"That was not my intent."

  "I know." Elise set her hands on Victoria's shoulders and looked at her squarely. "But this is not a time for science."

  "There is never not a time for—"

  "Ssh! Non. For me, and for Millie, you will feel this, Victoria. I do not care how it works or why, only that it does. You will not diminish it by taking it apart, do you understand?"

  "Elise, I—"

  "A witch is nothing without her feelings, and you just said there are none stronger than love. This is the true magic. You will be assisting Ivy in the ceremony, and I do not want you puzzling it out. You will be present for us, and you will only think with your heart if you want to take part. We need and want our Victoria, not Doctor Ravenwood, nor the Raven. Yes?"

  Victoria searched Elise's eyes, hard sapphires burning with the inner fire that had forged them. Her makeup smeared, her cheeks flush, it only made her appear more determined. It was not a time for pedantry, nor for Victoria to push her luck. "Very well. Then please again accept my most heartfelt congratulations, Doctor Cotillard."

  Outside, the night sky was cool, air and starlight both. From the darkness beyond the reach of the interior lights came the chirping of insects and the croak of distant frogs, belching the song of whatever it was frogs sang about. All else was still, with no breeze to speak of—an idyllic summer's evening.

  But in the midst of such tranquility at the heart of so much swirling newness, Millie found herself missing Aberdeen for the first time since she'd left. The smell of the sea, salty and briny as it was, the constant roar of breaking waves, the distant call of the lighthouse through the fog. She didn't miss life in the city; the crowded flats, the cacophony of shipbuilding, the muddy streets, none of it.

  Only the sea.

  Why now? She had a swollen pile of good reasons why she'd left and would never return, so why would she suddenly think fondly of a place she hadn't been able to wait to get away from?

  Perhaps because the sea was constant and unchanging. No matter the upheaval in her life, the betrayals, the darkness, it was the one thing that always remained the same, and would for the rest of eternity. It had been there before her, and would be after. Though the wind and waves reshaped the coastline ceaselessly, making it, in effect, permanently different, it was steady; the heartbeat of the world.

  The sea was so much bigger than her tiny little life, so much older. It didn't care, and in that she found a twisted sort of reassurance. It would always be there, no matter what happened.

  So much had changed so fast, it made her miss the cold indifference of the sea.

  "Ridiculous," she said quietly to the night.

  Or, she thought she had.

  "Here," Niamh said.

  Millie looked down to find a cigarette being held out to her.

  "Don't worry, Elise is well taken care of. You can be out here," Niamh said to the look that appeared on Millie's face.

  Taking the cigarette, Millie looked at it like she'd never seen one before. She couldn't even remember why she'd asked for it.

  "The brown end goes in your mouth," Niamh said dryly, sparking a witchlight. It took only the barest touch before the white end was glowing red.

  With a single inhale, Millie began coughing uncontrollably, spitting and hacking. "This tastes like shite! How does she stand these things? Gagh." Smothering it in her Manifest, she pitched it into the night.

  "Poor form! You'll make the dogs sick," Niamh said, and sauntered out to retrieve it. When she came back, she slapped the damp wad back into Millie's hand. "They're an acquired taste. Much like scotch."

  On the table between them, Niamh placed a wooden box, which she flipped open to reveal a bottle and two glasses packed in straw. It was too dim to read the label, but the moment the cork was popped out, there was no question what it was.

  Niamh handed Millie a glass that she'd filled less than a third of the way. "Good thing you take it neat, eh? Cheers."

  The ambrosia of the Highlands burned all the way down, and Millie sighed in contentment. "That's much better." She took another sip, letting it sit on her tongue so the aroma could work its way up through her nostrils before swallowing. "Oh… this is proper whisky, Niamh."

  "And don't I know it," the Irishwoman said, peering into her glass.

  "You didn't have to open it for me."

  "Now that would be a waste, since I bought it for you. An 1897. How does drinking scotch as old as your fiancee feel?"

  Millie considered her glass. "I don't know. I think I stopped feeling a while ago. Can I have another?"

