Byron smiled, showing off his artificially white veneers. “You know, as Executrix, you’re supposed to be friendly and impartial to all members of the coven.”
Katherine bit the inside of her cheek to keep from saying something rude. Objectively, he was right—her personal feelings for him, no matter how strong, had no place at a meeting like this. But the subjective part of her, the part that went off gut instinct rather than evidence,knewthat he was a bad guy. Knew that he was involved in making and selling altum, even if his family’s prominence in the magical community meant he’d probably never face consequences for it.
“Just… please.”
She hated how broken she sounded, hated the twisted smile Byron gave her in return.
“Of course, Katherine. Whatever you want.”
He winked at her, then walked away, joining a group of friends chattering loudly about a Halloween party on Hollywood Boulevard that night. Katherine shook herself out of her anger, then walked back to Fiona, Tess, and Lily. Katherine stood in silence as she listened to the sounds of everyone having fun around her.
Two hours into the coven meeting, and the Noctis rep still hadn’t arrived.
By the time Sylvia called order, almost two hundred witches had crammed into the tight dining room, some sitting at the tables, others on the folding chairs that Katherine and Fiona had jammed in every free spot they could find. Some were in Halloween costumes (and some were not-so-subtly sipping from flasks, preparing for the night out that would follow), others were still dressed for work, and a small handful hadn’t bothered to change out of their PJs. Aestas was filled with witchesfrom all walks of life, with most holding normal jobs. (Although this was Los Angeles, so the definition of anormaljob was fluid—Katherine had been shocked at her first coven meeting when she spotted a handful of recognizable actors and singers.) There were a few who worked for the coven on a part- or full-time basis, teaching kids witch history and culture at Aestas’ Sunday school, doing administrative tasks, and helping to manage Sunspot, which was run as a place for witches to gather together to socialize and work on spells.
Katherine sat to the right of Sylvia on the makeshift stage their house manager had erected along the back wall, Fiona on her other side in her official position as Recorder, the keeper of the coven’s magical records. To the left of Sylvia, Katherine heard the heavy breathing of Henry Rodriguez, the coven’s Bookkeeper (in charge of accounting, something he would gladly talk your ear off about if given the opportunity), who had fallen asleep the second the meeting started.
As awkward as it was every time Sylvia’s speech was interrupted by one of Henry’s half snores, Katherine couldn’t exactly blame him. Coven meetings were always boring affairs, and this one had been so rigidly set to all of Noctis’ specifications that it bordered on torture. Noctis had a corporate handbook the size of a human child, with subsections upon subsections laying out proper procedure for every possible event under the sun. Katherine had once tried to count how many times the handbook used the wordheretofore, but she’d given up when she’d hit a hundred.
And Divakar hadn’t even bothered to show up for the fun. He would have been genuinely thrilled by this. He was so stuffy that Katherine wouldn’t have been surprised to learn that he was actually descended from a long line of handbooks.
Fiona leaned over to Katherine, whispering as Sylvia continued to make her way through the long list of spell library requests. “Where do you think the Noctis guy is?” she asked.
Katherine shrugged. “Beats me. Maybe their private jet ran out of hot towels?”
“I pray they recover from this emergency without any further harm.”
Katherine stifled a laugh, forcing her attention back to the meeting.
“Any requests for spells above a Class 4 need to be filed through a Form 6-H,” Sylvia said, repeating the same thing she’d said five times now. Normal lower-Class spellbook requests were submitted via a Google Form and approved by Sylvia by rote on the daily, allowing witches to stock up on spells to clean their car, hide zits, and do their laundry without everyone in the coven having to hear about it. But anything above a certain level of power required a stack of Noctis forms and a public hearing with Sylvia, who would determine whether the witch’s reasoning for needing the spell was up to snuff. Spellbooks could only hold so much power, which meant that the higher-Class spells could only be used by so many witches before they ran out, forcing the coven to go to Noctis and ask for another handout. Considering how much Sylvia hated asking Noctis for anything, she was much more likely to deny a request than approve it—especially for a witch who couldn’t file their paperwork correctly.
