“That,” he said, “is advanced Ward work.”
She blinked. “It is?”
“Yeah,” he said. “Elira used to talk about it. Anchoring through bonds. She never tried it, though, even with the safety of the Academy behind her. She said it was too risky and she didn’t trust herself not to overcorrect.” He nodded at Mom. “You did what she wouldn’t.”
Mom’s mouth fell open just a little. “You’re joking.”
“I never joke about magic,” Frank said solemnly. “Snacks, yes. Magic, no.”
I looked between them, feeling the pieces rearrange in my head.
All this time, I’d thought of my mother as the one wholeftmagic. The one who stepped away, who couldn’t handle it, who didn’t have enough of it. The mortal parent, the non-hero, the one I had to protect from this world.
But she had stood in my cottage and held a line between two of the most powerful women I’d ever encountered. She had reworked the Wards without fanfare. She had felt my mark flare from across town and reached for me through it.
She’d been far more powerful than I’d ever given her credit for.
Keegan, still leaning against the doorframe, watched my face as the realization sank in. His mouth curved slightly.
“That sounds familiar,” he murmured.
I shot him a look. “What does?”
He tipped his chin toward me, hazel eyes warm. “Someone walking around convinced they’re the least magical person in the room while the rest of us are planning how to keep up.”
Heat climbed my neck. “That’s different.”
“Is it?” he asked softly.
My mother, catching only the tail end of that exchange, frowned. “Please tell me you are not both underselling yourselves at the same time. I will not live in a house with that much misplaced humility.”
Frank laughed, the sound big and easy. “Good luck, Nadia. I tried. They come by it honestly.”
“So is Nadia like your code name?” I asked my mom. “I always thought it was Lauren.”
“It was my given name.”
The kettle, as if offended by being left out of the emotional moment, chose that second to shriek. The cottage exhaled, and rafters settled, and the Ward hummed in a calmer register, the birch sprig on the mantle rustling as if satisfied.
Outside, somewhere far beyond the trees, I felt the faintest echo of the cracked mirrors, the priestess’s gaze, Elira’s warning.
Inside, for one fragile, miraculous breath, I was just a witch in a cottage with her ridiculous, powerful family.
The panic hadn’t gone.
But it had company now.
Chapter Nineteen
I didn’t realize how tightly I’d been holding myself together until my mother hugged me back.
After that, everything was… softer. I wouldn’t say it was easier. No one had turned off Gideon, the priestess, or the hunger path like a light switch, but softer around the edges. My mother joined Miora in warming the kettle. She argued with my dad about the best way to charm a window. She asked me about the Academy in a way that made it feel like she wasn’t just checking for fires, but proud.
And the more she stepped toward this world, the more a hollow inside me made itself known.
Celeste-shaped. My daughter.
It hit me later that night, when the cottage had finally gone quiet. Miora had gone to bed with a book and a hot water bottle. My dad took his bulldog form and patrolled the perimeter with solemn snuffles. Mom lingered by the sink, rinsing mugs and humming under her breath, her magic still humming faintly through the house like a new instrument trying to find its part.