  "You sure?"

  "I'm Scottish."

  "Fair enough."

  They sat in amicable silence, the only marking of time the crickets and the frogs. Millie savoured her whisky, the first she'd had in ages. She'd always been afraid that if she started drinking anything stronger than wine, she would never stop. But here, tonight, she could do nothing else.

  "Congratulations," Niamh said eventually.

  Millie glanced over at her mentor, moonlight mirrored in her grey eyes as she stared out into the night. "You still don't think I'm being rash, leaping into this so quickly?"

  "No, Millie, I don't think you're being rash. I'm thankful. You're both very lucky. You deserve each other. I wish you nothing but happiness in your… domestic life," Niamh said with a wry grin.

  "In that case, thank you."

  Niamh jut her chin at Millie's glass. "You feelin' better? You look like you know your own name now, at least."

  "Much."

  "Good."

  Something in Niamh's tone made Millie look over. "What is it?"

  "It's official. My protege is getting married. That's a lot to take in, is all."

  But it took a lot more than that to unsettle Niamh. Millie knew her too well, had seen her through too much, seen her scars too often, heard too many stories. "There's something else. Don't try to hide it. Not from me."

  "If not you, then who?" Niamh said.

  "It's my engagement party, don't pull that stoic shite."

  Niamh inclined her head, the closest she ever got to admitting defeat. "I suppose I can't argue with a bride-to-be."

  She turned her glass with her fingertips, a crystal gear at the centre of a spidery clockwork. It was a deep breath before she spoke again.

  "Millie… I have never been prouder of anyone in my life than I am of you. You have made these last lonely centuries worth it, and I could not be happier with who you have become. And… it may be because this is the first drop of alcohol I've touched since I Manifested, but I want to tell you something. Something I may never have the courage to bring up again."

  The sounds of night faded away, the stars dimmed. There was no braver, more selfless person in the world than Niamh, and such an admission seemed to stop time, as though the world needed a moment to re-order itself.

  "I love you. As much as if you were my own." Niamh's eyes sought the sky. "My little girl has been gone a long time, but I know that if she were here, she…" Niamh swallowed. "I see a lot of her in you, you know. You would have liked her."

  The world constricted yet further, a narrow tunnel between the two of them that excluded all else. Blood drained from Millie's face and she felt her features go slack. "You… had a daughter?"

  "Aye. Aisling. Little troublemaker, just like her mum. Stubborn like her, too. Including the day she ran off to get married… and didn't come back."

  Millie didn't want to ask, but the look in Niamh's eye compelled her. "What happened?"

  The darkness splintered, broken apart as it fled before the sudden appearance of the Sword of Stars. In its ethereal, otherworldly glow, Millie saw the answer etch its way across Niamh's face, scalding as it went. Pain that she had never so much as hinted at appeared as suddenly as it was swallowed again, profound in its depth as much as the will that Niamh would need to have been exercising every minute of her life to keep it at bay. "They found out I was a witch, so they took her. Held her. Made her scream. They left the windows open so I could hear… I don't remember much after that."

  Within Millie's chest, her heart was thumping against her lungs, fighting for which would take up more space. But for all that it thudded away, there was no blood to be found. "I had no idea."

  "Only Selene knows. She delivered her."

  "And her father?"

  Niamh swallowed the last of her whisky and set the glass on the table. "A mistake." There was a finality to the words, both an answer and a threat. "Not Aisling, mind. I'd wanted a child, maybe even a grandchild or two. And I would have, if…" Niamh set her elbows on her knees, letting her hands hang limp. "I've never told anyone… But, tonight's probably not the night, is it? This is a happy occasion, not one for a maudlin old woman to nurse ancient hurts."

  In less than an eye blink, the Niamh Millie had always known returned, what she now knew to be a mask slotting firmly back into place.

  "You, young lady, are getting married. Where are you going on your honeymoon?"

  Millie peered down into her glass so she wouldn't have to look at Niamh. "I hadn't even thought about it, to be honest."

