Chapter 42
Not all come to watch. Some come to weave.
—Magicks and Power: The Political Structures of the Elemental World
With April’s arrival, Whittaker becomes a flurry of activity, preparing for Parents’ Week—the time of year when the esteemed parents of the student body descend upon campus, filling the air with polished smiles and eager greetings.
The quad fills with students who look like they’ve never had to sprint for a bell in their lives.
Faculty appear in pressed robes. Even the wards along the outer gates hum a little brighter, like the school is trying to impress.
I tell myself I’m fine. But when I’m waiting at the carriage house and the line of arriving cars begins to crawl through the gates, my palms are damp and my heartbeat feels too loud in my chest.
This is the first time my mother will get to see my world. The world that swallowed me whole the moment I stepped into Whittaker’s halls.
A black town car pulls up near the curb, tires crunching gravel.
The back door opens.
For a moment, she’s only a silhouette—then she steps out into the thin April sun and the entire campus seems to shift, like spring itself decided to take human form and walk across Whittaker’s gray stone.
“Mom,” I breathe.
Rosalind Farris turns, and her face lights up with a brilliant smile. Her dark-brown hair is pulled into a loose knot at the nape of her neck. She moves like rain—unhurried, inevitable, carrying a calm that makes everything around her slow down.
Her eyes meet mine. Green like a forest after a storm. And something in my chest gives, the tension snapping like a cord I didn’t realize I’d been holding all year.
“Celeste,” she says, and my name sounds like a prayer in her mouth.
I don’t walk. I lunge.
She drops her bag without caring where it lands and catches me with both arms, pulling me in so hard I lose my balance for a second.
I can smell hand soap and lavender and something warm that has nothing to do with magick and everything to do with home.
Her hands are on my hair, my shoulders, my back—like she’s counting bones to make sure none are missing.
“Oh, sweetheart,” she whispers, voice shaking. “Look at you.”
My throat closes instantly. The words I meant to say—I’m sorry and I missed you and I didn’t mean to leave you alone—pile up behind my teeth until all I can manage is “Hi.”
She laughs, small and breathless, and presses a kiss to my forehead the way she used to when I was small enough to fit under her chin without trying.
“I’ve been dying to see you,” she murmurs. “I hate that it’s taken this long.”
Guilt slides in like a knife—sharp and familiar.
She pulls back just enough to look at me properly. Her gaze travels over my face, the faint shadows under my eyes, the way my posture has changed—straighter, stance steadier.
Her mouth tightens for a heartbeat. Then she lifts her hand and cups my cheek, thumb brushing the corner of my mouth like she’s smoothing away something that isn’t there.
“You look… different,” she says softly. “In a good way. Coming here was the right choice, right? You’re happy?”
My eyes sting. I blink hard, annoyed at myself, at my own emotions. “Yes. I’m fine,” I say automatically.
Her brows lift—Rosalind Farris, patron saint of calling bullshit with kindness—and she gives me that look that says she hears what I won’t say and is choosing not to press.
Instead she exhales, steadying. “Show me,” she says, voice brightening with effort. “Show me everything.”
I nod, swallowing. I am excited—nervous, but excited—to show my mother around. To let her see everything I’ve learned. To introduce her to my friends and show her the pieces of my life she hasn’t yet been able to be a part of.
I reach for her bag, and she swats my hand away. “Absolutely not. I’m your mother, not a porcelain doll.”
I only laugh and take her hand in mine.
We pass under the archway where ivy is just beginning to bud, pale green against stone.
Mom’s gaze sweeps over everything: the buildings, the banners, the students moving in clusters, the faint shimmer of wards in the air—if you know where to look.
She’s trying to take it all in, and I can almost see her mind catching on details and filing them away—the same way she used to memorize the names of my classmates after one brief mention.
“You weren’t exaggerating,” she murmurs.
“I never exaggerate,” I deadpan.
She sighs, just once. “I wish your father could have seen all this.”
That lands like a punch I don’t know how to take. My grip tightens around her fingers. For a second I can’t breathe.
She squeezes my hand once—gentle, wordless. I know.
We make it to the center of the quad, now returned to its original state. The stone stadium is no more. Picnic tables have been set up for the visiting parents. Other families are already settling in—jokes and laughter rising, a few tears slipping loose.
Mom turns in a slow circle, then looks at me again. “You’ve been here all this time,” she says quietly. “And I couldn’t even picture it.”
