Chapter 14
14
FOR WHAT FEELS like much too long, but is likely only a matter of moments, everything is chaos.
It takes a while for it to settle down enough that Zander and I are us again.
We stare at each other, and neither one of us mentions that we’re now gripping each other with both our hands, fingers laced tight.
Zander swallows, hard, before helping me out of bed. I want to tell him I don’t really need any help, but it’s like when he calls me baby . The part of me that wants to fight to assert myself gets drowned out by the part of me that only and ever wants to bask in him. I decide to go with the basking. He mutters a spell to freshen us both up as we step out of the bedroom, and I let that happen too.
I move gingerly at first, astounded that I can’t feel all that poison anymore. No matter that it’s the second time I’ve gone through this, it was worse this time. And I am somehow fine. Because of the Healers who helped me—but also because of me .
By the time we make it to the staircase, I know I should tell Zander that I’m perfectly me again, and there’s no need for any coddling...but I don’t.
I tell myself that it has nothing to do with him or with me or with the daughter we kind of just met for the first time, but because when we can see the front hall of Wilde House, there’s a crowd of people there.
Not just our people.
I can see Emerson and Rebekah’s parents, apparently no longer in Germany, looking even more chilly and affronted than usual. If the familial resemblance is anything to go by, the rest of the crowd is a whole passel of other Wildes. They’re crowding the entryway, all talking at the same time and sounding entirely too much like Desmond Wilde himself—meaning, haughty and filled with outrage of some sort or another—and that leaves Zander and me stuck on the stairs. I don’t see Rebekah or Emerson. Or anyone else I know.
Behind us, the ghosts reappear, but they don’t look the way they usually do. Elizabeth’s hair is falling out of its tight bun. Zachariah’s shirt is half-untucked.
“What happened to you two?” I’m pretty sure ghosts can’t change their appearances. Much less physically fight each other, which is what their dishevelment kind of looks like.
Then again, the normal rules seem to be out the door tonight.
And how.
I look down at Azrael, the newel post with its gleaming onyx eyes. I remember then that his occasional comments are a result of some old enchantment, according to Georgie. An enchantment that was probably enacted by one of the witches currently milling around the entry hall before us. Of course tonight is the sort of night that enchanted objects decide to come out to play.
Elizabeth is waving a hand. “Never mind that. The ascension bell is tolling. You must go.” She makes a shooing motion at us.
“Go where?” Zander asks, scowling.
“To the Undine,” Zachariah intones.
Zander turns that scowl on his ancestor. “The statue?”
He looks to me and I shrug, because I don’t know what else they could mean. The only Undine I’ve ever heard of is the big statue down by the riverfront. It’s a woman so intricately sculpted in marble it’s hard to tell if she’s wearing some kind of gown or emerging from the water. She’s placed to gaze off toward the confluence, her hands raised as if calling the power of the three rivers to her.
Or possibly drunkenly dancing off a long night, as I heard a group of humans say once.
“There’s so much you don’t yet know,” Zachariah says darkly.
“Aren’t you glad we didn’t abandon you?” Elizabeth adds.
Then they sail through us—the both of them—holding hands.
“Ghosts can’t...?” Zander trails off.
“Can’t what? Be annoying? I think they have that down.”
Then it dawns on me. The shift in their demeanor, their appearance. The general dishevelment . A physical altercation, maybe, but not a fight —
“No,” I say, shaking my head, because it’s like thinking about my parents going at it, and no one ever needs to be that mature, surely. “Is that even physically possible?”
Zander’s gray eyes gleam. “They’re ghosts. What makes you think it has to be physical to be...physical?”
The truth is that witches don’t know what goes on beyond the veil. Not really. The fact we can contact our lost ones doesn’t mean we have a handle on their experiences. We only get bits and pieces. Messages from the universe. The odd haunting.
