Here,” Sebastian Fallon said.
I looked up from the lab bench to see my friend holding a syringe. “What’s that?”
He grinned. “Just vitamins. Mostly.”
I was at the witchkind clinic. Yes, the same one that the warlock Gregorio Andromedus had built—Gregorio, who I was not entirely convinced was working for the good of all witchkind…though I couldn’t prove anything. This was part of why I was here. I had brought in a new batch of my research homunculi from my home lab to test. My quieter purpose was to see if I could surreptitiously increase my sample size of witches’ blood to test back at home.
“Thanks, but I’ve already eaten.”
“Ha, ha.” He waved the syringe at me. “Come on, Callie. I brewed it just for you. It can’t hurt.”
I shook my head. “No, really, I’m good.”
“Trust me. I’m a healer.”
Technically, he wasn’t yet, he was just a doctor. But that wasn’t the reason for my hesitation. I set down my pipette and put a hand on his arm. “Sebastian, you’re so sweet, but seriously. I don’t need anything more. I’m keeping real careful track of my nutrition, I’m taking a strength potion regularly, and everything’s going great. I’m fully nourished and I feel terrific.” Before he could argue further, I added, “You can examine me—and her—if you like.”
He frowned a moment before setting the syringe on the bench beside the pipette. “Sure, I’d appreciate that.”
I turned to face him so he could more easily reach the swell of my belly. It was a small price to pay to assuage the guilt I felt about deceiving my friend. He knew there was something I wasn’t telling him, and I could tell he was hurt about that, though we had never spoken about it directly. I hated it, too, because he was, in fact, my friend. Even though we’d only really gotten to know each other a few months ago, I trusted him all the way down. He had my best interests at heart, and he had no idea what was really going on. It killed me to keep him in the dark. But I had no choice. Because I cared about him, I could never tell him. He was Gregorio’s freakin’ postdoc, after all.
He was endlessly curious about the process of witchkind pregnancy, of which I was our community’s only current example. As a healer-in-training, of course he would focus on every aspect of the process.
Too bad anything he was learning from me would be…only halfway useful to him in the future.
He put both hands gently on my belly, as he’d done so many times already, and closed his eyes, sending his magic carefully into my system. It always surprised me that he didn’t detect what was unusual about my baby. (About Rose; she had a name now. I had to keep reminding myself.) Then again, I had barely been able to detect her mixed parentage when I searched for it myself, and I had known what I was looking for.
Sebastian finished his probe and, as ever, gave me an apologetic smile. It lit up his gawky features, making him much better-looking. “She seems great. Growing and thriving.”
“Yep,” I said. “But you’re always welcome to check.”
“I just wish I could do more.” He huffed out a small, frustrated sigh.
I unsuccessfully tried to stifle a grin. “Typical warlock. You-all just hate letting witches be in charge of anything, don’t you?”
Now he laughed. “Touché.”
“You’re already taking such good care of me,” I assured him. “You’re a fussier mother-hen than even my coven sisters.”
“Yeah, I’m sure Niad dotes on you day and night.”
I rolled my eyes. “Most of them, I mean. With her, I consider it a win that she’s not actively trying to poison me.”
He held up the syringe. “You’re absolutely sure about the vitamins?”
I patted my swelling belly. “One hundred percent. Sorry.”
“No need to apologize.” He tucked it in the pocket of his lab coat, but then stood there a beat or two longer. He seemed to have more to say but was unable to broach it.
Trying to nudge him along, I turned back to the lab bench and picked up my pipette, leaning over the tray of samples and pretending to focus on them.
“Dr. Andromedus, um, is excited about the baby?”
Wow, Sebastian, way to fish, I thought. I turned back to him with a careful smile. “I think everyone in the community is.”
He had the grace to look uncomfortable, even though he pressed on, undeterred. “Well, I mean, he is her grandfather.” I could see his face reddening. “I know he’s not a very cuddly guy, but he seems pretty stoked about this.”
