I sat at the table, phone in hand, thumb hovering over the screen.
The cottage felt full in a way it hadn’t in months—parents, warmth, gargoyles, Keegan in the next room pretending not to listen, but there was an echo in the fullness. It felt like there was one more seat that needed to be filled.
My daughter was several towns away, buried in finishing the summer classes she’d signed up for at the last moment. She was grown, busy, building her own life. She’d planned on coming to Stonewick earlier in the summer, before the Malore battle, before Gideon’s escape, before Shadowick tried to eat the sky.
I’d told myself it was safer this way.
Now, with my mother’s magic glowing quietly through the rafters, I found I didn’t believe myself as much.
I unlocked my phone and stared at the empty message bubble.
What was I even supposed to say?
Hey sweetie, how are your classes, also your great-grandmother is technically dead-but-not and your other great-grandmother might want to recruit me into a death cult? P.S. I learned to fly and set myself on fire.
“Texting your bookie?” Keegan’s voice drifted in from the doorway.
I jumped a little. “Wear a bell.”
He crossed his arms, watching me with that irritatingly perceptive gaze. “That never works out for the bell,” he said. “What are you plotting?”
“Not plotting.” I glanced back down at the phone. “Texting.”
“Ah.” He crossed the room and slid into the chair beside me. Close, but not crowding. His presence was warm enough that the cottage light seemed to pool around him. “Celeste?”
“Who else?” I said lightly, even as my chest tightened.
He angled his chin toward my screen. “You’ve been staring at that blank bubble for ten minutes.”
I winced. “Observant.”
“Accurate,” he said.
I sighed and dropped the phone on the table, screen-down. “I’m… thinking of inviting her out. Again.”
“That’s good,” he said immediately. “You miss her.”
It wasn’t even a question.
“Of course I miss her,” I said. “I’m contractually obligated to miss her and worry about whether she’s eating enough and if her roommate is secretly a cultist.”
He huffed a laugh. “Is she?”
“I checked the roommate’s Instagram. She rescues feral kittens and posts about study playlists. She might be a cultist, but at least it’s the cozy cardigan kind. Not that we guessed right about her last boyfriend, though…”
His mouth curled. “So what’s the problem? Ask her to come. Everything will be okay.”
I rubbed the heels of my hands over my eyes. “Describe ‘okay.’”
He paused, the humor draining a little from his face. “You’re not okay,” he said quietly. “Getting her here might help.”
“Which part gave it away?” I dropped my hands. “The nearly being shattered in the mirror corridor? The priestesstrying to hijack my grandmother’s projection? The new sigil in the glass no one can identify? Or the fact that in a few days we’re going to stand in a circle with Gideon and attempt to end a generational hunger curse and revert things back to the original ancient rites of the shifters?”
“All of the above,” he said.
“Exactly.” I picked up the phone and turned it in my fingers. “So what does ‘okay’ even mean right now? ‘It’s safe enough?’ ‘We’ve had only small haunt problems this week?’ ‘No one has thrown weather at my head in the last twenty-four hours?’”
He acknowledged that with a tilt of his head. “I think ‘okay’ means you want her here and you’re terrified she’ll get caught in the crossfire,” he said.
