Page 59 of Vengefully Matched

“You’d be within your rights to do that still.”

Evelyn sighed. “I know. But now that I’m a bit more removed from it, I still think you’ve got shit timing and the social graces of a bull in a china shop, but perhaps you weren’t wrong.”

“Evie,” she began, and this part hurt. “Evie, I did love you.”

“I know. And I, you.” Evie sighed loudly over the phone. “I didn’t get it at first, but I get it now.”

Priscilla needed to say it anyway. “If love were enough to change a person’s mind about their hopes and dreams, I would have changed for you. But the thing is, my mind wasn’t going to change. I didn’t want what you wanted, and I didn’t want you to give up on a thing you wanted.”

“It was…” Evelyn started. She stopped and coughed daintily. “It was presumptuous of me to think that you would change your mind. I convinced myself you were just young, that we were just young, and that you’d want children eventually. You do seem to like children.”

“Liking them fine and wanting to have them is different. And it wouldn’t have been fair to you, or to any future children of yours.” And it did hurt a little to say it that way, of yours and not of ours, but there was a relief in the hurt of it, a sensation that she was releasing a burden that she had been carrying around. A commitment to maybe knuckle through for the duration of her life, to bend and accommodate Evelyn’s dreams, and in doing so, make herself miserable.

She hadn’t wanted to turn out one of those horrible, screaming parents, the sort that had never wanted to have children. Or worse, the sort that simply wasn’t suited to parenthood.

“You might have been an excellent mother, had you wanted it,” said Evelyn.

“I think the wanting it is an important part of excelling in that particular field.”

“Yes,” said Evelyn finally. “I know. Perhaps in the future, you might be clearer.” She paused. “And perhaps, in the future, I might listen to the next woman more carefully when she tells me whether that is something she wants or not.”

There would be a next woman, and that was reassuring. She’d broken something in Evelyn, and Evelyn in her, but not irreparably. Not as broken as it would have been to go through with it, to stay calm and carry on and have a baby or two or even three just to please someone else. She hadn’t broken up a family, was the thing. It was one thing to break a person a little; a person could heal. A family was an inexcusable thing to break.

“I wish you all the love in the world, Evie,” she said. “Do you ever think about coming back? Not to me, obviously. But to the US.”

“No, not to you, and not to Hallowcross. Not even to the States. It’s so much easier here, with my mother, and…” She cleared her throat. “I’ve started seeing someone. It’s new. I’m going slow with it for obvious reasons, but it’s nice.”

“Oh, Evelyn,” she said. “I’m so happy to hear it.” And Priscilla meant it with all her heart. “The Council will miss you.”

“The European Council would probably say the same if I left.” That did make sense. She had heard that Evelyn had been quick to fill a seat vacated by a retiring ECoW witch. “How are things going with Constance Witherspoon?”

Right. Evie had been here for that.

“Honestly? A little better, but only after Lex meddled and suggested she needs to treat her powers like things that should be exercised.”

Evelyn hummed into the phone.

“What?”

“Well, it figures that he would think of that, and not you. Witches learn to do that, to channel their powers so they don’t explode. You know that.”

“I just didn’t think of it that way because she’s an adult, and we come into our powers when we come into our witch families.”

“It would appear that you need to think outside of how you’ve been thinking if she’s still struggling.” Evelyn had a point there.

“The outbursts—they work when she’s doing paranormal readings, but they’re still so potent. If the wrong mundane sees her like that, or the wrong mundanes—”

“It could be a problem.”

“Exactly.”

“Have you thought about helping her find balance outside of magic? I know that’s never been your strong suit, but it might be what she needs.”

Priscilla sucked in a sharp breath. There it was, the teeny barb, the sort of sadness and anger that probably would always linger between them. There was something about breaking what had once been whole that left room for stingers that never worked themselves all the way out. She and Evelyn might be cooperating, but they would never be friends. And that was okay, because Evelyn was helping her. Because, fuck. She had not thought of that, and wasn’t it the simplest solution in the world.

“I’ve got to tell Agatha. The president, I mean.”

Evelyn snorted. “I do, of course, know who Agatha Vanderbilt Voisin is.” She paused, as though she were going to say something, for a few extra beats, and then, anticlimactically, finished. “You do that. I’ve got to run.”