Nadia was at the grocery store getting sugar for Nina’s porridge when the banner dropped.
The two witches caught in the latest mute are confirmed to be unrelated to the recent disturbances. The Regent asks that you please apply a mute to two new locations by the end of the day.
—Iris
Nadia felt a mixture of anxiety and relief. Eight witches had been caught by her mutes so far, which she’d applied as strategically as she could. She’d capped them at three (Violet hadn’t specified how many she expected, and if she wanted more she’d have to be explicit), and placed them in the least frequent disturbance sites (like Washington Heights and the Upper East Side). She carefully avoided Brooklyn Heights, the East Village, and the Upper West, where she felt the witches probably spent most of their time. So far, none of the witches who had come before Violet had a history of magic that matched the disturbance sites, and Nadia had been waiting all day for news on the two new witches who had come forward that morning. It was good to know that they, too, were unrelated to the disturbances, but she was running out of low-risk areas to mute, and she could feel whatever esteem the Council had left for her fading with each failed mute. How long until they handed over muting responsibilities to Janai or another member of the SVT? The situation with the mutes had given her one more, last-ditch idea, and now she was just waiting for an opportunity to carry it out. But with the mute inquiries and all the planning around the Gathering, 33,26 had been too busy for her to do it yet, and actually casting the mutes was taking up a significant amount of time and energy.
Nadia swiped the banner away, grabbed a small jar of purple rock sugar, and transported home, where her family was about to have dinner. She appeared in the kitchen to find her mother, wearing a dress with long bell sleeves, standing over the stove.
“Where’s Opal?” Nadia asked, referring to their conjurer. She’s the one who had sent her out for sugar in the first place, since she liked to make her porridge from scratch instead of conjuring it wholesale.
“She’s gone home,” Natasha answered, reaching into a dark oak cabinet for milk. “Oh, don’t make that face—I made the very porridge that grew you into the Sphere’s youngest ever Councilmember.”
Nadia laughed, but she was uneasy. Her mom hadn’t really looked at her since she’d appeared in the kitchen. Something was definitely bothering her. Natasha poured the milk in silence, then raised a finger to stir.
“I got the sugar,” Nadia offered, pulling at the throat of her black turtleneck.
Natasha looked up now, her eyes landing on Nadia’s fidgeting hand. “Any news?”
Nadia was confused by this. Councilmembers would’ve been updated about the inquiries at the time she’d received her banner from Iris. Nadia looked through the doorway into the dining room, willing Eve, Nina, or her dad to appear. “They’re not the witches we were looking for. I’ll have to do more tonight—mutes on two more locations.”
Natasha nodded quietly as she stirred, eyes back on the stove. “I don’t appreciate the way they’re treating you,” she said finally, her tone clipped.
She plunked the jar of sugar onto the countertop. “To be clear, by ‘they’ you mean Violet,” Nadia protested.
“Yes, in fact, I do mean Violet,” Natasha replied, her voice loud and quivering with anger. She gave Nadia her full attention now. “My issues with the Regent aside, there’s no reason for you to be treated in such a manner. I understood your desire to be in the Council when it was to do with the WHO and the Crisis—”
Nadia opened her mouth to correct her, but Natasha lifted a stern finger.
“I understand that the Crisis is not yet over. But you’re clearly no longer considered important to the mission of the WHO. For reasons I can’t understand beyond Violet’s petty dislike of our family. How does it make sense that you, the person who cast the mute, which is a very physically taxing act of magic, are not included in the inquiry of those witches caught by the mute? How does it make sense for you to sit here waiting for communication from Iris Kelembe, a witch of very inferior talent? It’s degrading, Nadia. And it’s particularly degrading for a Nox.”
Nadia didn’t totally disagree with her mother. Some of what she said was true: she obviously wasn’t important to the WHO any longer. But Nadia needed her proximity to the Council to figure out the puzzle of the disturbances and turn them into a real solution for the Crisis.
Nadia sighed. “I know, Mom.”
“Enough of the ‘I know, Mom.’” Natasha said sharply. She looked at Nadia closely. “You need to withdraw from the Council.”
“Withdraw?” Nadia repeated. Even without the mystery of the disturbances, Nadia wasn’t giving up on the idea that Dr. Diop would accept her back into the fold—her work was too good for Dr. Diop to just throw her away. She was suddenly enraged, her nails digging into her palms as she clenched her fists. “First you want me to join you in a . . . whatever your plan was,” Nadia said, refusing to say the word coup aloud, “and now you want me to withdraw because I’m no longer the golden child of the medical sphere? Because you don’t want me to work with someone you dislike? Just because we have the same power doesn’t mean we’re the same person.”
“Nadia,” her mother warned.
“I’m not driven by whatever it is”—she waved her hands around—“you’re driven by. I don’t care if Violet’s a bitch to me. I have a goal.”
Natasha let out a dour laugh. “So you’ll endure whatever humiliation necessary for you to reach that goal? Good for Violet, then.” She turned back to the cauldron and began stirring it again, even though it was likely long finished. “Good for Violet.”
Nadia stood quietly, watching as her mother resumed stirring.
Natasha looked at Nadia one more time, her face angry at first, then clouded with something else—disappointment. Her next sentence she delivered sincerely, as if simply thinking out loud. “I did always wonder why you were the one who got the power. I cannot imagine you using it.”
Tatiana
Maya
Tatiana