He was practically begging me to confide in him, but given that he was already too close to the truth, that was the very last thing I could do. I let my smile linger, bland and polite. “Yes, he is very pleased.”
Sebastian cleared his throat. “Even though, well, with Jeremy still in the Old Country…”
Hmm. “I’m sure his research there is very complicated,” I said, “though I haven’t heard any details about it.”
“You don’t get regular updates from him, I imagine?”
This was safer territory, at least. Niad had asked much the same question, but for very different reasons. “You know how things are between us,” I said. “He still can’t believe I didn’t want to sign a contract with him the minute I learned about the baby.”
“Yeah. He is a traditionalist.”
I nodded. “And there’s the technical challenge as well, with communication being so hard at that distance. Plus, even if things were great between us, it’s not like I can just pop over there to say hi.” Witches and warlocks can, if we must, fly in airplanes, but the speed and elevation required really mess with our equilibrium, our connection to the threads of the world. There was more than one documented example of a witch losing her magic altogether after a lengthy flight, and plenty of occurrences of access to magic never being quite the same again. Ley line travel is far easier on our magical systems, except for the fact that it only exchanges one set of issues for another—the incredible distances involved, the disruptive effect of large bodies of saltwater, and the energy expended to make it work. There had actually been more overseas travel by witchkind back in the days of steamships.
In many ways, we weren’t built for this modern world.
“Right.” Sebastian glanced at the bench behind me. “Well, I should let you get back to work, I guess.”
“It’s all right,” I said, though I was grateful that this latest gentle interrogation was finally over.
He turned to go, then suddenly turned back and blurted, “Did you ever wonder why such an old, esteemed warlock came to live all the way out here in San Francisco?”
I blinked, startled. “Who? Gregorio?”
“Yeah. He was in the Old Country for centuries. He even left his son to be raised there. And then he came to live here? Why?”
I shrugged, unsure what he was trying to get at, and not bothering to correct his timeline. Gregorio had been long established here when his mate died and he sent young Jeremy off to be fostered. “I don’t know. I never really wondered about it. Maybe it was so he could be a bigger fish in a faraway pond. Maybe he had an argument with someone there. Maybe he liked the climate here.”
Sebastian raised an eyebrow as if wondering if I was kidding, then shook his head. “From what I hear, there are some pretty toxic fish in the Old Country pond. So maybe you’re right.” He bit his lip. “Still, it seems out of character. He doesn’t seem like a San Franciscan.”
I thought a moment. “Sebastian, remember when we talked after my dinner party?”
“Of course. When I told you that I’m gay. And you pretended not to be astonished.” He smiled.
“Yes, that too,” I said, grinning back at him. “But the rest of the conversation—about independence, about not just blindly following all the rules of our elders. About making our own way in the world. Making our own decisions.” I was warming up to my own narrative, trying hard to put recent events out of my mind and remember the Gregorio I’d known all my life. To remember who I’d always thought he’d been, and how much that had impressed me. “I think Dr. Andromedus must have done that. He could have had a comfortable life in the Old Country forever, but he chose to make a new life here. To bring his experience and wisdom and power to this fledgling community.” I stopped, suddenly feeling a little uncertain at my own words. Had I laid it on too thick? Yet it was only what I had believed. Until recently, I had no reason to question any of it.
Now my life was full of questions…and I was on my own in finding the answers. Gregorio Andromedus might truly be working for the good of witchkind, or he might have everyone fooled. If my daughter and I were to remain safe, I had to keep mum about my doubts—at least until I knew more. Much more.
Sebastian was nodding. “Yeah, that makes sense.” I could see he wasn’t entirely convinced but was thinking about it. He admired Dr. Andromedus as much as…well, as I once had. And maybe could again.
“Anyway,” I said pointedly, glancing yet again at the lab bench before me.
“Right.” Sebastian gave me an apologetic smile. “I’ll let you get back to work.”
“Thanks. And hey—let’s get coffee some time, okay?”
He grinned. “I’d like that.”