My chest squeezes. “I… I’m sorry. I should have written more, or called—”
She interrupts me, her expression softening. “Oh, please, honey. I know you’ve been busy.”
I’m about to say something—something honest, something ugly—when I feel a distinct shift in temperature that happens only when a certain person steps into my orbit.
My mother stiffens beside me in a way so subtle no one else would notice.
“I don’t believe it. Is that…?”
I follow her gaze.
Gavrail is crossing the quad toward us in his Vikhrostrum uniform—charcoal and silver, crisp lines, the kind of tailoring that makes him look like a weapon. His coat is open despite the bite still in the April air, as if cold is beneath his notice.
He stops a few paces away, posture perfect.
His eyes lock on mine first. Silver-flecked. A storm caged.
Then his gaze moves to my mother.
Something flickers in him. Whatever mask he was wearing shifts. Not gone, exactly. But… softened at the edges.
“Mrs. Farris,” he says, and his voice is gentler than I expect. He inclines his head with formal respect, but there’s something underneath it—something like affection.
My mother stares for a beat too long.
Then her face breaks.
“Gavrail,” she says, like she can’t decide whether to laugh or cry. “You are alive.”
His mouth twitches. “Last I checked.”
“Oh, don’t you get clever with me,” she snaps—fond, fierce—and then she’s moving. She releases my hand and strides right up to him like she owns the space between them.
Gavrail’s posture shifts a fraction—braced, ready for impact, unsure what to expect.
She grabs him. Both arms. Full force. A hug that is not polite or careful, but ferocious and maternal and—how dare you disappear from our lives and stand here like you didn’t crush us with the weight of it.
I freeze. Because Gavrail… doesn’t.
He exhales slowly—and his arms come around her without hesitation. One hand spreads across her back, holding her, and for a heartbeat he looks startlingly young, even though he towers over her now.
Then my mother squeezes harder.
“Rosalind—” he starts, voice heavy.
She tightens her grip like she’s trying to compress seven years into one breath. “Do not ‘Rosalind’ me. Do you have any idea what you put Celeste through? Me through?”
Heat flares in my face. “Mom—”
She lifts one hand without letting go of him, like she’s swatting my protest away. “No. I get to say it. I’ve been saving it.”
Gavrail’s eyes flick to me again—quick, warning, apologetic, and maybe with a tiny thread of shame.
My mother pulls back just enough to look at him. Her hands slide up to his shoulders, gripping the uniform fabric like it’s the only thing keeping him in place.
“You look…” She frowns, eyes scanning his face, the hard edges, the discipline carved into his expression. “You look like your father.”
His jaw tightens. I can see him choosing words the way he chooses strikes.
“I’m sorry,” he says carefully. “It’s inexcusable—the way I disappeared…”
She waves her hand as if chasing away an insect. “It doesn’t matter. You are here now.” Tears well in the corners of her eyes, threatening to spill any second. And it’s hard to tell who she’s more excited to see—her own daughter or my childhood best friend.
“You’ve grown,” she says, softer now as she looks up at him. “And my goodness, are you handsome. Celeste—isn’t he handsome?”
A corner of his mouth lifts. Just barely. “Oh… Celeste here has a lot of thoughts about me these days, but I’m not sure ‘handsome’ is one of them.”
He’s right, of course. Beautiful. Intimidating. Infuriating. Take your pick.
He smirks as if he knows exactly what I’m thinking, and then there it is—that one dimple. The one that always appeared when he was standing on my front steps back in Bulgaria with mud on his jeans and mischief in his eyes. The one that belongs to summers and secrets.
Mom makes a noise—half laugh, half sob. “Gods, you’re still incorrigible.”
“Absolutely,” he agrees, utterly straight-faced.
She pats his cheek affectionately—then looks over her shoulder at me. Her eyes are too knowing. Too sharp. Too mother.
She narrows them slightly, not fooled for a second. But she doesn’t push—not here, in front of him, in the quad with everyone watching. Instead she draws herself up, smoothing her coat like she’s reassembling her composure.
“Well,” she says briskly, “since you two seem intent on giving me heart failure—and since my daughter neglected to mention you were here—I expect the both of you to show me around campus this week.” She looks at Gavrail again, and her voice softens at the edges.
“If you have time, of course. I’d love to hear what you’ve been up to. ”
Something shifts in his expression—gratitude, maybe. Or regret.
“Of course,” he says simply.
My mother nods once, satisfied, then loops her arm through his like she’s reclaiming him for herself.