The sound echoed through the hall, louder than it should have, as though the stones themselves carried it. Her fingersclenched into a fist, knuckles pale, her breath catching in a way I’d never heard before.
“My daughter-in-law,” Elira whispered, her voice both wonder and wound.
The words broke something in me. They’d never met.
“Well, ex technically,” my mom muttered, and I elbowed her.
The hall erupted into whispers, the midlife witches leaning into one another, their eyes darting between me, my mother, and my grandmother like they’d stumbled into a play they hadn’t bought tickets for.
Lady Limora leaned forward, eyes sparkling with gossip. Vivienne’s fork clattered onto her plate, forgotten. Mara mouthed something I couldn’t catch, while Opal sat wide-eyed, practically vibrating with excitement.
But I barely noticed them. I was caught between two women, both rooted in me so deeply I didn’t know where to stand.
My mother’s chin lifted, her expression steady, but I saw the flicker of unease in her eyes. As though she’d been bracing for this moment, but no amount of bracing could ever make it easy.
Elira’s fingers trembled faintly. It was the first time I had ever seen her falter. She, who had stood unflinching against curses and shadows, was suddenly unmoored.
And me? I stood frozen, my heart pounding so loud I thought the whole hall could hear it.
It was as though the curse itself had twisted to watch us, holding its breath, waiting.
I thought of Keegan, sick and sweating in his bed. I thought of Gideon, half dead and hidden in the inn. I thought of Malore, laughing in the shadows, waiting for us to fall apart. And herewas my family, fracturing and mending under the weight of secrets too long buried.
For the first time, I understood: this wasn’t just my fight. It had never been just mine.
But standing between my mother and my grandmother, I also understood something else. Nothing in Stonewick would ever be simple again.
The silence in the banquet hall stretched thin as a thread until I finally found my voice. My throat was tight, but I forced a steadiness I didn’t feel.
“Sit with us, Mom.”
The title felt foreign on my tongue, both too heavy and too light, but she smiled faintly at it, and for the first time in years, I saw her shoulders soften. She moved gracefully, as though she’d always belonged here. The robes she wore shimmered faintly in the candlelight, marking her not as an outsider but as a witch who had reclaimed her truth.
As she lowered herself onto the bench beside me, I studied her with the awe of someone rediscovering a forgotten painting. She looked… radiant. Whole in a way I had never seen when I was a child or an adult.
Back then, she had always seemed on edge and uptight.
Now, though? Now she looked like herself, the self she’d hidden for too long.
It made something inside me ache, because if she could wear her truth so openly now, why hadn’t she let me see it then?
The thought burned, and with it came another: the Silver Wolf.
If my mother could come back, if she could slip into Stonewick’s halls as though she’d never left, then so could others. All those who had fled, who had hidden when the curse rose, were returning. But for what?
Was this gathering momentum for a fight? A rally of all factions before the final clash?
Or was it an ending…one last circle drawn before the world cracked apart? Worse, could it be a farewell? A chance for everyone who’d once loved Stonewick to see it alive before it fell?
And the sacrifice…
The fear pressed heavily in my chest, and I shook my head, refusing to let it take root. Not here, not tonight.
The smell of honey and butter grounded me. My pot pie still steamed, the crust flaking as my fork pressed through. I forced myself to eat, to taste, to be present in this moment of warmth, even as the storm clawed above us.
The kitchen sprites, ever attentive, zipped back through the hall with trays balanced high over their heads. They deposited a plate in front of my mother with a chicken pot pie, golden crust glistening with butter. One sprite even placed a sprig of lavender on the edge as a garnish, beaming proudly before darting off again.
“Thank you,” my mother murmured, though I wasn’t sure if she spoke to the sprite or to the Academy itself.
