Ramona watched the flicker cross her ex-wife’s face — embarrassment, then something more complicated than that. Regret, if Ramona didn’t know better. Kate followed her gaze.
The rational thing was to look away. Move on. Let the nothing stay nothing.
Subtlety and tact had never been Ramona’s strong suit. Instead, she moved toward them.
She wasn’t entirely sure she’d decided to do it. But there she was, crossing the ballroom floor, champagne glass in hand, while Simone’s expression settled into the careful composure of someone who’d had a lot of practice looking like everything was fine.
“Ramona.” Simone’s voice was measured. “Good evening.” She shifted uncomfortably. She always was obsessed with appearances, and fighting with her partner and her ex-wife at one gala must have been a step too far. She’d chosen fake niceties instead.
Ramona let her gaze move briefly to Kate, letting it trail down to the floor and back up, unimpressed with what she found.
Simone’s chin came up slightly. “Listen, about the other night?—”
“Save it.” Ramona took a sip of her champagne. She was aware of people nearby who had stopped pretending not to listen. Somewhere to her left, a conversation about the Vernal Council’s agenda had gone noticeably quiet. “You know, I usedto have speeches for this. Really good ones. Very cathartic.” She considered. “I don’t think I need them anymore. Something you said the other night, it made me realize I only have one thing to tell you both.” She looked at Simone, then Kate, and said, “I may be a villain in your story, but you’re a joke in mine.”
Kate’s mouth fell open, and Simone flushed a furious shade of red.
Ramona raised her empty glass in a final toast and nodded — polite, conclusive, the social equivalent of a door closing — and turned and walked back to her coven.
“Cammie,” she said. “I need another glass of champagne.”
“Ahead of you,” Cammie said and handed one over without a single question.
“Was that—” Felix started.
“Yes.”
“Oh, they’re fighting again,” Kashvi whispered with a whole lot of delight in her voice. “Kate’s storming out.”
Ramona didn’t dare look, for fear she’d start laughing. Instead, she held up her empty first glass, thought about it being full, and watched her magic respond immediately — champagne appearing cold and sparkling and present, like it had always been willing to do this and had simply been waiting for her to ask. Felix stared. She extinguished the nearest set of candles with barely a thought, like Zara had done the first time they’d closed the shop together, and then she lit them again, twice as bright, and a small murmur ran through the people standing closest to her.
Parlor tricks. First-year magic. She’d never been able to do any of it.
The grief of Zara’s absence hit her all at once, sharp and specific, like the sting from a fall she’d been ignoring for hours. She wanted, more than anything, to turn around and feel the tether pull warm between them. To hear something precise anddry about the impracticality of conjuring alcohol as a coping mechanism.
But there was only silence where the tether had been. There was only the empty shape of it under her ribs.
Rebirth, she reminded herself. Spring requires winter to end. All darkness ends, light always returns.
Felix had already claimed Kashvi for the dance floor, Gerald performing small aerial maneuvers overhead while Felix tried to lead, and Kashvi tried to lead more successfully. Posey held out a hand to Cammie, who said she’d step on her feet and did so twice within thirty seconds and didn’t stop smiling about it.
Ramona was watching them, still standing at the edge of the floor, when someone stopped beside her.
They didn’t approach, exactly. Just stood nearby, close enough for conversation, but far enough for plausible deniability.
She turned.
Iris, in a perfectly tailored purple dress that didn’t quite suit her, hair up, hands clasped in front of her with the careful stillness she always deployed when she was keeping something controlled.
“Hi,” Ramona said.
“Hi.” Iris looked at her, and something in her expression was doing a lot of work trying to stay in place. “Your hair. The purple — it’s different from before.”
“I fixed it. I can do that now, apparently.”
A beat. The music swelled, and somewhere behind them a couple drifted past, close enough that they both went briefly silent.
“You look like yourself,” Iris said, finally. Her voice had gone quiet. “I mean, you look like you’re supposed to look.”
