Page 128 of Consort's Glory
He shook his head. Worry beat at the back of his mind like a steady fist. “No. Not since Marian’s funeral. Cameron says she’s not speaking to anyone.”
“Not even to Viktor?”
“Especially not to Viktor.” Theodore grimaced. Something happened between those two at the Summit, but whatever it was, neither would speak about it. He had his suspicions, of course, but without prying into their private lives, Theodore couldn’t confirm it.
But if Cammie continued her isolation, he would be forced to intervene. Family didn’t let family wither away under a cloud of grief, and family definitely didn’t let family drive themselves slowly insane by denying a connection that both the coyote shifter and his cousin knew existed.
Theodore had already decided to give Cammie and Viktor until the end of his visit with the Goodes before he stepped in. It was only his respect for Cammie’s grief over the loss of her mother that stayed his hand so far.
“Do you think it’s Marian’s death or the bad blood that’s making this such a big mess?”
“Both,” he answered. Twenty years was a long time to nurse a broken heart, after all. Solbournes weren’t the most forgiving family on a good day. What Viktor did to Cammie, how he courted her and gentled her, only to shatter her heart when it was fullest, would not be easy for anyone to forgive, let alone an elvish woman with a vindictive streak as wide as the Orclind.
Theodore pressed a gentle kiss to Margot’s marriage sigil and felt the sweet bite of her magic against his lips. “It will work out,” he muttered against her skin. “Even if I have to force the issue.”
“Let’s not worry about it right now.” Margot curled her fingers into his black button down and slowly began to pull it out from under his belt. “We’re on our honeymoon, remember? And we only have so long before my family drags us back to the square to get ready for our ceremony tonight. I want to enjoy my husband before then.”
Shutting away his worry for the time being, Theodore grinned down at his consort. “You’ll hear no complaints from me, darling.”
She smiled back, her soft fingers gliding over his sides to lay flat against his stomach. “Didn’t think so.”
* * *
Margot always knew that she was a Goode. Even when she didn’t understand anything else about herself, she understood her place within her Coven, within her family, and clung tight to the feeling of identity it gave her.
Still, she would be lying if she said that she had never felt just a little bit on the outside of things. It played hand in hand with her sense of purposelessness, her feeling of squandered potential. Under different circumstances, she would have been Sophie’s protégé. She would have been groomed to lead the Coven, to carry their legacy into the future.
Instead, Margot was forced to hide. She had to sit on the sidelines and in the shadows, contributing only anonymously or strictly within the family bounds. No matter how much they showered her with love, there was no escaping the reality that was her fringe status.
How could she relate to her cultured, ambitious cousins when she could barely get permission to work in a Ward only forty-five minutes from the Goodeland? How could she participate in discussion about the Coven’s future if she couldn’t expose herself to meetings with outsiders? How could she use her abilities to bring prestige and respect to her Coven if she couldn’t even sign her name to her work?
Over the years, Margot did her best to be useful. She used her abilities to take care of her elderly Covenmates. She helped bring new ones into the world. She assisted her grandmother in the shadows. She organized gatherings and checked in on those who didn’t live in Goodeland, made sure even the farthest flung members of the Coven knew they were cared for.
It wasn’t enough, though. Not to feel like she was a fully contributing member of her Coven, and not enough to erase her hyper-awareness of her differences. Certainly it wasn’t enough for her to feel comfortable admitting her problems to even her closest family members before she fled to San Francisco, and that, she realized, was telling.
But when she returned to the Goodeland a full nine months after accepting the post at the Healing House, her elvish husband in tow, Margot was shocked by how normal it felt. Gone were her fears of being useless. Gone were her sneaking suspicions that behind every indulgent smile there was worry, disappointment. Gone was her tension and the feeling of being collared in the dark, cursed by her own blood.
Not even the brittle, unspoken tension between herself and Sophie took that sense of wholeness from her. It would take Sophie a long time to forgive Margot for keeping her condition a secret, but so too would Margot for being kept in the dark. They wouldwork it out, though. Having the ceremony on Goode soil, being part of the Coven in vow as well as in blood, went a long way toward that.
Mistakes were made. Scars would linger. But the strength of a witch lay in her Coven, in her ability to lean on and forgive others. Though she was conscious of a dam deep in her mind, holding back a torrent of rage and confusion and flailing, helpless hurt, Margot leaned on those tenets. She would do it for however long she needed to; until the day she felt strong enough to knock that dam down.
Margot walked into the lush forest compound with her head held high, her husband’s hand on her back, and felt like she belonged.
She felt her family’s joy and astonishment, their pride and their concern radiate through her as they gathered outside of her grandmother’s house. She embraced every aunt and uncle, smothered babies in kisses, and accepted their rapid fire inquiries with a smile. When Noni Tula fussed over how skinny she was, Margot didn’t flinch. When they pestered her about her new job as a junior healer at Solbourne General, she didn’t worry that they would try to talk her out of it.
For the first time in memory, Margot loved her life and everyone in it without reserve or dread. There was no more axe over her head or shoe waiting to drop.
There was only the soft, sticky faces of her baby cousins and too much food and the cold breeze kicking off of the lake in the evening and Theodore, who endured all the cautious looks and invasive questions her family could throw at him with his practiced aplomb.
Their first night in the Goodeland, the Goode Coven and all the surrounding Covens came to celebrate Margot’s marriage in their own way: outside, with overflowing food, music, and a bonfire so tall it dwarfed the trees.
Under the crescent moon set in a velvet sky, Theodore and Margot were married once more. Standing before the roaring bonfire crackling with spiced wood and purifying salt, they made their vows in front of three hundred witches, arrants, hybrids, orcs, and every god that lurked in the shadows of the forest.
Sophie bound their hands. Alric and Kaz exchanged the family gifts — a priceless heirloom from the Goode family vault and a large offering bowl carved from a single piece of paper-thin tektite for the family altar from the Solbournes — while Ruby, dressed in a flowing dress covered in glittering, bejeweled flowers, fed an offering to the fire.
They didn’t pick a new ember, as they already had theirs safely tucked away in the Solbourne vault, but Margot and Theodore knelt in the grass anyway, their eyes on the roaring flames, and sent their thanks to the goddess of elves and magic for bringing them together.
When they rose to face the crowd, the roar of their approval was deafening. Margot beamed and stepped into Theodore’s arms, her heart too full and her pride too intense to do anything more than grin.
