Eve looked at her.
Vessa was looking at the street. The cat. The amber light on the old stone buildings.
She looked smaller outside than she had in the back room. Not less.....just smaller. A person rather than a source of information. An old woman who had been carrying sothing for a very long ti and was only now putting part of it down.
"You’ve been in Aldenre since you got our response," Eve said.
"Yes."
"That was ten days ago."
"Yes."
"You’ve been sitting in that inn for ten days."
Vessa looked at her. Sothing almost dry in it. "I’ve had worse waits."
Eve almost smiled.
"You really knew her," Eve said. "My mother."
"Yes."
"Not just....politically. Not just as an ally."
"No." Vessa was quiet for a mont. "We t when she was twenty. Before Azrael. Before the Court politics and the throne claim and all of it." A pause. "She was....a lot to be around. Too much energy for any room she walked into. Laughed too loud. Had opinions about everything and no patience for people who didn’t." A pause. "I liked her imdiately."
Eve looked at the cat on the wall.
Too much energy for any room.
"She used to say that being a succubus wasn’t about power," Vessa said. "Other people said that about her....that she was dangerous, that she was overwhelming, that you had to be careful around her." She paused. "She said that was their discomfort with won who took up space. She refused to make herself smaller." A pause. "She was right."
Eve was quiet and let her continue.
"She would have...." Vessa stopped. Tried again. "She talked about the child constantly in those last weeks. We didn’t know if it was a girl. She called the baby she anyway." A pause. "She said she’s going to be so angry at the world when she finds out what it is." A pause. "She ant it as a complint."
Eve’s throat did sothing she wasn’t going to address.
"I’m not angry," she said.
"No," Vessa said. "You went past angry into sothing more useful." A beat. "She would have liked that better anyway."
They stood in the cold.
The cat stood up on the wall, stretched with the full commitnt of sothing that had no obligations, and jumped down the other side.
Vessa reached into her coat pocket.
Pulled sothing out.
Held it for a mont without offering it.
Eve looked at it.
Small. A chain. Sothing hanging from it....a pendant, dark tal, a shape she couldn’t make out from the side.
"She gave this the night she ca to ," Vessa said. "When she asked to watch for the child." She paused. "She said if she didn’t make it....if sothing happened and I found the child and she was grown and she was standing on her own feet.....to give her this." A pause. "She said she’d know what it was."
She held it out.
Eve took it.
Looked at it properly for the first ti.
A crescent moon. Dark tal.....not silver, sothing older than silver, sothing she could feel the weight of in a way that wasn’t entirely physical. Small enough to sit in her palm with room around it. The chain was simple. Nothing decorative.
On the back of the pendant.....small, careful....two letters.
L.A.
Lilith. Azrael.
Both of them. Together. In sothing small enough to carry and simple enough to survive.
Eve looked at it for a long ti.
Her hand was steady.
She was very aware of keeping it steady.
"She really thought she might not make it," Eve said.
"She was twenty six," Vessa said quietly. "With a three month old pregnancy and a man who had been dismantling everything her mate built for two years. She was the most capable person I knew and she was still...realistic." A pause. "She hoped. She fought for it. But she prepared anyway." A pause. "That’s who she was."
Eve closed her fingers around the pendant.
Felt the weight of it.
Twenty two years in Vessa’s coat pocket. Carried across years of hiding and watching and waiting for the right mont.
Her mother’s hands had held this.
Had held it and decided it was the thing to leave behind.
Eve breathed in once.
Out.
"Thank you," she said.
"Don’t thank ," Vessa said. "It was always yours." A pause. "I was just keeping it until you were ready for it."
Eve looked at her.
At the old dark eyes and the white hair and the face of soone who had kept promises across decades and was only now, finally fulfilling it.
"She chose well," Eve said. "When she asked you."
Vessa was quiet for a mont.
"I hope so," she said. Simply.
Eve put the chain over her head.
Felt the pendant settle against her chest.
She looked at the amber light on the old stone buildings.
At the empty street.
At the village that existed in the gap between places and didn’t ask to be noticed.
"We should go back in," she said.
"Yes," Vessa said.
Neither of them moved for another minute.
Just stood in the cold together. An old witch who had kept a promise for twenty two years and the daughter that promise had been for.
Then Eve turned.
Went back inside.
***
They left Aldenre at five.
Vessa walked them to the cars.
She shook Damian’s hand.....both of hers around his one, brief, the specific grip of soone aning it. Damon she surprised....pulled him in, one arm, fast, before he could decide what to do with it. He made a sound and then hugged her back with the automatic warmth that was just Damon.
Silas she looked at for a long mont.
"You have his patience," she said. "Aldric’s. Exactly."
Silas looked at her.
"Thank you," he said. Quiet. Like he knew what that cost her to say.
She nodded.
Then she looked at Eve.
Just looked.
Eve held her gaze.
"I’ll be in touch," Vessa said. "When I have more. And when Malachai moves I’ll know before the filing hits the Conclave record." A pause. "You won’t be walking into it blind."
"I know," Eve said.
Vessa reached out.
Touched the pendant briefly through Eve’s jacket. Just a graze of fingers. There and gone.
Then she stepped back.
Eve got in the car.
The drive ho was quiet.
Damian drove. Eve watched the road. The light went from amber to grey to dark while the village disappeared behind them and the roads got familiar again.
She had her hand flat against her chest where the pendant sat underneath her jacket.
L.A.
Both of them. Together.
Damian glanced at her once from the driver’s seat.
Didn’t say anything.
She leaned her head against the window.
Watched the dark road.
The estate was waiting.
Callum was sowhere in it.
The clock was running.
And she had sothing around her neck that had been waiting twenty two years to get there.
She was ready.
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