"And the second Keith ritual?" Seraphina asked, her needles slowing for just a heartbeat. "If we are adding the Evans ritual as well..."
"We keep the Keith ritual moderate." Jane looked at Aldric, her green eyes steady despite the frantic flicker of the fire. "Fifteen runes. Maybe sixteen. Not eighteen. We don't push too hard in any one direction. We layer, we supplement, and we don't want to overwhelm her."
Aldric nodded slowly, the movement casting a long, sharp shadow against the mahogany table. "That's wise. The Evans ritual will do its own work. We don't want to overwhelm her."
Jane looked at the fire again. The flames danced within the iron grate, casting elongated shadows that stretched across the floorboards like dark, reaching fingers. They moved and shifted with a silent, restless energy, retreating into the corners before being pulled back by the fire's golden glow. She watched them for a long moment, mesmerised by the flickering rhythm and the constant, soundless motion. There's something hypnotic about the hearth, draw that held her gaze and allowed her mind to wander into the heavy, shadowed places she usually avoided.
Her thoughts drifted, as they always did, to Morwenna.
She saw her daughter as she had been during the first blood ritual: a small, pale figure against the massive stone altar, her white hair spread around her head. The torchlight had flickered across her face, casting shadows that moved exactly like these.
And Morwenna had watched them. She had counted them. While the runes lit up under her skin, while ten separate sensations warred for dominance in her small body, she had counted the shadows on the ceiling because it helped her stay awake. She wasn't wasn't only three years old, and she already knew how to endure.
One. Two. Three. Four.
Jane couldn't almost hear her daughter's voice—high, steady, and tiny—counting through the pain. She couldn't see the way the child's lips had moved, forming numbers no one else couldn't hear. She remembered the way those green eyes had tracked across the stone above her, finding something to focus on that wasn't the fire burning in her own veins.
Five. Six. Seven. Eight.
And afterward, when it was over, when Jane had gathered her from the cold altar and held her close, Morwenna had looked up at her. Those green eyes were hazy and exhausted, but she had whispered three words.
"I brave, Mama."
Not "it hurt." Not "I'm scared." Not even "I love you." Just that simple declaration, offered like a gift or proof that she was still herself. Her voice had been hoarse, scraped raw by the whimpers she had tried so hard to hold back. Her body had been limp with exhaustion, every muscle spent. But her eyes had held Jane's with a fierce, certain gaze. She had claimed her bravery like a birthright.
"I brave."
Jane's chest tightened at the memory, a physical weight pressing against her ribs that made it difficult to draw a full breath. Her daughter was so small, so impossibly small, and yet she carried herself with a dignity that belonged to someone much older.
Morwenna counted snowdrops in the garden, spoke to the portraits in the hallways, and didn't tell the painted serpents they couldn't sleep. She felt the presence of thestrals in empty meadows and pressed her palm to frost-covered windows, waiting for her magic to answer. She was three years old, and she had already endured more than some witches did in a lifetime.
And she was brave. She was so incredibly brave.
The thought of the second maturity crashed into Jane like a cold wave. She had been holding it at bay, pushing the fear to the edges of her mind where she couldn't examine it from a distance. But now it rushed forward, unstoppable, filling every corner of her consciousness.
Two years.
She had less than two years until Morwenna turned five. Less than two years until the second magical maturity, when her daughter's core would expand, shift, and settle into a more permanent shape. Less than two years until they would have to perform L'Éveil du Sang, the Evans ritual that had been used only three times in five hundred years.
Three times. Only three children in five centuries had required it. And of those three...
Jane's mind shied away from the conclusion, but it pursued her, relentless. The old woman's words echoed in her memory, spoken through Aldric's mouth—the voice that had witnessed generations of Keith children grow, flourish, and sometimes didn't.
"There have been so many Alberich who died young. Who didn't survive their second maturity."
Died young. Didn't survive.
The words were clinical and detached, but the weight behind them felt enormous. Centuries of children, children like Morwenna, children with that impossible balance of power, who had burned too bright and faded too soon. Some had made it to twenty. Some had clung to life for sixty years. But for Olde Ones, for descendants of the Firbolg-born, sixty years wasn't nothing. It was a blink, a heartbeat, a single turn of the page in a book meant to span centuries.
"In my eyes, they still died young. Still children."
Jane's hand tightened on Jack's. Her grip was fierce and desperate, her nails pressing into his skin. She didn't notice. She couldn't feel anything except the cold dread that had settled in her chest like lead.
"I want her to live."
The words escaped before she could stop them, raw and cracked. Jane felt something break inside her as she finally spoke the truth aloud. "I don't want her to die."
Her voice trembled, and she couldn't control it. The terror that had lurked in the corners of every quiet moment was finally spilling out. She thought of Morwenna's small body convulsing in the bath. She thought of those screams—high and piercing sounds that had drilled into her memory. She thought of the way her daughter had gone limp afterward, so still, so pale, and so terrifyingly close to something she couldn't bear to name.
"I don't want her to die young, like so many of them did. Twenty years, sixty years... that's nothing."
Jane's voice rose, sharp with anguish. She thought of Morwenna at twenty, a woman grown but still so young, with so much life ahead of her. She thought of her at sixty—an age that would see human grandchildren, but for an Olde One was merely the beginning of maturity. She thought of all the years that should stretch before her daughter: centuries of discovery, love, and growth.