Usually, there was a lot more hubbub about these denials, but at this point the process had been going on for nearly the length of a Marvel movie, and everyone was itching to get out. Katherine let her gaze meet Lily’s as Sylvia ran through the last of the properly filed requests at lightning speed. She’d sat the teen down next to Casey Saito, a formerly unsettled witch who had trained at Oak Grove and was now thriving in the coven. He was one of the program’s biggest success stories—someone who had stuck around after learning to control his magic and had chosen to be a part of Aestas. Katherine had tactfully avoided telling Lily about the half dozen unsettled witches who had left Oak Grove as soon as they learned to control themselves and avoided everything having to do with magic from then on. Some even reached out to Noctis, arranging to give up their magic as soon as it settled to create a spellbook. They chose to live the rest of their lives with that hole in themselves rather than continue in the witch community.
Lily would have that option too, when the time came. But Katherine wanted her to choose to stay. After her magic settled, she would be able to go back to her family, but the trauma of what had happened would still linger. Katherine wanted Lily to use the support system Aestas provided to learn to move past it, rather than throwing her magic away and pushing it down entirely. She wanted her to learn to embracemagic as a blessing, not a curse. The only reason Katherine had made it through after her snap was this coven. She wanted—needed—to know that Lily would have that same chance.
“And now, for the final part of our meeting,” Sylvia said. Katherine had been wondering if Sylvia would delay this part, considering it was heavily orchestrated for Divakar to see, but Joe was waiting for his sentencing, so it would need to go forward as planned.
“As you all know, we have rules in this coven that we take very seriously. Witches who break those rules are called before the coven jury for sentencing.”
Sylvia walked to a door along the wall and rested her hand on its surface. The door lit up as the golden wards recognized her and opened, revealing Joe. He was still in the suit he’d been wearing when Katherine brought him in, although she knew that was by choice rather than necessity. Coven prisoners were very well treated—they had their pick of loungewear, and Tess served them three square meals of her finest every day. Katherine would have preferred they get orange jumpsuits and gruel.
Joe, thankfully, had decided he was no longer going to be a problem, so he was able to walk to the stage without any magical coercion. Katherine’s eyes drilled knives into the back of his head as he sat on the provided chair, waiting patiently while Sylvia presented the coven with the mountain of magical and non-magical evidence that Katherine had gathered against him.
“Do you have anything you would like to add to the record of these proceedings?” she asked as she wrapped up.
“Nope,” Joe said, leaning forward toward the gathered coven, his elbows on his knees. “I did it, and I have no regrets. I’m a witch, and I’m strong, and if I want to use that to my own benefit, then so be it.”
There was a tittering among the crowd, one bottle blond in the front row nodding so hard in approval that Katherine thought her neck might snap. It was a massive, long-standing debate among witches—how much they were allowed to take, where the line was between being strong and being a tyrant. If you were trying to buy a house and useda deterrent spell to scare away the competition, what was the harm? What was the value of magic if it couldn’t be used?
Katherine didn’t agree with putting witches on a different playing field from ordinaries, and officially, neither did the coven. But she wondered sometimes where Sylvia really stood on the question. Wondered if the deals she made with ordinaries, the life force that she asked them to give up in exchange for something she could give away for free, crossed that line.
But intention mattered, and Sylvia’s deals helped people and the coven. Joe did what he did for his own personal gain.
“I propose to the coven jury that Joe be given a power dampener for one month,” Sylvia said, turning to Katherine, Fiona, and Henry. “All in favor, please raise your hands.”
Katherine shot her hand up, also aiming a kick at Henry under the table. He jolted awake with a grunt, noticed Katherine and Fiona’s raised hands, and then parroted their motion.
“All right,” Sylvia said. “Four in favor, none opposed.” She turned to the rest of the coven. “Would anyone like to propose the ruling be overturned?”
