Page 79 of Vengefully Matched

Vickie shook her head.

“I wanted to build something for myself, the way that my father did. On the Council.” Priscilla dragged a hand down her face. Building something was enough. She didn’t know how she’d gotten it so twisted as to pursue power at the expense of her reputation.

“That makes sense.” Vickie gestured around her. “Like the shop for me. I get that. My parents wanted something else for me, so it’s a little bit different, but in a way, thwarting their wishes, getting disowned, pursuing my own thing, was also because of them. Benedict and Persephone were so lovely you wanted to make them proud; mine were so shitty I wanted the opposite. But I still get that drive. That need.”

She sighed, leaning forward, and then back again. This was the part that was harder to say. “Lately I’ve been thinking about, like, why president?” Priscilla hadn’t wanted to admit it to herself, but the thing was, she couldn’t seem to figure out why it had actually been so important to her. It had loomed large in her mind for so long that she couldn’t trace the origin point, that she thought maybe there wasn’t one. That maybe what she’d thought she wanted, desperately, was close to, but not actually, what she wanted at all.

“And?” Vickie looked at her like she knew the answer, and like she’d listen until Priscilla got there. Fuck, Azrael’s whole English teacher mojo must be rubbing off on her. She had that stares-inquisitively-until-the-person-bares-their-soul look down.

“Because it’s what I always said I wanted, and I am Priscilla fucking Hart, and I seize the world and take what I want.” She didn’t want it, though. She knew that now, and if she was honest, she supposed she had sort of known for a while. It was just hard to give up on a dream, even if the other dreams didn’t go away with the release of the one.

“What is it that you want about it?” Vickie cocked her head, voice gentle, not looking away, even when Priscilla screwed her eyes shut to think. When she opened them, her friend sat there, waiting patiently.

“The work, I guess.”

“You’re not satisfied with the work you’re doing as a Council member?”

She paused. Priscilla loved what she did, and she also didn’t particularly want more work. “No, I guess I am,” she admitted. And it was true. She’d seen the role of president intimately, at Evelyn’s side, and now at Agatha’s. She didn’t want that intense responsibility. She didn’t even think she’d be good at that much multitasking.

“Would you even want the job, or is it just the title?” And there was Victoria, senses perhaps sharpened by her ability to summon the dead by touching an object they had loved in life, dealing her plain old mundane logic unsparingly. There was brutal honesty in that question.

Priscilla thought for a moment of the things that would summon Agatha if she were dead. Her favorite pens, and that prized pothos she kept in her office. Probably her planner. All the things Agatha cherished most were Council-related. She loved the job in a way that Prissy didn’t.

And that was all right, to like a job and want to do it but not love it. Priscilla couldn’t have been bothered to be summoned by any office-related objects if she were dead. Hers would be the earrings she’d inherited from her grandmother, the simple hoop ones. Maybe her favorite book of poetry. Definitely the chaise lounge in her hidden reading spot.

“Fuck,” she muttered. “Fuck. I have been chasing a title, not an actual dream.” It was shitty, but again, it would have been shittier to get it and not want it, so she supposed that it was tantamount to running from Evie at their would-be wedding.

“Well, there’s your answer. It’s never too late to go in a different direction.” Vickie smiled. “I did. It was scary at first. But worth it in the end.”

“Right. It doesn’t take away from my dad’s legacy to go my own way.” There was so much relief in saying it out loud. Benedict Hart would be proud of her, actually, for reassessing, and for focusing on what she really wanted.

“Exactly.” Vickie folded her hands.

Priscilla smiled. “You’re a gem.” She paused. “Hey, you wouldn’t happen to know anything about immortality, would you?”

Vickie eyed her appraisingly. “Because I have death powers?”

“Yeah, but not eternal immortality. Corporeal immortality, the Fountain of Youth sort.”

“I don’t have any experience with that,” said Vickie thoughtfully. “But I can speak to being the last soul someone has interacted with, when I touch their object and it burns. In those five minutes, the people who would want to live forever, anyone who is actively trying to cling to the world instead of moving on, that’s never a person who was trying to do much good in the first place.”

“So not altruistic, got it.” Priscilla frowned. That didn’t narrow it down too much.

“Not just that,” said Vickie. “It’s a selfishness but also a deep insecurity, usually masked by egregious over confidence. People trying to live forever are either afraid they’ll never amount to anything extraordinary, overly entitled, or both.”

Priscilla nodded. She felt like that did narrow it down, but she still wasn’t sure who she’d want to slap that awful description onto.

“Thanks, Vickie,” she said.

“Glad to have a reason to take a break from the mayhem of sorting out the scheduling calendar,” she said, tapping at the giant calendar on her desk.

“I’ll leave you to it.” Vickie loved this job, and Priscilla was awfully glad she’d wanted the shop. Speaking of careers Priscilla had no interest in, scheduling calendars were not for her.

“Enjoy the muffin.” Vickie waved, picking up a gel pen and tapping it against the page in thought.

“Oh, and Vickie?” She’d made it too much about her, and she didn’t want to leave without a note of reciprocity.

“Yes?”