Page 56 of Truly Madly Magically

And they don’t like it, Zander agrees.

They wanted no part of this, Frost says quietly on that same internal coven channel. They went to great lengths to keep us from standing here tonight. For precisely this reason—we are now protected from their little games.

The Undine is speaking to the crowd, forcing new responses from the assembled witches. Maybe from witches everywhere—I’m certain I can feel them too, living and dead alike.

We will abide. We will honor the trials. We will make our choices on Samhain as it is written, and as it ever shall be.

I think about everything that’s happened since adlets tried to kill Emerson back in March. Up to and including that shadow that attacked Zander and me. Both times they tried to poison me. I think of Zelda, and the slow and terrible way Zander lost her. That doesn’t mean they can’t hurt us in other ways.

“Always the pessimist,” Zander replies out loud, but he’s still right here. Holding on.

This is not the time to let myself think about how much that means to me.

She’s right though, of course. They’ll try. Emerson’s voice is certain and true in our heads, a wide smile on her face that isn’t for show—because this is where she thrives. The more adversity, the better.

They’ll see if their dark magic can breach it, Rebekah predicts, though it doesn’t take a Diviner’s grasp of the future to know that’s exactly what they’ll do. Fish got to swim, birds got to fly, evil covens got to get their evil on one way or another.

Yes, yes, but this is good for us, Frost says, and there’s a grim kind of satisfaction in his internal voice. In a bid for immortality, you don’t want ascension triggered at all. It complicates things.

He would know. I try to be pleased his fits-and-starts memory is choosing now to share this information.

Emerson looks around at each of us. “This is good,” she echoes, out loud this time—but with all her determination and no grimness at all, like she’s pressing that positivity into our very beings.

I find my gaze moving up to Zander, still standing right next to me, and he feels it immediately. His gray eyes meet mine. His hand on my back seems to heat up.

This all feels like more hope, here in the most unlikely of places.

I should know better, but I hold on to it. Hard.

“You may return to your lives this night,” the Undine says then, and I can feel the way that dismissal rolls out through the crowd, a kind of loosening. “Know that when I call again, what is required of you is obedience. So shall it be.”

That last part lands deep, and sticks. Like a new curse.

The light in her eyes go out, and just like that, she’s back to what she’s always been in my lifetime. A statue on a riverbank, marble in the moonlight. We’re a whole lot of witches milling around when it’s not even a festival night. And if you’re the brand-new Riverwood, like we are, you’re also the recipients of some epic death stares from the Joywood contingent.

But they can’t do anything.

That feels like another wallop of hope inside me.

They can’t do a thing. Not with these new rules in place. If I wasn’t worried that they’ll find a way around that to do it anyway, it might feel like victory itself.

The crowd finally starts to talk amongst themselves again. There’s something like fireworks as witches fly off, or up. There’s the murmur of so many witch voices that it almost sounds like a new spell, loud enough to rival the sound of all three rivers all around us.

Out of the press of magical people talking excitedly amongst themselves, Emerson’s mother approaches the dais. She’s still the cool Elspeth Wilde I recall from my entire childhood, when she looked at me like I was a curious insect. She doesn’t not look at me that way now, but that’s nothing compared to the way she looks at the Joywood.

She supports us. She’ll rally for us again, as she did once already at Litha. Desmond might be nowhere to be seen, but here is an unlikely ally. It matters.

It has to matter.

Elspeth nods at Emerson, then Rebekah. Then at the rest of us. “Much of the family has chosen to spend the night at Wilde House to discuss this turn of events before returning to their homes tomorrow. I’ll head back with them now.” Her smile is a little tight, as if she’s not used to giving it, but she looks at all of us and the smile holds. “We’re very proud.”

I can see the way that word shocks Emerson and Rebekah to their cores as Elspeth heads off, leading a charge of Wildes with her.

“Wilde House will be packed now,” Emerson says, and if it’s taking her a minute to sit with that proud comment, it doesn’t show. “I still don’t want you all going off the bricks. If the Joywood are desperate, and it seems this might be a desperation point, they’ll try anything. We still need to stay close tonight. Stay in pairs at the very least.” That no one argues about this immediately means we’re all cognizant of the danger. It’s hard to say if that’s good or...not. Emerson is frowning at each of us in turn, now, clearly making flowcharts in her head. “Georgie, you should be able to stay in your room as usual, but the rest of you...”

“I think I will refrain from sleeping in a house full of Wildes,” Frost intones dryly.

I can see that worries Rebekah, because Frost House is up off the bricks, so I offer the only solution I can think of. “You guys can take my apartment.” I see Mom at the foot of the dais with Mina. “I’ll stay with my mother.”

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