With that, the High Witch Examiner—and now apparently my brand-new High Priestess—turned around and exited the room.
“I told you that you were the best,” Vazul said smugly.
“No, Vazul. You are.”
“That, too,” he concurred.
I chuckled, playfully slapped his shoulder, and lifted my face to receive his kiss.
Epilogue
Coral
The three-day fair was a roaring success. The number of people lining up around my booth nearly overwhelmed me. I had expected to receive my fair share of attention, not only because of my showstoppers, but mostly because of the way Vazul elevated my vision beyond anything I ever thought possible. The flawlessness of his craftsmanship blew everyone away. Everything looked even better in the real world than it had in my imagination.
Throughout the event, Vazul chastised me for attempting to give him credit. It baffled me how much it pissed him off, but I merely wanted to give him his due. In his eyes, I was belittling my own contribution. There was a time when he would have been right. But since he entered my life—recent though it had been—Vazul truly helped me become more assertive and recognize my worth. It was specifically because I was finally embracing my more confident side that I could so easily share the fame and praises.
I didn’t need to hog all the acclaims because my own contribution spoke for itself. This entire collection wasmyvision,mycreation. I personally built more than 95% of it before heswooped in. As much as Vazul had corrected and improved the less stellar elements, he hadn’t redone everything. In fact, if we were to quantify it all, he had maybe retouched, tweaked, or flat out recreated barely 10% of the entire project.
But those corrections had an incredible impact. And that needed to be acknowledged.
In many ways, it was like having the perfect photo shoot for the cleverest marketing campaign of all times and then having a humongous typo in the giant billboard. It didn’t matter how brilliant everything else was. The only thing people would see and talk about was that wretched typo.
Without my demon’s magic touch, I wouldn’t have received as phenomenal a response as I did. To both my delight and dismay, I sold out so fast that I spent the last day of the event with a mostly empty booth, with a catalog and photos of my work for those who had missed all the physical items. Thankfully, the buyer of my coffee table agreed to only pick it up at the end of the convention.
By itself, that piece brought me the majority of my sales. Obviously, most people wouldn’t have been able to afford it. But they loved it so much that they wanted to at least be able to claim that they owned some decorative item made by the creator of the ‘Haunted Street Coffee Table’ or ‘Crazy Cool Table’ as the attendees had taken to calling it.
The most amazing part of it all was seeing Vazul constantly hyping me up to the people who visited our booth. My brain understood that, as my Liderc, he was genetically wired to do everything in his power to make me shine. But I believed at a visceral level that he wasn’t just doing it out of duty, but because he truly believed everything he was saying.
In my entire life, I had never felt more supported than by him. He believed in me and saw a beauty inside me that I never thought existed but that I was definitely starting to wholeheartedly embrace.
The icing on it all were the countless custom orders and offers to work on movie projects that the attendees showered me with. I had hoped to get at least a handful of orders to hold me off in the first months after opening my shop. Instead, I had so many bookings that I could actually choose the ones I really wanted to do and even turn down the ones I either wasn’t inspired by or that simply couldn’t fit within a reasonably attainable schedule.
The collaborations on movie projects gave me the hardest time to decide on. The bragging rights alone would have anyone want to scream a resounding yes. Quite a few of those projects sounded thrilling on top of quite lucrative. However, after further consideration, I decided to pass. While I didn’t doubt that I could have rocked the hell out of those projects, I’d been blessed with the possibility of working on my own custom or private projects. Working on movie sets implied ungodly hours, constant flip flopping on artistic direction, and having my creativity stunted by the needs and demands of the movie. In the majority of cases, there would be no negotiation possible. Even if you disagreed with the direction given, you had no choice but to comply.
To my complete shock and confusion, I found out that Angie had pulled out of the event. That baffled me. Her collection had been quite beautiful and would have likely sold out as well. While awaiting her trial, she was still allowed to carry on with business as usual. This fair had nothing to do directly with the Council of Witches. Even though she initially tried to sabotage my own ability to attend, the Council didn’t have the power to forbid her from attending a professional engagement organized by mundane folks. So why pull out? Was it shame? Was she still too angry to go out in public, and especially anywhere near me?
Her unexpected absence fueled countless speculations, especially in light of the ridiculously lame excuse she offered. The foolish woman claimed that her pet, having reached a very old age, was dying. She needed to be by its side in its final hours.People with pets would undoubtedly have sided with her. But the community already knew that her black cat Merlin was faring just fine, and she never mentioned having another.
Anyway, staying home and pouting in her corner was her loss, not mine.
And as far as losing went, dear Angelique was quite on a roll. On top of never getting Vazul, she received the kind of swift and brutal judgment anyone dreaded. Not only did Myrtil kick her out of her coven, but the Council declared that Angie would remain collared for an entire year and would be subjected to a three-year probation period. Should she stray again during that time, she would permanently be banned from using her powers. Her only hope then would be to flee the country. As covens communicated internationally, unless she found a rogue one to grant her asylum, anyone who found her would have her collared.
Although I was the injured party, I found the judgment a little excessive, especially since any actual damage had been averted. However, I understood that they were making an example out of her. As she had been such a prominent figure in our circle, it struck people all the harder that no one was immune from brutal discipline if they broke the rules. It had to be devastating for Angie to go from ‘it girl’ to complete pariah.
She eventually left town to start over where the stigma of her shame wouldn’t rest so heavily on her shoulders. Unfortunately for her, the word spread quickly, and she struggled to find a new home. Angie even tried to acquire a new Liderc egg, but no one would sell to her.
And it was a good thing, too.
Anger still burned in my gut every time I remembered the horrible plans she had in store for my demon had she succeeded in reclaiming him. There was no question in my mind that should she somehow manage to get a Liderc over her own, she would set that plan in motion, and maybe even push it farther. In fact,my gut told me that should such a dreadful day come, Angie would be extra abusive to her demon as retaliation for the humiliation and rejection she faced at Vazul’s hand.
But she thankfully was no longer my problem. All I could say as far as she was concerned was good riddance to bad rubbish.
Meanwhile, I ended up joining Mrs. Hopkins coven. It blew my mind to discover what a wicked cool High Priestess she turned out to be. Behind that strict and excessively polished exterior hid the sweetest woman—so long as you walked straight.
To my chagrin, while she was willing to welcome Sophia into the fold, my friend respectfully declined. Like Angie, Sophia also craved power, even though she wanted to acquire it in an ethical fashion. A coven like the one led by Myrtil aligned better with her ambitions and the speed at which she could acquire said power.
Mrs. Hopkins catered more to green witches, those into practical and nurturing magic rather than those who sought brute power and offensive abilities. This totally met my own aspirations, and I quickly felt right at home within her coven. I was finally surrounded with like-minded people happy to offer support for the sake of camaraderie rather than as upfront payment in exchange for a favor later.