  "That's the best part! You loved the Mediterranean. Some remote Greek island this time? Carice could tell you all about Cyprus," Niamh said.

  "What about Ireland?"

  "It's certainly pretty. Bit cold, though. And damp. Why would you want to go there?"

  "It gave me you. Least I can do."

  Niamh chuckled. "Weepy time's over, dear. Nice try, though. In any event, it's probably time we got back, don't you think? Don't want to look like you got cold feet."

  "I'm serious."

  "I know, which is why I changed the subject. Besides, there's a room full of witches back there who probably want to say nice things to you."

  The single largest space in the main building was EVE's library. Already the biggest repository of witch knowledge in the world, thanks to Carice's efforts of translation and transcription, day by day it grew ever larger. Books, scrolls, fragments of ancient parchment, strips of animal hide, Victoria would need the entirety of her future centuries to make so much as a dent in what it contained.

  But for the first time in her life, she hadn't entered a library to learn.

  "He was always so good at everything, Mistress. He was the oldest, he got all the attention," Sophia said, her recipe transcription homework laying open but only sporadically filled out before her. "I tried so hard to keep up, but it was never enough. No matter how good my grades, how many books I read, they never treated me the way they did him. I was always just his mewling little sister begging to be noticed."

  "A common refrain, I'm afraid. You are not alone in that experience." Victoria was sat across from her within the windowless depths of what had turned out to be a common location of refuge between them. Getting Sophia to talk had taken some cajoling and reassurances, but once she had started the dam was truly breached.

  As Victoria sifted among the floodwaters, she found that there was more to this young woman than the arrogant sycophant she had made herself into. What had started as a simple apology on Victoria's part had become something more like a commiseration, and her first experience in parsing the difference between educating and teaching.

  She handed across a time-worn volume with fraying edges and no external markings as to what it was. "What can you tell me about this?"

  Turning the book over, Sophia flipped through the pages with an admirable balance between speed and care. She didn't try to make out every word, eyes instead flying around to get a general sense of what she was looking at. "Dutch?"

  "Close."

  "Flemish."

  "Correct."

  "These tables… agricultural? It's an almanac!" Sophia exclaimed, riffling through the pages with considerably more enthusiasm.

  "Well done," Victoria said, letting her pride shine through. Outside the restrictions of a classroom, Sophia's truer colours were becoming visible, and not the kind that Svetlana saw. "Specifically a witch's almanac, which is far more accurate."

  "Why is that, Mistress?" Sophia asked with crossed eyes, her nose an inch from a page of particular interest. Without the prodding of her natural competitiveness, she was far more thoughtful than she had been given credit for, or a chance to show.

  "The longer the records, the more obvious repeating patterns become. With enough experience, it can begin to look like prophecy, even within a single witch's lifetime. You will see this in Mistresses Ivy and Carice, but do not let it unnerve you. Embrace it, and take advantage of their wisdom."

  Sophia set the book down, her face pensive. "Am I really going to live for centuries, Mistress?"

  Like Victoria, Sophia would only be served by the truth. If she didn't get it, Victoria had no doubt the young woman would root it out for herself anyway, and rightfully begin to ask why she was ever deceived in the first place. "If you continue to actively practice magic, yes."

  "So what happened with David will happen to everyone eventually," Sophia said.

  Katya had been doubly correct about the girl's past: both in what had happened to her older brother and that no-one had ever asked her about it, or even given her the opportunity to contextualise it so that she could begin the process of moving on.

  "It's the price of our gift. Were you close with your brother?"

  Sophia flipped through the almanac with the reverence it was due. "Only as we got older. We fought a lot when we were little. Do you have any siblings, Mistress?"

  "I had a twin brother, William, with whom I too had similar bouts of competition. I always felt myself in his shadow, though my parents did their best to treat us equally. It was those outside our family that I struggled to validate myself with. Having to shout louder, to give the answer before the question."

  "Because no-one would ask," Sophia muttered to the book.

