Nadia stood at the trunk of the Cradle, the condensation on her glass cooling the palm of her hand, stealing a moment alone before the Gathering took off. The Liatruses had held a preparty celebration at their home, and Nadia had struggled to truly enjoy the drinking and dancing and primping with Aura and Jack. That was usually her favorite part, but the night ahead loomed too large. She’d managed to sneak a few drops of Soothing Solution before they left, though, and she no longer felt hot and jittery, anticipating a catastrophe. Now that night had descended and the party was approaching full swing, it seemed that there was no way the Gathering could end in anything other than success. She allowed herself to be distracted by the undeniable beauty of it all.
The Cradle had been charmed with tiny twinkling lights, hidden among the lush green branches. They moved and sparkled, hiding themselves and reemerging, evoking the night sky and, of course, the Mothers. Purple-and-white lilies swam through the air. On the patio, Charmony, a famous band of three witches, harmonized over a jazzy bass, their voices emitting waves of purple, turquoise, and gold light as they sang, projecting over the party as if through speakers. At tables on either side of the patio, bartenders dressed in identical periwinkle gowns and suits—their uniforms for the night—conjured drinks as quickly as they could, endeavoring to impress guests with showy flourishes. Puffs of light, smoke, and fire rose from their tables in myriad colors.
Around the Cradle, the massive grounds of 33,26 were dotted with tents, each glowing with soft light and housing a long wooden table where guests would at some point eat from exorbitant spreads of both magic and typic food and drink. There were rumors that later, once the food had been cleaned up, Violet planned to bring out thousands of vials of psychedelic potions to shift the tone of the party from dignified to debaucherous, reminiscent of the Gatherings of her youth. But for now, things remained tamely celebratory.
In the space between the tents and the patio, a sea of guests stood drinking, dancing, and gossiping, some wearing unique dresses they’d commissioned, others in the most decadent typic fashions they could find. All were breathtakingly glamorous, their hair worked into sky-high up-dos, floor-sweeping shapes, or tight, supple curls that haloed their faces. Rich, riotous laughter filled the air as witches mingled, delighting in the experience of seeing and being seen. As far as Nadia could tell, there were beautiful, lively, happy witches of all ages. She’d never seen the Sphere so buoyant, and the Crisis wasn’t even solved yet.
All around there were booths for different traditional Sphere games, entertaining children and adults alike. Helia was playing a round of stop-and-start, running away from the unusually strong witch who had been hired for the game and trying to escape her pull. She was failing miserably, each time being snapped back to the starting line in a fit of giggles. Nadia herself had indulged in a game of rocket, where a talented witch was hired to launch others into the air with sheer intention before gently guiding them back to the ground on a plume of warm air.
Children chased each other around the base of the Cradle, tackling one another and pretending to cast the spells they had read about in storybooks but were several years away from actually mastering. Nadia felt full. She allowed herself a brief, tentative moment of fantasy, envisioning a near future where she and the Mothers worked to find a way to bring the Crisis to an end for good. She was shaken out of her reverie by something tugging at the cape of her black Clarke Stein gown. She looked down to see a little boy who had run away from his friends and attached himself to her leg.
“Home base!” the boy yelled to his friends. “Home base, home base, home base!” The kids stopped short of Nadia, foiled: apparently the boy was, in fact, at home base. Nadia allowed her face to lift into a smile. She’d always found kids gross, but becoming an aunt must’ve softened her, because she was finding the display beneath her kind of cute.
“Hi,” Nadia said, bending to speak to the boy. In the next second, his mother scooped him up, apologizing.
“I’m so sorry,” the boy’s mother said. When she straightened, Nadia realized she knew her—it was Magdalena, an acquaintance of hers from Bekere.
“Magda,” Nadia said. “How are you?”
“Oh, Nadia, hi. I didn’t realize that was you.” Magda leaned down to her son and spoke in a saccharine voice. “Say hi to Nadia. Eddie, say hi.” Eddie shook his head before running off to join his friends. “Sorry,” Magda said. “He’s shy.”
“That’s fine,” Nadia said, smiling. “I didn’t know you had a son.”
“Oh, yeah. I had Eddie right after graduation. I’ve heard your family had some luck in that department this year. Such good fortune,” she said.
Nadia beamed. “Thank you.”
Magda lowered her voice conspiratorially. “I was so relieved to learn that Eddie was a boy, because it meant I didn’t have to worry about powers—how sad is that? The new developments have really changed everything.”
Nadia shook her head sympathetically, and the two turned to watch the festival that was unfurling around them.
“It’s so gorgeous,” Magda said. “Absolutely breathtaking.”
“I know,” Nadia sighed, beside herself. “I guess we’re both too young to have ever seen the Gathering in its original glory, but I imagine this is close.” Magda hummed but said nothing, and Nadia followed her eyes to a graying woman sitting in a chair near the patio. The woman was laughing with another witch near her age, and Nadia sensed a sobriety in Magda that she hadn’t first arrived with.
“Sorry,” Magda said, her voice thick. “I was just thinking how wonderful it is that my grandmother gets to see this. That she can go away with some kind of hope.”
Nadia turned to look at Magda, to share a look of consolation or understanding, but she stopped as she caught a movement in her peripheral vision—the Mothers had arrived. In many ways they resembled the other partygoers: each girl wore a long, elaborate gown, a carefully finished hairstyle, and a luminous mood. Each carried herself with the telltale poise of a witch. Some party- goers looked at the Mothers with concentration then looked away, satisfied that nothing was amiss. But Nadia couldn’t unsee what she’d learned three weeks ago. They were different.
“I’d call that a happy ending,” Nadia said to Magda, but she was distracted now. “I’ll be right back. I’ve just seen some friends from Bekere.”
Nadia moved toward the girls, sweeping through the scene of preoccupied revelers indulging in food, drink, and dance. The girls lit up when they saw her.
“It’s stunning,” Maya said. She’d worn her hair straight, and her barely-there dress gave the illusion that she was ten feet tall. Delali wore a striking strapless dress that hugged her usually obscured figure, her hair cornrowed into a long, curly ponytail. Gabbie looked utterly transformed in a lavender silk dress with an ethereal train, her hair gathered into a puff. If nothing else went right tonight, at least they’d nailed the dress code.
Nadia smiled. “It is, isn’t it?” She was suddenly amused by the irony of it—that women who housed the magic of the Mothers were totally ignorant of the Sphere’s traditions. “Do you feel like you’re ready?” Nadia asked. The girls nodded and Nadia took a deep breath—all there was left to do was trust them.
“Okay, just to go over the plan one more time,” Delali said. “The Appeal to the Mothers will start at eleven forty-five?”
Nadia nodded. “You’ll see 33,26 emptying at that time and Councilmembers entering through that back door. I’ll be the last to go in.” She pointed to the house.
“Then we’ll just start the spell at eleven forty-four, and keep going for as long as we need to.”
“Right, even if there are people near the Cradle?” Gabbie asked, looking over to the base of the tree, which was crowded with revelers.
Nadia nodded. “No one will pay you any mind.”
Maya sighed to still her heartbeat. “That’s it,” she said, more a comment than a question.
“Yeah,” Nadia said. “That’s it.” There was nothing else to say. The reversal needed to work, and Nadia didn’t want to think about what awaited them if it failed. “There’s not much for us to do for the next four and a half hours but wait.”
“Are you serious?” Gabbie asked, gesturing toward the event. “I think we can keep ourselves occupied.”