Page 55 of Truly Madly Magically

Except nothing about her fearsome face or glowing eyes feels particularly welcoming.

“Witchkind, behold me, for the ascension trials have been triggered, and there is no going back. You must all hear these ancient words. You will heed what I shall set before you or you will suffer the worst consequences.”

“Cheery,” I say, hoping to get a laugh out of Zander.

Heading straight on down that same old road when I know better. It was one conversation, I caution myself. It was an explanation, not a solution. There are bigger things to worry about—like talking statues and worst consequences.

Plus, he laughs.

“Joywood. Riverwood.” The Undine calls out our coven names like another great bell, ringing loud. Like our own kind of church. “Come, covens, and stand before the witches you would rule.”

This suddenly feels more real than anything else we’ve done. It’s not just St. Cyprian. It’s not the community center or a town meeting. It’s not a high school graduation ceremony or the usual rituals we know so well. This is bigger.

This is so much bigger.

It’s like I can feel the Undine inside me, and I’m pretty sure that’s the expression I can see on all my friends’ faces too. Possibly the faces of all the witches I see before me as a path opens up and the Riverwood—meaning us—start toward the no-longer-a-statue waiting for us on her dais. I can feel the way all these witches from far-off places look at us. Assessing us. Probing us for weaknesses. Wondering who we are to challenge the Joywood.

Or maybe I’m the one wondering that, given how likely I am to be the disappointment here. The weak link—no matter how special my blood is against poison. I find myself searching the crowd for Zachariah and Elizabeth as we move forward as a coven, but they’re nowhere to be seen.

It surprises me that I feel that like a loss.

We climb onto the flat, raised platform that normally forms the base of the statue. Across from us, the Joywood assemble—and much more sleekly. For one thing, they are all wearing matching cloaks that would look absurd if they were marching around town in them on a sunny day.

Here, in the night, before all of witchkind and the heavens above, they look like nothing short of what they are. The most powerful witches alive.

The ruling coven, elevated over us all.

I look around to make sure us grubby members of the Riverwood aren’t all clinging to each other like trembling fawns, and decide we’re doing okay. Emerson looks like she could take on the world. Frost looks as remote and terrifying as ever. As my gaze moves over the rest of us, I’m pleasantly surprised. We all look like ourselves, but better. It’s only when my gaze moves over Rebekah and she grins that I realize she’s helping with the glow-up.

Like we’re practically our own Marvel movie.

I couldn’t stand idly by while they showed up in full costume, could I? she says in my head.

You heeded the call, I reply serenely.

Then the Undine is speaking in her voice that is everywhere, inside and out.

“You are called to prove yourselves before Samhain dawns,” she tells us—and everyone else. As far as I can see, everyone gathered looks as confused as I feel. “To ascend to the position of ruling coven, you must demonstrate your honesty and transparency. You must indicate the contours of your brand of justice. You must make clear the depth and breadth of your beliefs, in which we will all share. These trials will be held upon demand, no warning and no preparation permitted. When you are called, you will appear before me to perform as requested with no excuses. The trials will be broadcast to all magical creatures and witches the world over. So it is said, and so it shall be.”

“No practice?” Emerson is frowning. “How can they spring this on us? How can we do it right without practice? Studying? Making sure we know what’s coming?”

“You won’t know what’s coming,” Frost says quietly. “That’s the point. There is no doing it right, there is only doing what is asked. It is the people who will decide what it means.”

Emerson glares at him.

“It falls to me to preserve the sanctity of these trials,” the Undine continues, her voice the swell of a tide within me. Within all of us. “So that the people might make the best choice available to them come Samhain. So it was written into stone and flesh, and made real throughout time. So too shall it be in this time, in this place, with these souls who stand before you.”

A ripple goes through the crowd. Her words settle in me like a ringing in my ears, like a memory. I remember Litha, when Frost sacrificed himself for the opportunity to tell us all that the Joywood were evil. And that none of us could remember anything about ascension because they wanted it that way.

“These are the rules, as laid down in spell and sacrifice in ancient fires, as befits such proceedings,” the Undine continues. “Competing covens are forbidden to cause harm to one another. They will not lift hands to one another. They will not use their magic against each other. There will be no violence, no bartering, no subterfuge. The trials are conducted with integrity. They exist to reveal truths, not to pit one witch against another. And so do I stand before you, judge and jury and occasional executioner, to see that this is so. That you stand with me, Joywood and Riverwood covens, is your agreement signed in blood and flesh, to abide by my verdicts as they come.”

Something rumbles, like an earthquake inside me—

“So do I swear,” I hear myself say, and only realize as the words come from my lips that all my friends are saying them too. That the Joywood, across from us, are speaking them aloud at the same time. “And so will we abide.”

They can’t attack us? I try not to look around at my coven too obviously, because I don’t want the entirety of witchkind to see how shocked we all are. Because I can tell that we’re all equally shocked. When I look across the way at the Joywood, there is a definite simmering fury under those political smiles I know too well.

They knew, Emerson says in our heads.

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