Page 75 of Big Little Spells

She slides a disapproving glance at me, but there is humor at the edges. “You should tell Mother. She’d be thrilled.”

“Thrilled? I think you mean appalled, as usual.”

“Elspeth Wilde’s daughter with the greatest Praeceptor of all time?” Emerson says that while mimicking Mom’s snootiest voice.

I shudder. “That is too accurate.”

Emerson laughs, but quickly sobers as we walk. Her eyes, like mine, are on the dilapidated old house falling down on top of the bluff in the distance. “Was it serious, or just like...”

I can’t wait to see where she’s going with this. “Like what?”

“Like what Zander and Ellowyn do with other people. Call it lust, scratching an itch—”

“A hot one-night stand with an ancient fuck boy?”

She fights back her own shudder. “Whatever you want to call it. I just wanted to know...where it’s going?”

“Where could it go with an immortal?” I say, but it’s not quite as flippant as I’d like. I do not fear my death, he said.

Because he believes his death is coming and I will be the one to make it happen.

Emerson sucks in a breath, clearly irritated with me, but not enough to drop the subject. “I guess what I’m really asking is, are you okay with what happened?”

I would have been offended by that even a few days ago, but all these changes within me—the ritual, Nicholas himself, being home, being back in high school—give me a better ability to understand where my sister is coming from. Maybe because I’m finally understanding what I brought to the table during our separation.

Here, now, Emerson is worried, and that doesn’t mean she thinks she’s better and smarter than me. It just means she worries. About everything. She wants everyone she loves to be okay, not just like her.

I’m a little shocked at how glad I am that I can see that today.

“I’m more than okay with what happened,” I say.

Emphatically. Because it’s true.

“Okay.”

I don’t trust that simple acceptance. Not from my sister, the patron saint of flow charts. “That’s it? Okay?”

“I may have had a lecture prepared.” She gives a little sniff. “But Jacob pointed out that I’d be the first to defend a woman’s right to sleep with whoever she pleases, whenever and however she pleases, without having to explain herself to anyone.”

“I’ve always liked that man.”

“And, since he was right, however annoyingly, I had to think about what really bothered me about it. It’s the power dynamic.”

I shrug a little lazily. “It’s a really hot power dynamic, though.”

She grimaces. But she surprises me and still withholds the lecture. “If it works for you, and if you’re happy, and safe, then that’s all that matters.”

I stare at her, eyes wide and only slightly exaggerated. “You have changed, Emerson. All because of Jacob?”

“Love is powerful and Healers are...” And it’s her turn to shrug lazily, though she blushes a little while she does it. “But no. It’s because of everything.” She gestures to St. Cyprian around us as we make our way down one of the cobbled streets, the river playing hide-and-seek with us as we walk. “Maybe it’s just growing up? We’re knocking on thirty’s door.”

“I hate to break it to you, Em, but you’ve always been an old lady on the inside.”

“Maybe, but that’s not the same as maturing. Of course,” Emerson says, tongue mostly in cheek, “real maturing would be taking notes for once.”

I roll my eyes. “I tried. I did. It’s just all blah, blah, blah after a while. I’ve got too much going on up here.”

Emerson stops, then blinks at me as though I’ve said something terribly important when all I’m doing is waving my hand in the vague direction of my head. “You need a different kind of learning!” she exclaims, as if she’s found gold.

---