Payback's a Witch (The Witches of Thistle Grove #1)(83)
“It’s not just your hill, you know,” she remarked, a faint smirk tugging at her lips as she clocked my surprise. “Even if you’ve been bogarting it like a pro.”
“Sorry,” I said, huffing out a laugh. “Didn’t mean to make Lady’s Lake all about me. Even though, apparently, it sort of is.”
My cousin tipped her head, questioning. Ostensibly I wasn’t allowed to share my new status with anyone besides an elder, but honestly, fuck great-gramps Elias and all his stodgy-ass rules. Delilah was a Harlow, and if anyone deserved to know about the specifics of our tricky legacy, it was her.
This was where I could start changing the game for us, shifting the power dynamics that had always left us out.
“I knew it,” she said when I finished giving her a recap, thumping a fist against her thigh. “I knew Elias wasn’t just some two-bit scribe.”
“And you were right. Though from where I’m sitting, he’s not exactly hero-worship material, either. I’m finding myself questioning the wisdom of many of his calls.”
She gave a vague nod, like we were going to have to agree to disagree on that front. “So, what are you going to do now?” she said, turning to look at me head-on, and to her credit, this time I couldn’t detect any pressure or judgment swarming in her eyes. “Have you decided?”
“I don’t know yet,” I admitted, resting my chin on my knees, a faint but brisk breeze wafting over my cheeks. “I’m sorry, Lilah. I know this decision doesn’t affect just me—and I also know how major it’ll be for you, if I do decide to go. But there’s a lot of stuff in the air, still. So many factors in play.”
“Your work in the city, right?” she said, nodding sagely. “And obviously, Talia Avramov. Oh, don’t look at me like that, I do have eyes, Emmy. And even a functional heart. It’s clear she means something to you.”
“She does,” I murmured, my throat welling up. “And the work . . . yeah, that matters, too. So does Chicago, in the bigger picture. And then there’s my parents, and Lin, that whole other side of things. The side that makes me want to stick around.”
“I really do get it, you know.” She shook her head, a little wry. “I know what it’s like to want too many things at once. A very familiar mood, you might say.”
“You should be working at Tomes, Lilah,” I blurted out, with a sudden pressing urgency. “I mean it. Whether I stay or leave, you deserve to have at least that much go to you.”
“I’d like that.” The corners of her lips quirked up almost shyly, her glossy curls flicking in the wind. She put up a hand to comb them back from her face before meeting my eyes again. “Maybe . . . you could put in a word for me with Uncle James? He could use the help, but you know what he’s like. Always saving a spot for the apple of his eye. If you really mean it, Emmy, if you’re going to let me have Tomes . . . he’ll need your permission. To feel like he’s not stepping on your toes, giving you another reason to leave.”
“Then I’ll make sure he knows he has my blessing,” I said, reaching for her hand on impulse. “Okay? I know I haven’t exactly been generous with you in the past, and maybe . . . no, definitely that’s my bad. But I really do want this for you.”
She smiled more fully, giving my hand an answering little squeeze. We sat like that for a few minutes, hand in hand, basking in the magic gusting off the lake. Two Harlows atop their hill.
“If you do stay,” Delilah said eventually, breaking our companionable silence, “can I just say I hope it’s not only because of the communion? I hope you stay because you really love it here, and you can’t imagine putting down roots anywhere else. Because that’s what this town deserves, Emmy. And those of us who live here, too.”
* * *
As Linden and I stepped into Tintagel’s ornate ballroom—its arched windows paned with intricate stained glass, the soaring cathedral ceiling painted with murals of heraldic beasts and mist-shrouded isles, a marble starburst mosaic flecked with gold underfoot—I didn’t spot Talia in the dense crowd of revelers.
Distinctive as she was, she’d be harder to recognize tonight; falling as it always did on All Hallows Eve, the crowning gala was traditionally a masquerade.
“You ready for this, Em?” Linden asked me, her arm looped through mine. She was masked, loosely, as a marigold, in a radiant gold-shot dress with a crown of flowers on her head, her eyes hidden behind a gauzy yellow mask. It was a stunning look against the deep brown of her skin; she looked less like a flower and more like a sun.
“As I’ll ever be,” I said. As badly as I wanted to see Talia, the thought of it made me equally nervous. She was a tempest at even the most predictable of times, and I had no idea what to expect from her tonight. “At least they didn’t skimp on the wine.”
We’d managed to snag some as soon as we arrived, the wineglasses crisp and airy as wafers, almost weightless in your hand. The wine itself tasted like very expensive dried cherries soaked in milk, ridiculously balanced and smooth. Turns out, money can buy you some of the best things in life.
And the Blackmoores hadn’t spared any expense, presumably to demonstrate how much their defeat hadn’t even dinged their lofty self-regard. An extravagant buffet lined a banquet table set against one of the walls, its heaps of hors d’oeuvres, steaming roasts, and tiny frosted cakes magically replenishing. Fiery autumn leaves swirled above us in intricate patterns, like a collage in perpetual motion, and the room was lit by hundreds of hovering miniature moons moving through their phases. Whatever Blackmoore minions were tasked with maintaining such demanding spells for hours really had their work cut out for them.