I had barely managed to find my focus once again when I felt the telltale tingle of an ætheric message. Callie?
Hi, Mom, I answered her. How are you feeling?
She had been one of the victims of the sickness supposedly inflicted by Flavius Winterheart, but she was relatively young and in good health, so she was recovering.
Great! Almost a hundred percent.
I’m glad to hear that. What’s up?
There was a brief pause. I knew better than to try to get back to what I was doing. I leaned against the bench, letting my hand rest on my belly. Did I feel the baby moving? Probably not.
It’s been too long since I gave a luncheon party, Mom finally answered. Are you free tomorrow?
Yes, I said at once. Whether I was actually free or not, I would make myself free. What time?
One-thirty. See you then!
I worked another two hours, but never really found my stride. Whether it was pregnancy-brain, regular distraction, or some problem with the homunculi, I couldn’t tell.
I didn’t even manage to sneak any extra samples home.
Oh well. I’d try again another time.
I showed up at my parents’ grand Pacific Heights home a few minutes early. Elnor followed me on the ley line. She had grown increasingly independent with this as my pregnancy progressed. Time was when she’d refuse to use her own magic for ley travel at all, forcing me to carry her. Now she hopped on the line as if it were nothing, though she still sneezed five or six times when we emerged on the street corner.
Familiar cats are to regular cats as witchkind is to humankind: superficially similar, yet essentially different. Their lines are bred from normal, mundane cats, reinforced for any magical tendencies and abilities—just like witchkind had been at the outset. I’m not sure why the cat strains haven’t become more pure and attenuated like ours have. As far as I know, witches have been breeding cats this way as long as they’ve been breeding themselves. And yet even today, two regular magic-less felines could easily birth a litter with magical powers, while more than half of familiar-crossed litters come out magically null.
Cats are just more stubborn than us, I guess.
We walked up the tidy brick pathway to the front door. Mom had left the house wards down, something she only did if she was having a large enough group to make the ask-and-enter ritual cumbersome. (Not to mention that a group that large could join forces to protect the house from anything the world was likely to throw at it.)
Even so, I rang the doorbell and waited to be invited in.
Mom herself came to the door, and drew me into a warm hug. “Callie! You look marvelous. I’ve never seen you glow so much.”
“I always thought that was a figure of speech,” I said as I disengaged and shrugged out of my sweater.
Mom hung it on the elegant hall tree, then turned and took my arm. “But you can see it yourself, can’t you?”
I let her lead me down the hall. I could hear a party full of voices in the dining room, but couldn’t pick out who was there, exactly. More guests than I’d expected, to be sure. “I can, yes. My magic has gotten…fizzy, maybe. Strong, but also more granular.”
“Exactly!” She beamed at me.
Of course, much of the new strength of my magic was coming from Gregorio’s obnoxious golden ring. But Mom didn’t need to know that; it would just make her fret.
“Here we are!” she sang out to the gathered crowd as we turned and stepped into the dining room.
The big table was pushed to the wall, with a sumptuous buffet set out on it. This left room for the probably two dozen witches and handful of warlocks who were gathered. Most of the witches were friends of my mom’s, while the warlocks were Elders and colleagues of my father’s.
I know my parents thought they were terribly progressive, staying together for love and all, but they sure hewed to the old gender-based divisions.
Most everyone turned and at least nodded politely at me before resuming their conversations. My dad smiled warmly and stepped toward me, setting an empty glass on the buffet table to free his arms for a hug.
“Lucas, please,” my mom murmured at him as she picked up the glass, wiped the ring it left, and handed it to a maid whose name I didn’t know. We never had household help when I was a witchlet living at home. Mom had begun hiring them ten or fifteen years ago. She’d said she wanted more time and energy to work on her tarot studies. Mostly, it seemed to me, she’d enjoyed a life of leisure.
I’d challenged her about this recently, just as she’d challenged me to take the tarot more seriously. I couldn’t see that either of these challenges had ended well for us: with Mom in the hospital, and me…still without my best friend, or any satisfying answers about her demise.