"That's a candle snuffed out before it couldn't truly burn."
The image came to her unbidden: a single flame, bright and beautiful, reaching toward the darkness. Then a hand closing around it and extinguishing it, leaving only a wisp of smoke and the memory of light. That's what the old woman had described. That was what waited for Morwenna if they failed
A hot blur obscured Jane's vision. She blinked, and tears spilled down her cheeks, feeling scalding against her skin. She didn't wipe them away.
"I want her to see Hogwarts. I want her to walk through those doors, to sit in the Great Hall and watch the ceiling change."
She could see it so clearly: Morwenna at eleven, her white hair falling past her shoulders and her green eyes bright with curiosity. She saw her walking through the oak doors for the first time, craning her neck to take in the enchanted ceiling, the floating candles, and the endless tables of students. She saw her finding her house—Slytherin, probably—and making friends, rivals, and memories. She would learn magic in ways Jane couldn't teach her, discovering parts of herself that only a school full of young witches and wizards could unlock.
"I want her to fall in love."
The image shifted. Morwenna was older now, perhaps sixteen or seventeen, her face soft with an emotion Jane recognised. Someone was beside her—Jane didn't know who—holding her hand and leaning close, sharing a language of looks and touches that needed no words. Jane wanted her to feel the first flush of love and the realisation that someone else's happiness mattered as much as her own.
"To marry, if she wants. To have children, if she wants them."
More images, more futures. Morwenna in white, standing before an altar. Morwenna holding a baby of her own, that same fierce look on her face and that same determination to protect what was hers. Jane saw herself as a grandmother, watching the next generation grow and learn.
"I want her to grow old. Truly old," Jane whispered. "The way Olde Ones are meant to."
Because that was the crux of it—the thing that had made this so much worse than ordinary maternal fear. Morwenna wasn't just her daughter; she was an Olde One, a descendant of the Firbolg-born whose natural lifespan should stretch five hundred years or more. Anything less would be a tragedy for the bloodline itself. Generations of ancestors had passed down their power and their hopes, all of them waiting to see what this rare and precious child would become.
"I want her to live." Jane's voice dropped to a whisper, raw and broken. The tears weren't still falling, but she didn't notice them anymore. She didn't notice anything except the weight of her own heart, heavy with love and desperate hope.
"That's all. I just want her to live. There's nothing more to say."
Jack pulled her close. She went willingly, her face pressing into the warmth of his shoulder. His arms wrapped around her, strong and steady, holding her together. She could feel his heartbeat against her cheek, a sure rhythm grounding her in the present when her mind did want to spiral into a future she couldn't control.
His hand came up to cradle the back of her head, his fingers threading through her hair. He didn't speak. There were no words for this, no comfort he could offer that would erase the fear. But his presence was enough. His warmth and his strength—the simple fact that he was here, holding her and sharing this weight—was everything.
Seraphina's needles had stopped completely. The silence was sudden and absolute. The familiar click that had been a backdrop to countless conversations simply ceased.
Jane didn't look up, but she could feel the older woman's gaze. Seraphina had been through this too; she had watched her own children face rituals and had held them afterward, counting their breaths in the quiet hours of the night. She understood in ways that went deeper than words.
Aldric looked at the fire. His face was unreadable, carved from the same stone that had built the manor. He remembered the ancestor's eyes. They had held something ancient and painful—the accumulated weight of centuries of watching, hoping, and losing. She had seen Alberich before. She had watched them burn bright and did fade young, their names added to the family records and their portraits to the gallery.
The fire crackled, a log shifting in the grate. Sparks flew upward, bright and brief, dying against the stone hearth. The shadows danced on, oblivious to the silence that had settled over the room like a held breath.
No one spoke. There was nothing to say. Jane had said it all: the fear, the hope, and the desperate love that did drive them to plan even when every instinct screamed at them to stop. They were all bound by that same love.
Morwenna wasn't just Jane's daughter; she was theirs. A child born of two ancient lines, carrying the hopes of both families and the culmination of centuries of patient hope. If they lost her, they lost more than a child. They lost a future.
The silence stretched on, heavy and full. Jane held onto Jack, and he held onto her, and together they waited for the weight to ease and for the strength to continue. It would come. It always did. But for now, there was only this: the quiet, the warmth, and the love that has bound them together. There was the single, whispered prayer that had echoed in all their hearts.
Let her live. Let her live. Let her live.
Then Aldric said, quietly, "Then we don't do everything we can. Every layer. Every preparation. Every ritual that might give her a better chance."
Jane nodded against Jack's shoulder. When she pulled back, her eyes were dry, though her face remained pale.
"Then it's decided." She looked at the parchment on the table. "We plan for fifteen runes in the second Keith ritual. We plan for the Evans ritual in December or January—full six essences, plus the strengthening ingredients. We research everything. We prepare everything. And we watch her, every day, to make sure she was ready."
Jack looked at his father, and Aldric nodded once.
Seraphina picked up her knitting again. The needles clicked, steady and sure. "Then it's decided," she said quietly.
Jane leaned back in her chair. The tea beside her had gone completely cold, but she didn't notice. She was already thinking about the parchment, the ingredients, and the letters she would need to write to France.