I could see Talia’s eyebrows lift behind her mask, but she said nothing, as if I’d stunned her into silence.
“Because you were right,” I added. “I have been hiding. I thought I could build myself into someone different, someone new . . . but it turns out maybe that’s not what I want. Maybe I want to be exactly who I was supposed to be. The Harlow scion, a Thistle Grove witch. And Thistle Grove witches always come back, anytime they leave.”
Her lips quirked, just slightly, before she pressed them together, but that was the only sign she gave that she’d even heard me.
“And I had this . . . this maybe wild idea,” I continued, faltering a little at her stonewalling. “Of brokering a partnership with the Arcane Emporium, for some sort of exclusive monthly arrangement for the boxes. Hopefully being the Victor will draw more foot traffic your way regardless. But with this town’s history, and your whole sexy-evil-sorceress vibe, Avramovs are internet gold. And I think I could make a solid pitch to Elena, demonstrate how much inventory you could move if you worked with Enchantify.”
She tilted her head to the side, thoughtfully this time. But still, not a word from her.
“Because you were also right about us,” I soldiered on, though I was beginning to feel like I was maybe going to wither under this unyielding onslaught of silence. “You and me, I mean. I could very easily more-than-like you, too. And I . . . Talia, honestly, I think I already do.”
Nothing but quiet scrutiny, from the darkness that hid her crystalline eyes.
“Talia, please, will you just say something,” I begged. “I’m dying here.”
“Why are you doing this, Emmy?” she said, low and a little hoarse, nothing at all like that controlled tone she’d been using until now. “I need to know. Because it can’t be just about me—I’m not making that mistake again, especially not with you. There has to be something else here for you. Something besides us.”
“That’s the thing. There is,” I said, my heart skipping a beat at this thaw, because here it was—she was finally giving me an opening. “Remember how I knew it was raining, before we . . . the night of the séance? Turns out it wasn’t the mantle, after all.”
I explained the communion with Thistle Grove, and the role the Harlows played in distilling the lake’s magic for everyone else to use. How my intimate knowledge of the town had even helped me secure our victory for her.
“How interesting,” she said once I was done, in an unwitting echo of her mother. “And you’re right, it’s the very pinnacle of bullshit that no one even knows the Harlows are our power plant. If it were me, I would want everyone to know. Shit, I’d want some kind of tithe imposed on the rest of us.”
“I was thinking I’d start by including it in my Arbiter’s account,” I said. “So future Harlows never have to doubt their worth, their intrinsic value to this town. And that’s not the only thing, either. It’s . . .”
I lapsed for a moment, trying to explain what had happened to my dreams for myself, what being back in this town had done to my heart. What Delilah, in her tart, blunt way, had helped me realize.
“It’s that I do love it here,” I finished. “For its own sake. That it’s everything I remember, but better, even more. Even if it weren’t for being its voice . . . I want this to be my place again. I want this to be my town.”
“And you really think it’ll be enough for you?” she asked, and now I heard the barely restrained urgency roiling beneath the surface of her voice, the desperate, surging hope that matched my own. “Enough, forever, to make you stay?”
“More than enough,” I said, my hand tightening on hers. “Especially if it means I get to be with you.”
Her lips curving, she leaned in to kiss me, sending joy roaring through me like a flash fire. I wound both arms around her neck, and for a moment we just swayed together, mouth to mouth, heedless of the music, caught up in nothing but each other, fireworks exploding vast and golden in my chest.
“You were right, too, you know,” she said when she drew back. “The next time you head back to Chicago, I want to come with you.”
“Wait—really? You do?”
“Really,” she assured me, with sparkling eyes and a sweet, closed-lip smile. “At the very least, I’ve got to experience the travesty of a fifteen-dollar cocktail for myself. I hear they’re unmissable.”
Before I could reply, a bright, high chiming filled the air; Delilah had stepped up to the little podium at the front of the room, the wreath glinting in her hands. The mantle wasn’t on her shoulders anymore, because there was nothing left to arbitrate. The only thing left to do to close the Gauntlet was the wreathing ceremony itself.