The maid moved unobtrusively around the room, collecting empty glasses and plates, replenishing the buffet. I wondered where Mom kept finding new ones. And why they kept quitting.
My thoughts were interrupted before they could even get started. “Calendula,” my father said, still beaming down at me. “You are looking so well.”
“Thanks, Dad.” I smiled back at him. It was rare to find him at home on a workday, but this was clearly a work function. At least three-quarters of the Council of Elders were present.
Including, I saw with dismay, Gregorio Andromedus.
The ancient warlock caught my eye from across the room, nodded courteously, and returned to his conversation.
Well, I couldn’t avoid him forever, though I’d certainly been trying to. I took a deep breath and turned my attention to the buffet table. “Mom!” I said, with only partially feigned enthusiasm. “This is an amazing spread.”
“I wanted to make sure I made something for everyone—including you.” She snaked a hand around my widening waist as she turned toward the food that she almost certainly had not made herself. Dad patted my arm and stepped away to greet another newcomer. “I remember being pregnant. One’s appetites get a little strange.”
“I’m mostly past that now,” I assured her. “Instead, the baby is starting to squish my stomach. I feel starving and then three bites later, I’m stuffed.”
Mom laughed. “I remember that too.” She filled a plate with delicacies and handed it to me. “Here—your favorites.”
It was true, these were things I particularly enjoyed—meatballs, strong cheese, dark seedless grapes—but at the moment, nothing appealed to me. “Thanks,” I said, taking the plate with a grateful smile. “I think I’ll find a chair.”
“Don’t forget to stop at the bar. I’ve made a fresh batch of elderflower wine.”
Ironically, I knew that Mom had indeed brewed the wine with her own hands, her own magic. Using flowers grown in her own garden, either fresh or preserved. Part of me wished I could have some, but the rest of me thought it sounded awful.
Thank goodness for the wisdom of the body.
“Oh, that’s great,” I said as I stepped away from her, pretending to head for the bar set up in the far corner (staffed by another maid I didn’t know) but really just looking for a quiet place to sit down for a moment.
There was a pass-through room off the dining room, not really a formal butler’s pantry, more just a large space between this room and the kitchen to provide distance from the kitchen’s noises and odors. During parties, it usually filled up with people, but I was grateful to see that no one had wandered into it yet.
I sat down on the little divan under a high stained-glass window and began nibbling at my food. It was the honest truth, what I’d told Mom: I couldn’t remember the last time I’d eaten a big meal.
And I still had months more of this to go…months during which things would only get worse, not better.
I took another deep breath, sending a silent wish to my baby that she should let me take in some sustenance. It’s for your good as well as mine, I thought.
Elnor turned up, nose twitching pointedly as she gazed up at my plate, appearing from wherever she’d eeled off to when we arrived. Not to visit Mom’s familiar; Mom had never replaced Pixel when the old cat had moved on to the Beyond decades ago. Witches aren’t required to keep familiars, of course, but this was yet more evidence that Mom didn’t intend to spend any of her time doing serious magic.
Oh well. It was her life. She got to make her own choices in how to spend it.
I had a mouth full of meatball when a shadow fell over my plate. Even Elnor, happily munching her own little bite, hadn’t heard the warlock step into the room.
“Gregorio,” I said, after I’d managed to swallow.
He gave a polite nod and took a seat on the other side of the small room. “You are looking well, Calendula Isadora.” It was a statement, but it held a hint of a question.
I nodded, wishing my heart rate would settle back down, keeping my face calm. “Yes. Everything is just fine.”
A smile ghosted across his face, gone almost before it appeared. “I am glad to hear that.” Then he gazed at me. By the intensity in his ancient eyes, I knew he was scanning me magically. I sat still, not fighting it, not reacting in any way. After a minute, his eyes softened as his focus relaxed. “Yes, all appears to be proceeding as it should.”
I took a careful breath. “I am doing everything that has been…recommended,” I said. Still struggling to keep all emotion out of my voice.