Knowing more than humans do doesn’t mean we know it all. Even Summoners. Or Revelares or whatever the hell I am. Still, the idea that the sad moment upstairs led to any kind of reconciliation between these two ghosts of ours makes me feel...softer than I like.
That has to be secondary at the moment. The crowd in the foyer begins to spill out the front door, and we follow, almost as if something is compelling us. I would object to that, but it doesn’t feel frightening. It’s definitely not any oily Joywood sort of magic.
It’s very clear all the same. It gets us moving, taking us out onto Main Street with everyone else.
Because outside, there are even more people. Witches I know. Witches I’ve only seen pictures of. Witches I know perfectly well don’t even live in St. Cyprian. Everyone is talking to someone else as we all move, together, down toward the river.
It takes a lot longer than it should to dawn on me that anyone can see I’m visibly pregnant. I’m not ready for that. I try to handle a glamour myself, but my magic is nothing more than a few sparks. Still recovering, no matter how strong I feel. I need help.
I look around for Rebekah to give me a hand, but I still can’t find her in the crowd. I think I see Emerson up ahead, but she’s talking animatedly to a group of older witches I don’t think I’ve ever seen before. I can hear Georgie behind me, but she’s doing that airy act of hers while surrounded by a crowd of witches I know are her relatives, though she is the only one with red hair, bright like flame in the night.
Zander hasn’t left my side. His hand is on the small of my back, like he’s not only guiding me through the crowd but is prepared to fight our way through if necessary.
“This is weird,” he says when he feels me looking at him. “Why are all my Rivers cousins here? They have their own rivers to watch over.”
I clear my throat, wishing there was another way, because asking for help from anyone makes me feel itchy. Especially when it’s him.
Our baby girl is more important than anything though. Even my pride.
“Hey. Can you help me with this?” I dip my chin toward my belly. “My magic is still recovering, and I’m not ready to make a baby announcement.”
He looks down at me. I don’t know if it’s the whole me asking for help thing that makes him look so stricken then, but he swallows. Nods.
Then he hesitates .
There is no time for that. I grab his hand and press his palm to my stomach. He lets out a long, shuddering breath, looking down. As something deep inside flutters.
Not something.
Her.
She’s moving. It’s not that kick at the meeting, like she was jumping into the fight. This is something gentler. More like a settling in.
Like family , I think.
I wonder if Zander hears that, because his eyes glow with magic as he whispers the words of the glamour for me. When his gaze meets mine, everything is bright silver and potent, leaving me breathless—but not in a scary way.
There’s nothing scary about this. It’s just...us.
All the ways we’re tangled together, and always have been, like our own messy little confluence, hums there between us.
The crowd is still moving, still compelled. I can feel the need to move inside me, like a physical need all my own when I know it’s not. I know it’s outside me, outside all of us. I know it comes from the same place as that great tolling from before. I don’t know how I know this, but I do.
There are so many witches, flocking down the sidewalks and taking over the street, abandoned at this hour of the night. It’s like a festival night, only I’ve never seen one so crowded.
Zander is right beside me, and he never lets me go as we leave Main Street behind and stream over the grass, down toward the river.
“The countdown will begin,” that voice booms again, seeming to come from the sky above me, the ground below me, and my own bones within me too.
It’s too loud. Thunder and an earthquake rolled into one, yet not as terrifying as I’d think either one of those would be. People start hurrying now as that same voice begins an actual, literal countdown. Ten, nine, eight.
Witches begin magicking themselves along to hurry through the crowd, until everyone is doing it—seized by the same urgency. Zander has to give me a boost so we don’t fall behind, and he keeps that hand on me while he does it, bringing us straight to Emerson’s elbow.
She nods as we arrive and as the rest of our coven finds each other. All around us, witches from all over the world convene on the St. Cyprian riverfront.
Emerson is focused on the former immortal brooding there behind her sister, murmuring the odd greeting in one language or another to the witches who catch sight of him.
