbable drink and took a sip.
“You served us with valor. You saved magic entire. Such deeds merit reward.”
“Ah, Louise?” Luna’s voice came out higher than she intended. “Whatever you’re thinking, he doesn’t want to—”
“Time shall grant your longing.”
“No, wait—” Shaw started.
But Louise didn’t wait; time witches never did. She lifted one hand. Delicately, almost casually. And Shaw’s outline began to blur.
“No,” Luna said. “No, Louise, please stop!”
The air was already distorting around Elias, the edges of him becoming indistinct as he was unstitched from the present. Luna lunged for him. Her hands closed on his arms, but her fingers passed through him like he was made of smoke.
“Luna—!” His voice spiraled into static, his eyes locked on hers with absolute terror. “I’m not leaving you— I’m not— I don’t want—”
His last moment: reaching for her, desperate, his hand outstretched even as the rest of him dissolved into impossible light. Then he was gone. Just absence.
The inn was frozen in shock, everyone staring at the space where Shaw had been.
Luna stood with her hands still outstretched, fingers closing on nothing.
Louise took another sip of her Bloody Mary, looking immensely satisfied. “He is home.” But then she paused, dismayed to see so much horror on so many faces. “You should be grateful! The cosmos rarely grants such favors.”
“Bring him back,” Luna heard herself say. Her voice sounded like it belonged to someone else. “Louise. Bring him back right now.”
“He is where he wished to be.”
“He didn’t wish for that anymore! Things have changed.”
Louise waved a dismissive hand. “Nothing changes. Time has granted him mercy.”
“That wasn’t mercy!” Delilah shouted. “That was—”
But Louise was already fading, her form becoming translucent, still holding her cocktail with perfect dignity.
“Ungrateful meatsacks,” she muttered. And vanished.
The silence that followed was absolute.
Luna stood frozen, her hands still outstretched, staring at the empty space where Shaw had been. He’d been right here. Right here. His hand in hers. His warmth beside her. Promising to stay. Agreeing they’d figure it out together. Now there was only empty space.
Scarlett’s arms wrapped around her from behind. Then Delilah’s. Her sisters held her together while she fell apart for the second time in as many days.
But this time, there was no Chuck to pull him back. This time, there would be no last-minute rescue. Shaw was gone, and Luna had no idea how to breathe without him.
* * *
Luna had been sitting on the porch steps for an hour. Knees pulled to her chest, staring at nothing. No sound except for the cicadas and the distant barking of someone’s dog. At least Chuck’s brass band was gone. Something to be grateful for, at least.
The inn behind her had finally emptied out. As people departed, they all stopped to offer her condolences and sympathy. Lots of promises that they’d find a way to fix this, that it would be okay, that Louise could be reasoned with.