Not that I was fooling him. That little flicker of a smile touched his eyes this time. He was far too suave and self-controlled to openly sneer at me, but he was enjoying his power over me.
I hadn’t thought it was possible to feel any more uncomfortable than I already did. Surprise, surprise.
“I am glad to hear that,” he repeated, and nodded sagely.
Elnor sat very still under my feet, but I could feel her energy. She was picking up on my emotions, though she understood that, while this man was making me unhappy, he was not a threat that she should attack with her claws and teeth.
At least, I hoped that’s where her fuzzy brain was going. My mom’s luncheon party did not need a catfight, even a one-sided one.
I smiled politely at Gregorio, waiting for him to say what he’d really come back here to say, or to leave. The silence stretched on. If it made him uncomfortable, he didn’t show it.
Well, he was eight hundred years old. His time sense was clearly on a different scale than mine.
Finally, he cleared his throat and his eyes sharpened a bit. “Calendula, I notice that you have continued your biological research. And that you were at the clinic’s laboratory yesterday.”
I nodded, not at all surprised that he would know this. “Yes, I see no reason to give up my work.” I said the words blandly, but we both knew what was behind them. “My daughter is not due for some months yet, and I am in full possession of my strength and faculties.”
Gregorio gave a well-practiced chuckle. “Oh, of course you are, that is plain to see.”
More silence reigned for another minute or two. This time, I caved. “And I wouldn’t want to get bored, just sitting around the house.”
“No.” He leaned forward slightly. Coming to the point, at last?
I blinked at him, waiting.
He said, “I regret that I did not have the opportunity to look over your work while you were there. Perhaps I could have been of assistance.”
“It was just a few assays, using blood samples Dr. Fallon provided for me. With, I assume, your permission and knowledge.”
His eyes narrowed at the word blood, but I ignored that. I wasn’t doing blood magic. I wouldn’t be so reckless, not in a lab established and run by Gregorio.
Not anywhere, for that matter, and certainly not when I was pregnant. But, despite what he so clearly wanted me to believe, this man was not the boss of me. I would make him spell it out, if he truly wanted to accuse me of working forbidden magic.
“Of course,” he said, nodding. “It’s only—”
Our tense but polite standoff was cut short by Jacobus, one of my father’s colleagues, a middle-aged warlock—only two or three hundred years old—who stepped into the passageway where Gregorio and I sat. “Oh!” Jacobus exclaimed. “Dr. Andromedus, I am so sorry, I did not mean to interrupt.” He nodded deeply to Gregorio, almost bowing, as he shuffled a few steps backward. As if not daring to turn his back on royalty.
Gregorio waved his hand dismissively and favored Jacobus with a kindly smile. “Please, young sir, you are not interrupting anything. My protégé and I were merely chatting. You are most welcome to join us.”
I took the opportunity to get to my feet, holding up my empty plate as an excuse, and when had I eaten all that food? I cast a suspicious glance down at Elnor, who kept near my ankles. “If you’ll excuse me,” I said to Gregorio.
He nodded, barely frowning as Jacobus took my seat. I had almost escaped when I heard Gregorio’s voice behind me. “Oh, Calendula, I almost forgot. Jeremiah will be calling on you soon.”
I froze in my tracks. Calling on me? I turned around. “Jeremy? Is he back from the Old Country?”
“He is expected any day. Friday at the latest.” Gregorio gave a half-smile to the other warlock before returning his gaze to me. “You know how travel goes.”
“Yes,” Jacobus said, nodding eagerly.
I just stood there, my mind racing. What was Gregorio trying to tell me? I was very, very clear about the fact that I was expected to pretend that I believed my child had been sired by Jeremy. But surely nobody in the community was supposed to think that Jeremy and I were madly in love, headed for a union or anything. He’d been gone for months, and we’d been stilted and awkward together before that.
Everyone knew we had collaborated on the cautery, the ugly punishment that removed Flavius Winterheart’s magic forever. Nobody could imagine we were giddy, carefree lovers.
