“The kind we’d rather not answer.” Thomas spoke for the first time since the meal began. “You’re a Greenbriar, Ramona. Act like it.”
Zara cleared her throat, and Thomas added, “Please.”
The hot feeling behind Ramona’s eyes intensified. Under the table, she felt Zara’s foot find hers, the toes of their shoes touching like an immediate reminder that Ramona wasn’t alone.
“We’ll be there,” Zara said calmly.
Something passed across Eleanor’s face — surprise, maybe, or assessment. She looked between Zara and Ramona, clearly calculating something. “How lovely,” she said finally. “It will be nice to have you both there.”
The rest of the dinner passed in awkward small talk. Iris asked questions about Londoven that Zara answered with alarming specificity. Eleanor discussed the latest Magical Council’s ineptitude in elaborate detail — she wasn’t a member, but an inner circle of well-connected and wealthy witches were always somehow involved in Council business. Thomas described a scandal at a recent chess tournament he’d attended.
Ramona barely heard any of it. She was too focused on Zara’s foot against hers, steady and grounding.
When dinner finally ended, Eleanor suggested coffee in the drawing room before lighting the bonfire in the back paddock.Ramona excused herself for a moment, barely remembering that would mean Zara had to come with her.
Ramona headed upstairs without really thinking about where she was going, Zara following silently behind. Her feet knew the path — second floor, third door on the right, past the portrait of her grandmother that always seemed to be watching.
Her childhood bedroom.
She pushed open the door and stepped inside, and it was like stepping back in time.
The room was exactly as she’d left it when she moved out for graduate school. Twin bed with a faded blue quilt. Desk covered in old notebooks and dried-out pens. Bookshelf sagging under the weight of medieval grimoires, linguistic theory textbooks, and young adult novels she’d never thrown away. The walls were covered in posters — the witch band she’d been obsessed with at sixteen, a map of constellations, a chart of runic alphabets.
And the trophies. So many trophies.
Awards from academic competitions lined the top of her bookshelf. Spelling bees, language competitions, essay contests. A plaque from her undergraduate thesis defense. Her diploma from Thornwood’s doctoral program, framed on the wall like it was something to be proud of.
It had been, once.
The bedroom felt less like a sanctuary and more like a shrine to what Ramona could have been, if only she had lived up to those expectations.
Ramona sat down on the bed, the springs creaking under her weight. The mattress was too soft, the same one she’d had since she was twelve. She stared at the diploma, at the careful calligraphy spelling out her name and achievements.
“May I sit?” Zara gestured to the bed.
Ramona nodded, not trusting her voice.
Zara sat down beside her. The twin bed wasn’t made for two people — their thighs pressed together, shoulders touching. Ramona could feel the warmth of her through the fabric of their clothes.
“You kept everything,” Zara said quietly, looking around the room.
“My mother kept everything. I haven’t been back here since—” Ramona stopped. “Since before the divorce.”
Her gaze landed on a photo on the nightstand. Ramona at her dissertation defense, ecstatic, holding up her bound thesis like a trophy. Simone was beside her, arm around her waist, smiling politely.
That version of Ramona looked so happy. So hopeful. So completely unaware that in a few years, everything would fall apart.
“You were brilliant,” Zara said. Her voice was soft, but certain. She reached and took the photo frame in her hand, glanced at it, and then set it face down.
Ramona huffed out a bitter laugh. “Past tense.”
“You still are.”
Ramona groaned. “You don’t have to do that.”
“I never say anything I don’t mean.”
Something in Zara’s tone made Ramona turn to look at her. Zara was watching her with an intensity that made her breath catch.