  Victoria smiled at the familiarity of her charge's tone. "I thought you might understand. The same as you faced at university?"

  Sophia nodded absently. "What happened to your brother, Mistress? If I may ask."

  The ache was still there, as it always would be, but Victoria no longer dreaded the month of November. In many ways she was glad the tattoos had vanished, their absence had let her heal, rather than propping open the wound in perpetuity. She wasn't that anguished young woman anymore. "You may. I lost him in the war as well."

  "I'm sorry to hear that, Mistress."

  "It's all right. We're not alone, Sophia. Many, many brothers were taken that way. We have to remember that. And forgive the ones who took them," Victoria said with a watchful eye on the response.

  Storm clouds billowed across Sophia's features. "I want to, Mistress… it's just… it's so hard. He trusted that man! And he betrayed him. Poison? Coward."

  Victoria took back the almanac, forcing Sophia to engage completely. "Spycraft is not warcraft. It plays by different rules. Ones your brother knew, did he not? The risks?"

  "That doesn't make it easier, Mistress. It wasn't a random bullet, David knew the man who killed him. Visited his house, mentioned him in letters by name…"

  "A senseless death. I understand that much. I became a witch to kill Germans; to make sense of the senseless," Victoria said.

  "You did?"

  "Yes. And thank God I failed. It would have been a perversion to twist magic into a weapon of war, to make it another tool in the charnel house of the Western Front. But had I not tried, I would not have met my sister witches, nor found my calling in life. I would have spent the rest of my centuries embittered and starving for a revenge that could never be slaked, though I doubt my mentors would have ever let it get that far. After the war was over and it became obvious that everything we had suffered was for nothing, I was despondent. As you were, I imagine?"

  Sophia nodded.

  "But by a twist of fate, I was befriended by a pair of Germans soon after the war ended. And I learned that they had suffered just as much, if not worse, for even less. My pain was not their fault. It was something we shared. We were all cogs trapped in the same machine," Victoria said, choosing not to disclose which Germans she had befriended. She was undoubtedly biased, but the lesson would be better internalised that way.

  Sophia looked down at her open notebook, but didn't see it. "It still hurts, Mistress. I miss him so much."

  "Yet as long as you remember him, he will never be truly gone. If you are to be a witch, he will live on even longer than he otherwise would have. But you cannot be a witch so long as you hold hate in your heart. Magic can only be used with pure intent."

  "I know, Mistress. It's one of the first things I learned from the magazine."

  "Then what are your intentions, Sophia?"

  "To do things David could never do. Forge my own path." Sophia ran her fingers over the spines of the books stacked on the table. "To be better than him."

  Something in the young woman's tone made Victoria pause. "In what way?"

  "I was always so jealous… but now, with his whole life… over… I don't know that he made the world a better place in his time. It feels slanderous to say. But… I want to, Mistress."

  She was so close, there was only one more element needed. "That's very noble. But a witch is not forged in a vacuum. She needs oxygen and someone to work the bellows. She needs her sisters."

  "I'm sorry about Emma, Mistress. I should have thought first before coming to you and accusing her that way."

  There was no hint of deception in her voice, no sign she was only saying what Victoria wanted to hear. With Svetlana's assessment that Sophia was merely misguided and not malevolent in Victoria's proverbial back pocket, she was willing to let the matter go, but only with one caveat. "No harm done, as long as you have learned from it."

  "I have, Mistress."

  "Good. But also remember that your sisters are not your brother. There is no competition between you. If you find yourself with an advantage, it is your responsibility to share it and help bring them equal to you. There is far more to be gained by teaching what you know to those who don't than merely proving it to those who already do. This is a witchcraft conservatory, not the cutthroat world outside its walls. But know that we have noticed you, and adjusted our expectations accordingly. Mistress Niamh was only the first of many hammers you will face if you continue to so flagrantly crave being the tallest nail." The girl shrank. Luckily, Victoria knew how to do the opposite just as well. "But outside, I fully expect the world to bear the marks you make on it for a very long time."

 

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