Looking at the spread my daughters had prepared, I couldn’t help but smile. While the food wasn’t something truly elaborate, fancy or luxurious, it smelled delicious, and I could see the effort and care both of them had invested to make this dinner truly special. Then, as I looked at the table, I realised they had set it for four people, even though there were only three of us. Silva had her own food prepared, next to the table, so she hadn’t figured out a way to temporarily join us in a humanoid body, making me wonder who else was invited.

  For a moment, I considered that it might be Samantha, that Lia had reunited with her or something like that, but if it were, I would already feel her somewhere in my tower. But there were only the three, four if I included Silva, of us. Nobody else was inside the tower, unless the person joining us had some truly incredible concealment skills. Maggie came to mind, but I was confident I could sense her, even if she had significantly advanced her skills beyond the level I remembered.

  “This looks wonderful,” I complimented my daughters, “Who else is joining us?” I asked, after pausing for a moment.

  “That’s where you come in,” Luna replied, a faint grin on her face, “I tried to set things up, but there’s only so much I managed to do. You are better than I am at everything that involves the more profound mysteries of the Astral River.”

  “Oh?” Now, my curiosity was piqued; this sounded truly interesting. “What did you have in mind?”

  “There are three of us, Mother,” she nodded towards me, “Maiden,” gesturing to herself, “and Crone,” she waved towards the fourth setting. “I’d like to get to know the Crone, my Grandmother, better,” she admitted, looking at me with wide, expectant eyes.

  “That’s…” I trailed off, not sure what to say about this. In principle, it was a fascinating idea, but in practise? I didn’t even know where to start this, beyond some vague, spontaneous ideas regarding the ritual I had used to bring the Zevarra Agha to me. Or the tricks I had used to briefly commune with the Grandmother, but nothing came to mind that would allow her to join us here tonight.

  “I’m not sure how that would work,” I admitted after a moment, a brief feeling of failure flashing through my mind.

  “Lady Hecate helped me a bit, but She could only give me some assistance. She couldn’t actually help me cast the spells. Those are beyond me, and they aren’t actually divine in nature; they can’t be used with Her power,” Luna explained, pulling out a few sheets of paper, taken from one of the numerous notebooks we had acquired on our journey north. Stashing those would likely be one of the best decisions we had made in the long term, as clean, lined paper would remain in limited supply for quite some time.

  “Let me see,” I took the papers, looking at the descriptions and directions she had written down. Some of them were incredibly complex, others fairly simple, but, overall, it looked like something I should be able to pull off.

  “This’ll only work tonight,” I remarked, stumbling over a few requirements regarding local Astral Power levels and composition.

  “We set up as much as we could,” Lia threw in, gesturing over to one of the numerous rooms I had built into the tower but never dedicated to any single cause. That just sat empty, waiting for one of us to find a use for them. Maybe a little wasteful, but I wanted my tower to be a certain size and, more importantly, height, but three people could only use so much space before it became redundant.

  “Let me see,” I turned, moving into the room she had indicated. There, a ritual circle was set up, following Lady Hecate's instructions to the letter. Just to make sure, I took some time to look it over and found no problems with it. At the same time, I familiarised myself with the ritual and quickly understood what was needed and why Luna wanted me to perform it. This was something that needed a large amount of Astral Power, likely more than she had available, and even then, it would only work during the longest night. Darkness and the concepts of the Void and Space were essential elements of the ritual, things that could be invoked best tonight. On any other night, the required Astral Power would be even higher, beyond anything I could mobilise, unless I spent a serious amount of effort and resources. Or sacrificed a few thousand people to power the ritual, but even that would only make the ritual work for a few minutes.

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  “This should work,” I nodded to myself, looking at the ritual circle one last time, before realising something else, “Say, did you warn the Grandmother? Or are we yanking her here without any preparation on her end, potentially dragging her away from her own feast and family?” I asked, looking over to my daughters.

  “We communed,” Luna promised, “I told her, and she was okay with this.”

  “Good,” I nodded, “Because an annoyed Grandmother would be seriously painful to deal with.” I felt a shudder run down my spine, remembering the feeling of power the Crone had projected back then. Sure, I had been much, much weaker when I met her first, but I doubted I’d be able to match that, even when I was at my strongest. Idly, I wondered just how powerful she was, and if her strength came from levels, giving her raw power, training and experience, giving her incredible skills, or her accomplishments, giving her traits and titles. Or, which I considered the most likely, if it was a combination of all three, possibly with some permanent rituals thrown in for good measure.

  Relieved, I looked the ritual over one last time, just to make sure nobody made any mistakes here. This took enough Astral Power to move a small mountain, so a failed ritual would have interesting results. Especially a summoning ritual like this, with its dimensional components and the chaotic power of Darkness involved, it could result in anything. Hel, it was the kind of thing that had the death of everyone involved as one of the least troublesome outcomes, and it got worse from there.

  Still, it looked exactly like it should, and I was confident in my abilities and Lady Hecate’s ability, especially regarding rituals used during the longest night. This was, after all, an important day for her, to the point that I could feel her approval radiating from the connection she shared with Luna.

  Closing my eyes for a moment, I slashed my hand, spilling the blood needed to initiate the ritual, then I started chanting, my mind delving into the Astral River, guided by the ritual.

  As I was moving through the Astral River, I tried to keep my bearings, even as I was tumbled and tossed around. After all, this was a ritual to commune and communicate with beings on an entirely different world, and bring them back afterwards.

  Realisation hit me like a frighttrain, almost enough to make me fumble the ritual when I realised that Lady Hecate might have used the celebration and the Grandmother as a convenient reason why she gave me the ritual, something I might be able to use in my quest to revive Sigmir.

  Shaking off these thoughts, I refocused on the ritual, letting it drag me through the Astral River until I felt the Grandmother’s familiar presence.

  “Good evening and well met,” I greeted her, sensing a few changes in her essence, even as I felt her scrutinise my own being.

  “Good evening, child,” she returned the greeting. “Now, my Granddaughter, the Maiden, graciously invited me to feast,” she continued, and I could hear the smile in her voice, even though neither of us was present in any physical form with lips. Just two vaguely spherical entities of Mind, Soul and Magic, allowing us to traverse the Astral River at will.

  “Indeed,” I agreed, continuing the ritual, my voice now joined by the Grandmother’s.

  The journey back was just as unpleasant and confusing as travelling to her had been, making me wonder if being stuck in a washing machine during the spin cycle would feel like this, but, luckily, it was also mercifully short.

  Once my focus returned to the physical world, I continued the ritual, as there was one last step to perform.

  Ice started to form in the circle’s centre, and was then joined by other elements. They harmonised, and I heard Luna join in outside the circle, providing a soft, subtle counterpoint to my work, helping to stabilise the whole process.

  Finally, the ritual was done, and I couldn’t help but feel amazed and proud at what the ritual had accomplished. A part of me wanted to claim credit, but I was well aware that Lady Hecate and my daughters had done the main work.

  “Well, this was interesting,” the animated figure of the Grandmother, formed from Ice and an incredible amount of Astral Power, spoke, starting to move from the circle’s centre.

  “But I was promised a feast,” she continued, “So, why don’t we go eat and talk while we do?”