“Frost. What do you know?” Emerson demands. “ Did you know about this?”
Because it’s a moving target, what Nicholas Frost remembers or doesn’t remember.
He rubs a finger along his temple. There’s pain, clearly, though he doesn’t let it come out in his voice. “The ascension trials have been triggered. The Undine will lay out the rules. For all who must participate, and all of witchkind.”
“The statue,” Zander says, like he can’t quite believe it. I can’t either.
Frost slides one of his dark looks Zander’s way but must be in pain because he doesn’t get snide. Next to him, Rebekah has her arm around his waist and is murmuring spell words beneath her breath.
“She is only sometimes a statue,” Frost says. “She is more properly a spell in stasis, an enchantment waiting to be invoked. A sentient being and yet not, not exactly. She has no feelings. No emotions of any sort. She is the embodiment of right and wrong and is here for only one reason—to ensure that the ascension rules are followed, or woe betide us all.”
“Sounds like a real party girl,” Zander mutters, and I know it shouldn’t make me laugh, but it does.
“You could have warned us ,” Emerson says, frowning.
“I had forgotten about her,” he mutters, irritated. “No doubt by their hand.”
Before we can discuss that further, the countdown ends on a loud, long one .
As it sounds, another toll rings out. Like the entire earth is the clapper in a universal bell. Shaking, vibrating, and making all of us ring along with it.
The summoned witches have gathered on the riverbank, surrounding what is usually a beautiful statue of a lovely woman. She doesn’t look much different now...except she’s moving.
Her eyes glow like the moon has taken up residence there. Hair once frozen in stone waves in the breeze. The folds of the dress she wears move as she breathes—or appears to breathe—there beneath the stars. The arms that are normally high over her head in a kind of reverence to the water are held wide, almost welcoming.
Except nothing about her fearsome face or glowing eyes feels particularly welcoming.
“Witchkind, behold me, for the ascension trials have been triggered, and there is no going back. You must all hear these ancient words. You will heed what I shall set before you or you will suffer the worst consequences.”
“Cheery,” I say, hoping to get a laugh out of Zander.
Heading straight on down that same old road when I know better. It was one conversation , I caution myself. It was an explanation, not a solution. There are bigger things to worry about—like talking statues and worst consequences.
Plus, he laughs.
“Joywood. Riverwood.” The Undine calls out our coven names like another great bell, ringing loud. Like our own kind of church. “Come, covens, and stand before the witches you would rule.”
This suddenly feels more real than anything else we’ve done. It’s not just St. Cyprian. It’s not the community center or a town meeting. It’s not a high school graduation ceremony or the usual rituals we know so well. This is bigger.
This is so much bigger .
It’s like I can feel the Undine inside me, and I’m pretty sure that’s the expression I can see on all my friends’ faces too. Possibly the faces of all the witches I see before me as a path opens up and the Riverwood—meaning us— start toward the no-longer-a-statue waiting for us on her dais. I can feel the way all these witches from far-off places look at us. Assessing us. Probing us for weaknesses. Wondering who we are to challenge the Joywood.
Or maybe I’m the one wondering that, given how likely I am to be the disappointment here. The weak link—no matter how special my blood is against poison. I find myself searching the crowd for Zachariah and Elizabeth as we move forward as a coven, but they’re nowhere to be seen.
It surprises me that I feel that like a loss.
We climb onto the flat, raised platform that normally forms the base of the statue. Across from us, the Joywood assemble—and much more sleekly. For one thing, they are all wearing matching cloaks that would look absurd if they were marching around town in them on a sunny day.
Here, in the night, before all of witchkind and the heavens above, they look like nothing short of what they are. The most powerful witches alive.
The ruling coven, elevated over us all.
I look around to make sure us grubby members of the Riverwood aren’t all clinging to each other like trembling fawns, and decide we’re doing okay. Emerson looks like she could take on the world. Frost looks as remote and terrifying as ever. As my gaze moves over the rest of us, I’m pleasantly surprised. We all look like ourselves, but better . It’s only when my gaze moves over Rebekah and she grins that I realize she’s helping with the glow-up.
