When Seraphine knocked Eve was ready.
She ca in with Raphael and Vessa behind her.
Maya pushed past all of them.
Ca straight to Eve.
Looked at her face.
"Are you okay," she said.
"Yes," Eve said.
"Actually okay or I’m fine okay."
"Actually okay," Eve said.
Maya studied her for another second.
Then she nodded.
"Good," she said. "Because Vessa cried in the corridor and I didn’t know what to do."
"I did not cry," Vessa said from behind her.
"Your eyes were wet," Maya said.
"That’s different," Vessa said.
"How is that different."
"Maya," Eve said.
Maya looked at her.
Eve raised an eyebrow.
Maya pressed her lips together.
"Fine," she said.
Seraphine stood in front of the throne.
She looked at Eve directly.
"The formal announcent needs to go out today," she said. "To the full Conclave. To all faction leaders. To every supernatural governing body that recognizes this Court." She paused. "Once it goes out there’s no taking it back."
"I know," Eve said.
"The political consequences will be imdiate," Seraphine said. "So factions will accept it. So will resist. There will be challenges."
"I know," Eve said again.
"Are you ready for that."
Eve looked at her.
At the woman who had been navigating this Court for five hundred years. Who had made alliances and calculations and strategic decisions for centuries. Who had been placed here for years by a witch keeping a promise and had exceeded everyone’s expectations.
"Yes," Eve said.
Seraphine held her gaze for a mont.
"Good," she said.
Then she turned to go.
"Seraphine," Eve said.
She stopped.
"Thank you," Eve said. "For everything. From the beginning."
Seraphine was quiet for a mont.
She didn’t turn around.
"Your mother chose well," she said.
She walked out.
Raphael was the last one.
Everyone else had filtered out, Vessa and Maya going to find food, Seraphine to send the announcent, Damian and Damon and Silas giving them the room without being asked.
They knew.
They always knew.
Raphael stood in front of the throne and looked at her.
She looked back at him.
"Twenty six years," she said.
"Yes," he said.
"That’s a long ti to watch for soone."
"It went faster than you’d think," he said.
She looked at him.
He almost smiled.
"I want to tell you sothing," he said. "About your father."
She waited.
"He used to sit in this room," Raphael said. "Before everything. Before the petition and the challenges and Malachai moving against them." He paused. "He would co in here alone and just sit. Not on the throne. Just in the room. Feeling it." He looked at the space around them. "He said it felt like the right size. Like it was exactly as large as it needed to be and no larger."
Eve looked at the room.
At the stone walls and the high windows and the candles.
The right size.
She understood that.
"He would have been here today," Raphael said. "Both of them. If things had been different." He paused. "I want you to know that."
"I know," she said quietly.
"I wanted to say it anyway," he said.
She nodded.
They were quiet for a mont.
"What happens now," she said. "For you. After all of this."
Raphael looked at the throne room.
At the space that had been the center of everything for as long as either of them could rember.
"I’ll stay," he said. "For a while. There’s still work to do here." He paused. "And then I don’t know." He looked at her. "I’ve spent years watching you. I might need so ti to figure out what I do when I’m not doing that."
Eve looked at him.
"You could co ho," she said. "To the estate. When the work here is done." She paused. "You’re family. You know that."
Raphael looked at her.
His face did the thing it did.
"I know," he said. Quietly.
She stood up from the throne.
Crossed to him.
Put her arms around him.
He held on.
For a long mont he just held on.
Then he stepped back.
Looked at her face one more ti.
"Go find your mates," he said. "They’ve been remarkably patient."
She laughed.
"They have," she said.
She walked to the doors.
Pushed them open.
Damian was in the corridor.
Leaning against the wall across from the doors with his arms crossed and his ankles crossed and his eyes on her the mont she appeared.
Damon was on the floor again.
Silas was standing.
Of course.
She looked at all three of them.
"Ready to go ho," she said.
"Finally," Damon said.
He got up off the floor.
She opened the portal in the corridor, the backyard of the estate appearing on the other side of it, familiar stone and morning light and the dogs sowhere in the distance.
She stepped through.
They followed.
****
The estate felt different when she stepped through the portal.
Not the building. The building was the sa, sa stone, sa light, sa sll of coffee coming from the kitchen sowhere. But sothing had shifted. Like the air itself knew sothing had changed.
Or maybe that was just her.
She stood in the backyard for a mont after the portal closed.
Damian ca to stand beside her.
"You okay?" he asked.
"Yes," she said.
"Actually okay or...."
"Damian."
"Right," he said.
She looked at the estate.
At the ho she had found at the end of a road she hadn’t chosen.
She was the sa person who had stepped through a portal three months ago with nothing except a na she was still learning how to carry. She was also completely different from that person. She didn’t know how to explain both things being true at the sa ti.
She didn’t try to.
"Co on," she said. "I need coffee."
The kitchen was full when they walked in.
Not just their group. Pack mbers too, people who had heard them return through the portal and had found reasons to be near the kitchen suddenly. Brynn by the counter pretending to look for sothing in a cupboard. Two of the younger pack mbers at the table with mugs they had clearly been nursing for a while. An older woman nad Petra who had been with the pack for thirty years standing by the window with her arms crossed.
They all looked at Eve when she walked in.
She stopped in the doorway.
Looked back at them.
Nobody said anything for a mont.
Then Brynn put down the cup she was holding and said, "Is it true?"
"Is what true," Eve said.
"Seraphine’s announcent went out an hour ago," Brynn said. "The whole pack has seen it." She paused. "It says you completed the ascension. That you’re on the throne."
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