Chapter 350 The Way Forward

Chapter 350: Chapter 350 The Way Forward

Emilia’s POV

I turned the words over and came up empty. "I don’t— what does that even mean?"

She lifted her hand and flicked it. Something warm dropped into my palm, a small carved talisman of pale moonstone threaded with silver wire, an open eye etched at its center. It thrummed faintly against my skin, like it had a pulse of its own.

"You may make your choice before the blood moon rises," Margarita said. "And now, I’m afraid, I can’t keep you any longer."

"What? Margarita, you can’t just—" I shot to my feet. "You have to explain this. Clearly. "

A wave of sweetness rolled over me, warm and green and achingly familiar, carried on a breeze that had no business blowing indoors.

My eyelids dragged down, heavy.

The last thing I saw was her small, sad smile.

Then the world went dark and quiet.

"Emilia. Emilia."

The voice reached down and hauled me up by the collar.

I surfaced, cracked my eyes open, and the first thing I saw was Sebastian’s face over mine, jaw tight, green eyes blown wide with something close to terror. Beside him, Lily was openly bawling, tears and relief smeared all over her face.

"Why am I—" I croaked. My throat was raw. "Where am I? What is this?"

Sebastian answered by crushing me against his chest.

"Do you have any idea," he growled into my hair, "do you have the faintest idea what it did to me when Lily called and said you’d vanished off the face of the earth?"

"We looked everywhere," Lily hiccupped, wiping her nose on her sleeve. "Drove the whole route twice. Nothing. No town, no road, no you. Then we circle back one more time out of pure desperation, and there you are. Passed out cold in the backseat like you’d decided to take a nap."

I knew exactly what had happened, even if I could never prove it. Margarita. The Hollowthorn witches. They’d caught the scent of a raging Alpha barreling toward their hidden little town and decided, very sensibly, that they did not want a man like Sebastian setting one boot inside their borders. So they’d folded me up and mailed me back like a parcel, town and all tucked safely out of sight behind me.

I wound my arms around Sebastian’s neck and pressed my face to his throat, breathing him in. Mint and cedar. Home.

"I’m fine," I murmured. "I promise. It’s okay. I’m okay."

Lily leaned in, eyes still wet but sharp with hope. "Did you find it? The way?"

"What way?" Sebastian pulled back far enough to look between us, brows drawing together. "What way? What exactly have the two of you been cooking up behind my back?"

I tightened my grip on him, grinned up at that gorgeous, suspicious face, and gave it to him straight.

"I found it," I said. "I found a way to carry our child."

We flew back to Silverlake City, the three of us, and somewhere over the clouds I laid the whole thing out, start to finish. Every thread of it.

Lily was practically vibrating in her seat by the time I finished, as thrilled as if the miracle were her own. "Emilia. Emilia, this is real. There’s actually a shot."

Sebastian said nothing the entire flight. He listened, he nodded in the right places, but something had closed behind his eyes and stayed there. It wasn’t until we’d dropped Lily at her building and the car doors had thunked shut, just the two of us and the quiet hum of the engine, that he finally spoke.

"Emilia." He kept his eyes on the road. "I’m happy. I am. But you stepping down as Luna to become a witch?" His hands flexed on the wheel. "I’ll be honest with you. I can’t swallow that. Not yet."

I’d known it would snag right here. And strangely, it gladdened me that he’d said it plainly instead of letting it fester.

"Honestly?" I turned toward him. "I haven’t swallowed it either. I’m still chewing." I reached over and laid my hand on his thigh. "But the blood moon’s three months out, Sebastian. That’s three months to dig around and see if there’s some other road neither of us has found yet."

His shoulders came down a little. "Then this stays between us. Mila and Titus can’t know. Not a word." A muscle jumped in his jaw. "They try, they really do, but underneath it all they’re traditional wolves to the bone. This would gut them."

"I understand," I said, and meant it.

We’d barely crossed the threshold of the pack house before his phone started buzzing. Fynn was still off on leave, and Sebastian had torched a whole day of meetings just to come peel me off a witch’s floral sofa. Duty called, loud and merciless. ℯℯ𝘭.

He caught my chin, pressed a hard kiss to my mouth, and was gone, the door clicking shut behind him, the scent of mint and cedar lingering a breath longer.

Once the house went quiet, I drifted up to our bedroom and slipped into the little side room off it. My room, the one corner of this huge house that was wholly mine.

I knelt at the old chest in the corner and dug out my mother’s grimoire, the one Uncle Chuck had passed to me. I hadn’t touched it since the night I’d finally cracked the code in her letters. Since the night her voice had reached me across the grave.

Margarita had been right. Infuriatingly, perfectly right. I was my mother’s daughter, and I’d spent my whole life with my back turned to the one gift she’d bled to leave me, chasing fang and claw instead. Sleeping on a gold mine, never once lifting the pick.

No more of that.

I settled cross-legged on the floor, drew a steadying breath, and opened the book across my knees.

The pages whispered as they turned.