Like we’re practically our own Marvel movie.
I couldn’t stand idly by while they showed up in full costume, could I? she says in my head.
You heeded the call , I reply serenely.
Then the Undine is speaking in her voice that is everywhere, inside and out.
“You are called to prove yourselves before Samhain dawns,” she tells us—and everyone else. As far as I can see, everyone gathered looks as confused as I feel. “To ascend to the position of ruling coven, you must demonstrate your honesty and transparency. You must indicate the contours of your brand of justice. You must make clear the depth and breadth of your beliefs, in which we will all share. These trials will be held upon demand, no warning and no preparation permitted. When you are called, you will appear before me to perform as requested with no excuses. The trials will be broadcast to all magical creatures and witches the world over. So it is said, and so it shall be.”
“No practice?” Emerson is frowning. “How can they spring this on us? How can we do it right without practice? Studying? Making sure we know what’s coming?”
“You won’t know what’s coming,” Frost says quietly. “That’s the point. There is no doing it right , there is only doing what is asked. It is the people who will decide what it means.”
Emerson glares at him.
“It falls to me to preserve the sanctity of these trials,” the Undine continues, her voice the swell of a tide within me. Within all of us. “So that the people might make the best choice available to them come Samhain. So it was written into stone and flesh, and made real throughout time. So too shall it be in this time, in this place, with these souls who stand before you.”
A ripple goes through the crowd. Her words settle in me like a ringing in my ears, like a memory. I remember Litha, when Frost sacrificed himself for the opportunity to tell us all that the Joywood were evil. And that none of us could remember anything about ascension because they wanted it that way.
“These are the rules, as laid down in spell and sacrifice in ancient fires, as befits such proceedings,” the Undine continues. “Competing covens are forbidden to cause harm to one another. They will not lift hands to one another. They will not use their magic against each other. There will be no violence, no bartering, no subterfuge. The trials are conducted with integrity. They exist to reveal truths, not to pit one witch against another. And so do I stand before you, judge and jury and occasional executioner, to see that this is so. That you stand with me, Joywood and Riverwood covens, is your agreement signed in blood and flesh, to abide by my verdicts as they come.”
Something rumbles, like an earthquake inside me—
“So do I swear,” I hear myself say, and only realize as the words come from my lips that all my friends are saying them too. That the Joywood, across from us, are speaking them aloud at the same time. “And so will we abide.”
They can’t attack us? I try not to look around at my coven too obviously, because I don’t want the entirety of witchkind to see how shocked we all are. Because I can tell that we’re all equally shocked. When I look across the way at the Joywood, there is a definite simmering fury under those political smiles I know too well.
They knew , Emerson says in our heads.
And they don’t like it , Zander agrees.
They wanted no part of this , Frost says quietly on that same internal coven channel. They went to great lengths to keep us from standing here tonight. For precisely this reason—we are now protected from their little games.
The Undine is speaking to the crowd, forcing new responses from the assembled witches. Maybe from witches everywhere—I’m certain I can feel them too, living and dead alike.
We will abide. We will honor the trials. We will make our choices on Samhain as it is written, and as it ever shall be.
I think about everything that’s happened since adlets tried to kill Emerson back in March. Up to and including that shadow that attacked Zander and me. Both times they tried to poison me. I think of Zelda, and the slow and terrible way Zander lost her. That doesn’t mean they can’t hurt us in other ways.
“Always the pessimist,” Zander replies out loud, but he’s still right here. Holding on.
This is not the time to let myself think about how much that means to me.
She’s right though, of course. They’ll try. Emerson’s voice is certain and true in our heads, a wide smile on her face that isn’t for show—because this is where she thrives. The more adversity, the better.
