Nadia closed her family’s old, worn copy of the Myth—the same copy that had been read to Natasha as a child—and looked over the side of Nina’s crib. She’d fallen asleep within the first line of the story, and now her tiny nostrils quivered as she breathed, her soft mound of a stomach growing and shrinking almost imperceptibly. Nadia crept out of Nina’s room and down the stairs of her family home, out into the backyard where her mother and sister were sitting at the outdoor dining table eating a late breakfast. It had been a long time since they’d done something like this—in the years after Helia’s birth, Eve had turned from socialite to recluse, and on her worst days even the backyard was too far a destination for her to bother.
In the first months after Helia’s birth, Eve had played off her grief unconvincingly, always emphasizing how common typic births were now, how she herself had gone to a typic university, how Helia could maintain her ties to the community despite the fact that she couldn’t fully operate in it. But at some point in the first year, she’d given up the charade. The truth was that while a typic baby was a disappointment for any witch, a Nox without powers was an oxymoron; it was scandalous that a Council family had produced a typic.
Now Eve sat luminous and smiling, dressed as if for one of her pre-Helia dinner parties, in a long-sleeved satin dress with an open back, her hair set into a perfect fan of soft, tiny curls. There was a patch of post-pregnancy iridescence at her collarbone, only partially faded.
Eve raised her eyebrows hopefully when she saw Nadia. “Asleep?”
Nadia nodded, shielding her eyes from the sun. “Worked like a spell.”
“Never fails,” Natasha said, holding a mug of hot tea under her face. “Especially that copy; ten words or less, I’ve always said.”
Nadia picked up a plate and assessed the table. The family’s conjurer, Opal, had made a particularly impressive brunch spread: pastries with pastel oozing middles, bowls of freshly-conjured fruit, boiled eggs of various shapes and shades, traditional Sphere slaws and stews. Beyond the patio, at the side of the house, Helia played a game only she knew the rules for, running haphazardly around the grass and spinning in circles, basking in the warmth. Nadia piled her plate high with glassfruit and willow pears, a mix of typic and witch pastries, and two eggs, then drenched the entire plate in Cradle sap.
“Well,” Natasha said. She gave Nadia a hesitant smile. “That’s one way to feed yourself.”
Nadia rolled her eyes as she settled into one of the ivory-cushioned chairs, but she was secretly thrilled by her mom’s comment. She’d never had a particularly close relationship with her mom, and things had gotten even more tense after Nadia joined the Council. But maybe the miracle of Nina’s birth had smoothed over even those cracks. Nadia snuck a look at her mom, her round cartoon eyes and wide nose, the heart-shaped chin she’d passed on to her daughters. She sat with her usual rigid posture, clad in a starched navy shift dress and the single slim bismuth bracelet that all Nox women wore, her microlocs tucked smartly behind her ears. She stirred her drink with a motion of her finger, and Nadia was struck by the thing she had always loved about her mom, from the time she was little: her ability to communicate her importance in every last movement she made. Nadia had been struggling to reconcile this version of her mother—stately, poised, calm—with the injured woman who had cornered her in her office just a few months ago.
Three days after Nadia was appointed to the Council, her mother called her to her study, a vast room in the basement of the Nox estate, where she’d been working on potions since the Shatter to keep herself occupied. Nadia could count on one hand the number of times she’d been in the room, and she wasn’t sure her dad had ever been there at all. Natasha liked to work in total solitude, and she’d been fairly successful, having three potion accreditations in as many decades. She poured any failed potions—what she jokingly called drafts—into small glass bottles and placed them on shelves along the walls of the room.
Nadia had hoped to look through the new additions when she got there, but as soon as she entered the study, Natasha summoned the door to her office closed and asked Nadia to sit. With no preamble, Natasha made her plan clear: she had been cultivating numbers for a coup for several years now. There were some Councilmembers she knew were serious, but there were others she suspected she couldn’t depend on. Without them, she wouldn’t have the majority she needed. Could she count on Nadia’s vote in the case of a tie?
