Page 6 of Last Gift: Supernatural Battle

After the esteemed, the proven greeted me, then the novices, and the children last of all. The greetings were mixed. Some, like Josie, I’d had personal run-ins with. She’d warned me off Bedwyr, and still harbored a dislike of me though Wild and I were together. Then again, she’d told me once that if Wild was a romantic option, then Bedwyr shouldn’t be, so maybe she was jealous of my love life? Who knew.

A trend quickly became obvious.

Fertim was more closed off to me in general. Not everyone—not Huxley and Rooke, or Wild and Varden. A number of the younger Fertim players had also accepted my leadership without any resentment. A few of the older magus as well, which surprised me. Had they grown tired of Caves and been happy for its end, perhaps?

In any case, the majority of Fertim members weren’t totally happy with the turn of events.

I took in all their reactions, trying my best to catalogue the happiest and least happy of the magus here to enter into my quipu later. When I’d said this was a new battle, I’d meant it. I had work to do.

So much work that my mind boggled, and my only chance at figuring out what to do resided in my quipu. Until I entered enough information in the quipu for it to work though… I puffed out an exhale. I hardly knew a thing about being a leader. Scratch that. I knew nothing about what this role demanded.

Yet my grandmother’s voice was in my ear, and in the vivid memory that rose up in my mind, my mother winked at me from the driver’s seat.

We were parked in front of the gates to the high school on our first day.

Syera had flung open the car door and sauntered in without a backward glance.

Grandmother watched me from the front passenger seat.

The high school was a new place. So many rules to figure out. Each attached to a different person. The threads were overwhelming. They demanded to be braided and knotted, and yet I had to somehow not do that and get through the day without looking like a freak. I didn’t do so well with that at my last school. I’d figured everything out eventually, and the other children quickly forgot how weird I’d acted in the beginning, but we’d been young—five and six years old. Teenagers would remember.

The strands outside weaved around my mind, choking me. Closing in.

“Just fucking fake it,” Grandmother said, interrupting my mounting panic.

I blinked at her. “What?”

“Fucking fake it. People are full of shit anyway. If you should be braiding anything, it’s a steaming pile of crap with flies buzzing around it.”

“Mother,” sighed her daughter from the driver’s seat.

“Just telling it how it is,” her mother said, facing forward.

I glanced to the gates and at the kids my age visible beyond. I just had to smile and move my legs. Flip my hair sometimes. Answer with single words. Watch the teacher and then look at my books for a while. Eat my food, drink my water. Move my legs some more. Get home.

Then I could figure this place out on my quipu.

Taking a breath, I pushed the braids and threads to the back of my mind as deeply as I could. I’ll get to you, I promised them, but I’ll collect information first.

Fucking fake it.

Grandmother was always full of great advice.

My mother’s soft voice reached me. “Love you, Tempy. I’ll be here to pick you up after school.”

And my mother never doubted that I’d rise to the occasion, no matter how long it took.

I walked through the high school gates in my mind, and in the very real here and now, I stood from my authority to face upward of three hundred magus. I pushed battle into my voice and spread my hands wide. “I am honored to be welcomed as the leader of the Buried Knolls coven. We will work together to find our new normal. I look to our future and know that change must come before we get where we need to be.” I lowered my arms. “Those changes start today. I summon the council to the meeting chamber.”

There was no longer a need for a council.

Tempest Corentine was about to fucking fake it.

3

The council was seated at the large stone table in the meeting chamber when I swept into the room. There were thirteen seats for the thirteen members, and this table was designed to tally and toll their decisions. I’d seen it in operation on my first night here.

There wasn’t a seat for me here.

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