They’ll see if their dark magic can breach it , Rebekah predicts, though it doesn’t take a Diviner’s grasp of the future to know that’s exactly what they’ll do . Fish got to swim, birds got to fly, evil covens got to get their evil on one way or another.
Yes, yes, but this is good for us , Frost says, and there’s a grim kind of satisfaction in his internal voice. In a bid for immortality, you don’t want ascension triggered at all. It complicates things.
He would know. I try to be pleased his fits-and-starts memory is choosing now to share this information.
Emerson looks around at each of us. “This is good ,” she echoes, out loud this time—but with all her determination and no grimness at all, like she’s pressing that positivity into our very beings.
I find my gaze moving up to Zander, still standing right next to me, and he feels it immediately. His gray eyes meet mine. His hand on my back seems to heat up.
This all feels like more hope, here in the most unlikely of places.
I should know better, but I hold on to it. Hard.
“You may return to your lives this night,” the Undine says then, and I can feel the way that dismissal rolls out through the crowd, a kind of loosening. “Know that when I call again, what is required of you is obedience. So shall it be.”
That last part lands deep, and sticks. Like a new curse.
The light in her eyes go out, and just like that, she’s back to what she’s always been in my lifetime. A statue on a riverbank, marble in the moonlight. We’re a whole lot of witches milling around when it’s not even a festival night. And if you’re the brand-new Riverwood, like we are, you’re also the recipients of some epic death stares from the Joywood contingent.
But they can’t do anything.
That feels like another wallop of hope inside me.
They can’t do a thing. Not with these new rules in place. If I wasn’t worried that they’ll find a way around that to do it anyway, it might feel like victory itself.
The crowd finally starts to talk amongst themselves again. There’s something like fireworks as witches fly off, or up . There’s the murmur of so many witch voices that it almost sounds like a new spell, loud enough to rival the sound of all three rivers all around us.
Out of the press of magical people talking excitedly amongst themselves, Emerson’s mother approaches the dais. She’s still the cool Elspeth Wilde I recall from my entire childhood, when she looked at me like I was a curious insect. She doesn’t not look at me that way now, but that’s nothing compared to the way she looks at the Joywood.
She supports us. She’ll rally for us again, as she did once already at Litha. Desmond might be nowhere to be seen, but here is an unlikely ally. It matters.
It has to matter.
Elspeth nods at Emerson, then Rebekah. Then at the rest of us. “Much of the family has chosen to spend the night at Wilde House to discuss this turn of events before returning to their homes tomorrow. I’ll head back with them now.” Her smile is a little tight, as if she’s not used to giving it, but she looks at all of us and the smile holds. “We’re very proud.”
I can see the way that word shocks Emerson and Rebekah to their cores as Elspeth heads off, leading a charge of Wildes with her.
“Wilde House will be packed now,” Emerson says, and if it’s taking her a minute to sit with that proud comment, it doesn’t show. “I still don’t want you all going off the bricks. If the Joywood are desperate, and it seems this might be a desperation point, they’ll try anything. We still need to stay close tonight. Stay in pairs at the very least.” That no one argues about this immediately means we’re all cognizant of the danger. It’s hard to say if that’s good or...not. Emerson is frowning at each of us in turn, now, clearly making flowcharts in her head. “Georgie, you should be able to stay in your room as usual, but the rest of you...”
“I think I will refrain from sleeping in a house full of Wildes,” Frost intones dryly.
I can see that worries Rebekah, because Frost House is up off the bricks, so I offer the only solution I can think of. “You guys can take my apartment.” I see Mom at the foot of the dais with Mina. “I’ll stay with my mother.”
“That leaves Jacob and Zander,” Emerson says, looking up at her fiancé.
“I’ll be staying at Wilde House,” he says in that dark, thrilling way that reminds me of the old saying, Beware the fury of a patient man . Not a question. Not up for debate. He’s sticking right next to Emerson.
