“I hope you’re not expecting a speech,” I say, looking out over them.
Quiet laughter moves through the crowd in a ripple, gentle and warm, easing the tension in the air.
“I came here planning to leave,” I continue. “That was always the plan, from the first moment I knew this place existed for me. Sort out my grandmother’s estate. Sell the shop. Go back to my life.”
A few heads nod at that, the ones who already knew that much of it.
“That is not what happened.”
I let that sit for a beat before I go on. “I found out the truth about what was done to me. I found my magic. And I found something I was not expecting to find.”
My gaze moves over the crowd slowly, pausing where it matters. Maceo, Lucien, and Ezra stand just off the edge of the dais, each of them watching me with something so open and uncomplicated in their expressions that it still startles me, even now. Affection and warmth and something that is not so far from love. Beyond them, Bea stands with her arm around Zane’s shoulders, both of them watching me with soft, encouraging smiles. Toni and Lin are beside them, both of them rooting for me.
“I found my people.”
A murmur moves through the crowd, warm and undulating.
“This town isn’t just a place,” I say, and I mean every syllable of it. “It’s all of you. The way you live here without apology. The way you show up for each other. The way you don’t hide what you are.” I pause. “I didn’t come here for any of that. But I’m not walking away from it either.”
The soft murmuring quiets as they all look back at me, waiting.
“But let me be clear about something,” I say, making sure my voice carries to the edges of the square. “I am the Anchor. I am not your mayor.”
Surprise lifts through the crowd like a startled flock, voices rising for a moment before simmering down, people exchanging uncertain glances.
“I’m not here to govern this town,” I continue. “I’m here to live in it. To run my shop. To be part of this community in the same way every single one of you is. The Anchor holds the wards. That is not the same thing as holding a political office, and I won’t pretend it is.”
I let them marinate on my words before I move on.
“My aunt placed a suppression curse on me when I was an infant. She bound my magic before I ever had the chance to know it. Councilman Montgomery was complicit in what was done to me tonight.” I keep my voice even, steady, the way Lenora always kept hers, except that I am not hiding anything behind it. “That is what happened. You deserve to know the truth of it plainly.”
The mood of the crowd shifts around me like a tide turning, the disbelief curdling into something harder and colder as it moves from face to face.
“She should be made to leave!” someone shouts, the voice carrying over the square.
“She was elected!” someone else fires back, sharper. “There must be context we’re missing!” The rebuttal is swiftly drowned in a wave of disagreement, voices rising and layering over each other.
“They can’t remain here after this!”
“We can’t trust either of them!”
I raise both hands, palms out, and the noise pulls back like a tide.
“You voted them into those positions,” I say, once the square is quiet enough to hear me clearly. “Which means it is your right to decide what comes next. Not mine.”
Silence stretches out as people turn to look at one another, the weight of the decision passing between them without words, the way decisions do in places small enough that everyone knows everyone’s face.
“I’m not asking you to be lenient,” I say into the quiet. “I am asking you to be honest. About what this town is. About what you want it to be.”
I wait as the crowd breaks into low, urgent conversation, moving quickly through the gathered bodies, spreading from cluster to cluster. It does not take long. These are people who know their own minds.
Hands begin to rise, one after another, and then another, until the gesture has spread through the square like something inevitable.
I look out over them and nod once, slowly, the decision received and acknowledged.
They have made themselves clear.
My aunt, Councilman Montgomery, and his family will be banished from Ruby Springs before sunrise. I hold the wards now, and I will make certain of it personally. The guilt I was half-expecting to feel does not come. There is only the clean, quiet certainty of justice served.
