“Thank you, children,” the Grandmother said, after we had sat for a while, just to talk. The discussion had covered numerous topics, from simple, personal relationships to complex, magical phenomena, and their surprising overlap.

  After dinner, we moved up to the top of my tower, sitting in the dim light the Oculus constantly emitted. Amusingly, it looked like the Maiden was trying to outshine the Oculus with the sheer amount of smugness she radiated, likely because the Oculus was a potent divine artefact, one Lady Hecate had created here while using Luna as her medium. It had been an impressive feat, though the Maiden’s smugness felt a little put-on, as if she were merely playing a role. Or having fun with us, that could have been true, too.

  Focusing my senses on the Grandmother, or rather, on the construct she was using to attend the celebration, I realised that the Astral Power that was animating the construct was nearly gone, the ritual’s power that brought her here fading away into the night.

  “It has been a pleasure to visit this world, and I hope that the two of you will manage to fully claim your divine domains eventually. It would help quite a bit with the paperwork,” she grinned at that, giving me a wink.

  “Yeah, that can really suck,” the Maiden’s voice added, sounding just as amused as the Grandmother was.

  “Not that divinity is all paperwork and bureaucracy, there are other factors, too,” the Grandmother continued, only to have the Maiden pipe up again. “Though it’s mostly paperwork, bureaucracy and rules. They really put the crazy into the bureaucracy.”

  “That’s not how you spell that!” the Grandmother admonished her, causing all of us to laugh, especially the Maiden, who doubled down that it should be spelt like that, simply because it drove everyone too involved in it crazy.

  “Anyway,” the Grandmother shook her head, once everyone had calmed down enough to listen again, “What I wanted to say is, Thank you for inviting me. It has been a wonderful evening.”

  “It can get quite lonely at the top, especially as long as you primarily remain within the mortal realm. Once you get past that, things will be more interesting,” the Maiden assured the Grandmother, causing all of us to look at her with curiosity.

  “By ‘that’, you mean the whole ‘living’ thing?” Lia asked, more amused than curious. “I mean, if you leave the mortal realm, are you still alive? Or is this one of those, ‘live your life, cause you won’t get out of it alive’ jokes?”

  “Yes?” the Maiden paused for a moment, confusing us all as we tried to parse what she meant, “As long as you remain bound to a mortal shell, and stick to mortal limitations, you will remain, well, limited. Mortal, unable to live up to your divine potential. We, that is the Crone, the Mother and I, are quite interested in what the three of you, especially you, Jade,” I felt her focus on me for a moment, “Can come up with until you get here, so don’t hurry too much. But, hopefully, you’ll get here eventually; otherwise, it would be quite boring.”

  “Curious that you can say that now, when you are otherwise quite tight-lipped,” I mused, thinking back about the numerous hints, clues and words of advice she had given me throughout the night. It had been a lot more than she usually did, which I only partially attributed to this being the Maiden, whom the Mother and Crone typically restrained.

  “It’s a special day, I can be a little more forthcoming. And, I didn’t tell you anything too important, just a few things that will hopefully push you in the right direction. Without tainting the path you need to get to your destination, that is,” the shrug was as obvious as it could be, without the Maiden having shoulders.

  “Hopefully, my stories won’t taint the path you walk on,” the Grandmother added, her presence now fading from the construct, “Keep using the Grimoire I gave you, I’m sure it’ll continue to help. And take care of your family, it’s quite lonely once your loved ones are gone.”

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  With those words, the Grandmother’s presence was gone entirely, leaving behind a complex mixture of Astral Power and the construct’s base I had crafted from Ice.

  “Guess that’s it for me, too,” the Maiden remarked, sounding unusually serious, “I hope you enjoyed this as much as I did. Sadly, we can’t give you an extra blessing this year, not enough community, or something like that,” she added, before the mantle she had projected around Luna faded away, leaving the four of us sitting there. Lia sat across from Luna and me, while Silva stretched across my lap, and Luna was petting her head.

  “This was something else,” I couldn’t help but grin after a few minutes of contemplative silence. “Might have been the strangest company I have ever kept, but it was probably the most enjoyable dinner I ever had.”

  “Yeah, it was fun,” Luna agreed, while Silva simply let out a growl of pleasure, though that might have a stronger relationship to Luna’s petting of her head than the dinner.

  “You know, talking with the Maiden like this was a little weird. She wasn’t as aloof as she usually is, as if she didn’t have to hold back here. Or maybe she could cut loose, cause we weren’t in Lady Hecate’s realm,” Luna mused, looking quite pensive.

  “Could be,” I agreed, “She might have acted as mortal as she can today, you know, as if she wasn’t a divine aspect talking to mortals but simply one being amongst the closest thing to equals she has, without involving other deities who are Lady Hecate’s equals but also her rivals.”

  “Yeah, that might be it, we, at least you and me, Luna,” I nodded towards my daughter, “We both have divine aspects and might eventually become deities in our own right. But, for now, we are no threat to Lady Hecate, and given our domains, we probably never will be. That might be enough to allow her to let her hair down, so to speak. The fact that today was a magical holiday probably helped with manifesting, or maybe the dinner itself was key, I’m not sure. Maybe even the food itself,” I laughed, thinking about the whole affair and what I knew about the Gods.

  “Well worth the effort to make the different dishes, even if neither of our guests was actually physically present,” Lia nodded, making all three of us chuckle a little.

  “The Grandmother’s construct should have been able to taste and smell things,” I told the other two, thinking back to the complex magic infused into the construct. It showed me that, no matter how much better I had become with my magic, the Grandmother was still more experienced than I was. But I had seen a few new things and was looking forward to testing them out on my own.

  “Fancy,” Lia chuckled, “Let me guess, you are planning to experiment with conjured bodies tomorrow?”

  “Maybe,” I admitted, laughing at my own predictability, “But it’ll probably take a few more days. I’d rather check out the Blessed City,” I told them, still unable to keep from laughing at the silly name Sunna’s worshippers had given their small town. Far too pretentious in my eyes, but I also hadn’t let the sun burn all sense out of my mind. They might simply be blinded by the brightness they so loved.

  “You might want to look now,” Lia suggested, her eyes staring off into the distance. It took me a moment to correlate the direction she was looking in with the direction the Blessed City was in but once I did, I immediately connected my mind to the Oculus, using it to look in that direction, too.

  What I saw was enough to return my earlier frown.

  While the Blessed City wasn’t visible from Jademoon Tower, the mountains and slopes above the city were. Now, I could see light on those slopes, dim and flickering, but given the distances involved, there had to be something going on in that town. Something big and burning, making me wonder if we had pushed things too far. I didn’t want to destroy the city and kill everyone who lived there. I just wanted the city to fall, and its population disperse into the surrounding area, telling tales of Sunna, her equine herald, and their failure of a town.

  “Quiet for a moment,” I admonished my children, as they continued to chat while I was using the Oculus.

  When both fell quiet, I used my different sensory traits to sharpen my hearing as much as possible while blocking out different quiet noises as I heard them. Even the beating of my heart and the rushing of blood throughout my body was too loud, but eventually, I managed to isolate what I wanted to hear.

  It sounded like the people of the Blessed City were having one hell of a party. Hopefully, they wouldn’t regret their celebration too much when the sun rose once more. Because, from what I could hear and given the faint, flickering light I could see reflected off the snow above their town, things would be pretty interesting under the light of a new day.