It reminds me of earlier. Of the fact that they’re always a team .
“Zander can come with us, of course,” my mother says, smiling warmly at Zander. Not a real sort of warmth, mind you. This is a creepy warmth. A kind of I might kill you in your sleep warmth.
Zander’s eyes widen. “Um.”
But no one can stop the Tanith Tsunami when it gets going. “No arguments now. Everyone needs their rest. As Emerson said, you all are meant to stay in pairs as best you can.” She jerks her chin at me the way she used to do when I was a kid, and I feel myself straighten in instant obedience. “Come on now, Ellowyn. Some of us have to get up early no matter how late we stay out tonight.”
It feels weird to split up and go our separate ways, but that’s what we do. Emerson and Jacob go with Georgie, following Elspeth’s trail of Wildes. Rebekah and Frost, his arm wrapped around her shoulders, head in the opposite direction toward my tea shop.
Zander and I head toward my Mom’s house, a few streets away from the house I grew up in and much more on the bricks than we were back then. Mina takes my mother’s hand as they walk in front of us and kisses it. Then they lace their fingers together. I can only imagine the conversation they’re having privately.
“Is she going to poison me?” Zander asks in a low voice, clearly also imagining what’s being said—and threatened—where we can’t hear it.
“She doesn’t want you dead or you’d already be dead,” I assure him. Though that’s a bit of bravado talking, because I’m not sure how true it is until I say it. “If she was going to kill anyone, it would have been my father, and he’s still walking the earth.” Then I grin at him. “She might give you some really realistic nightmares though. Or find some worse ghosts to haunt you.”
“You’re an endless comfort, El.”
It’s much too tempting to let myself dissolve into how good it feels to just...walk down a dark street with him. Talking about nothing, really. We’re not fighting. We’re not maneuvering our way toward our hands on each other. He’s walking beside me. We’re not even touching.
I’m not sure I can remember feeling this safe or warm in years, and I know that’s more than a slippery slope. That’s a vertical drop encased in ice.
“Someone once told me that’s my best quality.” Sarcastically, of course.
I can’t bring myself to put space between us, but I look around the crowd as it thins all around us like I have never been more interested in anything, ever. “Where are our ghosts?”
Zander scans the crowd too, though I feel certain he knows exactly what I’m doing. And why. “If earlier is anything to go by, they’re clearly—” He stops himself. “You know.”
“Are you afraid to say sex all of a sudden?”
“With your mother in earshot? I am, Ellowyn. I really am.”
I laugh before I can stop myself, and it’s a genuine laugh. Not one of the patented snarky ones that I’ve been aiming at him like missiles for a decade. Because this isn’t ten years ago.
I know why he broke up with me now.
It wasn’t because I wasn’t good enough for him, which I may or may not have believed myself—but oh, how I hated thinking that he believed it.
It’s not that it doesn’t still hurt. It does.
Regret lingers, and I have to wonder if it always will. Because we could have made such different choices. Maybe we could have tried not to take so many chunks out of each other, over and over again.
At the same time, I know we needed those years.
This baby is a gift, and because of those years, I know it.
She brought us here. To a quiet walk in the dark, side by side, making each other laugh. A little breather between terrifying events beyond our control.
So I breathe. And I walk with the bricks beneath my feet and the only boy I ever loved—turned some time ago into the only man I can’t forget—keeping perfect pace beside me.
Almost like this is meant to be.
Out of nowhere, in the way of ghosts, Elizabeth and Zachariah are walking next to us. They’re not disheveled this time.
But they are holding hands.
I don’t know if that’s why Zander takes mine as we walk. I don’t know if that’s why I let him. I only know we walk the rest of the way to my mother’s house hand in hand, like that’s not a revolution in and of itself.
My mother looks back at us, Mina’s head close to hers. She smiles at me, and there’s something in her eyes I don’t understand.
Because in the strange starlight of this long, long night, it looks weirdly like relief.