The information had come in an earnest, quiet voice that Nadia didn’t recognize, maybe didn’t even respect. She’d been shocked—not because her mother was planning a movement against Violet, but because her mother seemed undone by the plan, so eager that she’d taken the risk of speaking plainly about it, and even transferred that risk to Nadia. Even within the confines of Natasha’s study, it was bold. Nadia had known her mother to be anti-Violet for as long as she could remember. Lots of witches were—they blamed her for the Shatter, for the Betrayer’s very existence, for the Crisis altogether. Some rankled at any actions of hers that seemed like a bid for more power. Others just thought she was a graceless leader. What set Natasha apart from those masses was that her criticisms of Violet were laced with personal grievance, and that she sat on the Council with Violet four times a year, staring down the woman who had, three decades earlier, ordered her to do the unthinkable. Perhaps the potion-making hadn’t been as successful a distraction as everyone thought.
Under the gaze of her mother, the woman she admired the most, Nadia balked. She couldn’t respond. She didn’t want to involve herself in the Council—in its politics—any more than her role at the WHO required her to. She couldn’t understand her mother’s compulsion to move toward the thing that had wounded her, rather than away from it. But before she could say that much, her mother noted her hesitation and closed the conversation, her face locking shut like a safe. They hadn’t spoken about it since. Thea’s note sat, blank, in Nadia’s room, but Nadia guessed her mother’s oldest friend was a holdout finally joining the coup. Or not. It didn’t matter—she was never going to take the chance of handing it over.
“You know,” Nadia said, aiming an eye at her mom’s mug, “I’m not sure that five mugs of ResElix tea a day is much better.”
Natasha laughed. “Well, I’m a creature of habit.”
Helia approached the table and grabbed Eve’s leg, and Eve lifted the child onto her lap. She attempted to feed her a chunk of fruit, but Helia refused. Instead, she dunked her hand into a plate of sap and then slapped it against Eve’s chest.
“Helia,” Eve scolded. She held her hand flat against an unstained portion of the dress to remove the sap. “This is brand new.”
“Oh,” Nadia said, reminded of the text she’d received earlier that day. “Why did I get an invitation for an appointment at Derra’s this morning?”
“Were you planning on seeing someone else for your Gathering dress?” Eve asked, her face twisted in disapproval. “I know it’s months away, but the earlier we go the more choice we’ll have.”
“You’re going?” Nadia couldn’t contain her excitement. Eve hadn’t attended the Gathering since Helia’s birth.
Natasha nodded, just as giddy as Nadia, and placed her hand on Eve’s. They were listening to Eve outline her Gathering plans when a banner appeared. A general banner, so that everyone could read the text:
Despite rumors to the contrary, studies conducted by the WHO have concluded that the Typic Crisis has not yet entered reprieve. Witches, however, are encouraged to maintain the good spirits inspired by the recent anomalous births.
With love,
Your Regent
Nadia swiped it away, her good mood punctured. It was a cruel reminder of where things stood. By now, Eve and Natasha, who had consoled Nadia after her first disastrous meeting with Violet, knew the AME wasn’t responsible for the rash of miracle births that had taken place last in the last couple of weeks. It was the rest of the witches in the Sphere that might be disillusioned by this banner. Nadia shoved a glimmering, aquamarine ball of glassfruit into her mouth and chewed.
“Oh come on,” Eve said, reading her expression. “It’s not all bad. Something good must be happening, right?”
“Right,” Nadia acknowledged. It was true: the births were, overall, a positive development. Eve, with her newborn witch sleeping upstairs, was the happiest Nadia had seen her years, and so were the families of those other lucky witches. But Nadia couldn’t help thinking the whole Sphere deserved that same elation. “Restorative births were back up again today,” she offered. Restorative births had continued to rise and fall since Nina’s birth, seemingly at random. She’d taken to reading through Dr. Diop’s confidential reports first thing in the morning, like a newspaper or a Twitter feed, then noting them on a graph she’d put on the door of her closet.
“Well, then,” Natasha said. She placed a comforting hand on her daughter’s shoulder. “Surely it won’t be long now.”
“Yeah,” Nadia said, but her mind was already elsewhere. “I think that’s my cue, anyway. We have one of the restorative birth mothers in the lab this afternoon for readings. I should look through her file.” She stood from her chair and headed inside.
Maya
Maya
Gabbie
Gabbie
Delali
Delali
Maya
Maya
Gabbie