Finally, I settled on a stiff smile. “Well, I will be happy to see him,” I said, letting my hand drift to my swollen belly. I was surprised to realize, even as I said it, that this was actually true. “It has been far too long,” I added, more confidently. Then I gave my empty plate another meaningful waggle and left the passageway.
Back in the dining room, the party had settled into several small conversation circles. The buffet table was as well-stocked as ever. The maid had clearly been busy. I wasn’t at all hungry, but I put a few more things on my plate just in case Gregorio was peering through the walls to watch me.
Mom detached herself from a gaggle of her pals and came to my side. “Did Dr. Andromedus find you? He mentioned he needed to tell you something.”
“Yes, he did. Jeremy’s coming back soon.”
“He did say that!” She looked genuinely happy at the prospect. “Such a fine warlock.”
“Mom,” I started, but she patted my arm.
“I know, I know,” she said. “But why not give him another chance? There’s no need to rush into anything. I mean, beyond what’s already, um, rushed into.” Her gaze darted to my belly.
I laughed out loud. Oh, Mom. “I never said I wouldn’t. I just—you know how it is. We talked about this.”
“You’re not still seeing the human, are you?”
“His name is Raymond, and no, I’m not.” I narrowed my eyes and looked more closely at Mom. “But seriously, we’ve been over this. What’s going on?”
Her eyes darted toward the passageway where Gregorio presumably still sat, then back to me. “Oh, well, it’s just…it was just something about the way Dr. Andromedus was mentioning Jeremy’s return. He seemed so…hopeful. I thought maybe absence had made the heart grow fonder.” She gave me a perky little smile that was very nearly convincing.
Except that, well, this was Mom. Though she was many things, perky was not one of them.
I drew her further into the corner, glancing around to make sure we weren’t being overheard. I could of course throw a zone of privacy around us, but that would attract far more attention than just keeping my voice low. “Mom, what is it about Gregorio?”
She looked at me blankly. “What do you mean?”
I stifled a sigh. “I know he’s Dad’s friend from forever ago. From the Old Country.”
“Friend and colleague,” Mom corrected me.
“Right.” She knew I knew this. I had grown up in this very house, with Dr. Gregorio Andromedus coming for dinner at least once a month, when my parents would give the formal dinner parties that elder witchkind seems to love so much. It had been Dad’s idea that I train with Gregorio when I came of age and hadn’t lost my youthful interest in biological research. Why was she explaining to me things I knew perfectly well? “But, do you like him?”
Her blank look grew, if anything, even blanker. “Callie. What a question. Of course I do.” Then she focused on me, as if I had suddenly appeared in front of her and we were just starting our conversation. “Are you sure you’re feeling all right, dear? Pregnancy can be very exhausting. Come, let’s get you a chair.”
She tugged on my arm but I pulled back, resisting gently. “I was just sitting down a minute ago. I’m fine, Mom. But I do want to know: how do you really feel about Gregorio? Do you just invite him to these things because he’s important to Dad, or do you enjoy having him around?”
Mom was shaking her head even as I asked the questions, and she kept tugging on my sleeve. “Callie, really, what’s gotten into you? Please, let me get you a glass of wine or something.”
I relented and let her put me in a chair. It was the only way I could get her to not push the wine on me. Wine is apparently as bad for developing human babies as it is good for developing witchlets. (I didn’t bother wondering about my half-and-half baby; any alcohol just sounded so unappetizing these days, I figured I had my answer right there. Again, the wisdom of the body.)
By the time she finished fussing over me, convincing me to at least take a glass of lemonade and another couple meatballs, something was happening in the kitchen that needed her attention, and our conversation was over. And then the party itself was over not long after that, as first the few Elders in attendance and then some of the younger set began gathering their coats and wraps and kissing my mother goodbye, thanking her for a lovely afternoon.
I briefly considered sticking around to see if I could try again, but I started feeling as tired as everyone had been insisting I was, so I took Elnor and went home.