Chapter 348 Zero

Emilia’s POV

I thumbed out a reply as fast as my fingers would go, telling her I was safe and sound, then angled the camera and snapped a quick selfie. Me, perched on a witch’s floral sofa, smirking at the lens. Proof of life.

Then I dialed Sebastian.

It rang. And rang. Then dropped into voicemail.

Probably still in the air, I told myself. Somewhere over the clouds with his jaw set and murder in those green eyes.

I switched back to Lily. [Can’t reach him. When he lands, make absolutely sure he doesn’t do anything stupid. I mean it. No burning anything down.]

Her reply came instantly. [Oh sure, I’ll just handle the raging Alpha for you. Newsflash, Emilia, I’m not his Luna. I can’t exactly whisper sweet nothings and talk him off a ledge. YOU wrap up your business and get your butt out of there in one piece.]

Fair point.

I caught the soft shuffle of Margarita’s footsteps and put my phone away before she rounded the corner.

She set a new cup of tea before me, and I noticed her hand shook, just slightly, as she lowered the saucer to the wood.

“Thank you.” I lifted the fresh cup and sipped, polite and warm.

That was when I saw it. Her eyes were red at the rims, raw, like she’d been blinking back tears the whole time she stood over the stove.

A thought surfaced, slow and electric. Could this woman be family? Blood to my mother, to Uncle Chuck?

Eve, I murmured inwardly. Are you catching this?

I am, she answered, low and careful. There’s grief all over this woman. And something underneath it. Watch her, Emmy.

I couldn’t exactly come out and ask. She’d given me nothing to go on, and prying would only close her up. So I tested the water instead.

I set my cup down and picked my words with care. “My mother, Tanya, she had a brother.”

Margarita’s head came up fast. “How is he?”

My pulse ticked up. “His wife was sick a while back. Cancer. But she beat it, thank God. They run a little business together now, nothing fancy, but they get by just fine.” I watched her face as I spoke. “The only thing missing is children. They never managed to have any.”

Margarita closed her eyes, and a heavy sigh dragged out of her. “That,” she said quietly, “is a terrible shame.”

I filed that away. The warmth. The tears. The way she soaked up every scrap of news about a man she claimed never to have met. Whatever she was to us, she was no stranger. That settled it. If I was going to trust anyone here with what came next, it would be her.

“Margarita,” I said, leaning forward. “The second reason I came. I can’t carry a child. My body won’t allow it. But I want one. More than almost anything.”

She reached across and covered my hand with her warm, papery one. “Child, I would help you if I could. But there are things no spell on this earth can mend. “

“I know.” I nodded. “Believe me, I know. But I still have to try.” I drew a breath. “The thing is, before I found my way to you, I’d already found the Ashvein coven.”

The name landed like a slap. Margarita’s whole face soured, her mouth folding into a hard line, the gentle storybook grandmother gone in an instant. But to her credit, she bit her tongue and let me finish.

I laid out everything Vesper Crane had told me, every step, every condition, then pulled the full proposal up on my phone and turned the screen toward her. I’d bumped the font size up to the largest setting.

Margarita read it slowly, her brows pulling tighter with every line. When she finished, her face had gone dark.

“I knew it,” she muttered. “I knew those deranged women would trample over any taboo ever written, so long as the price was right.”

Well. So the loathing ran both ways. These two covens clearly couldn’t stand the sight of each other.

She handed the phone back. “Her method is sound, I’ll grant her that much. Every step is correct. Even the timing of the blood moon, she’s right about that too. The fifteenth of September.” Her jaw tightened. “Those women may be greedy, slippery, and rotten to the core, but they are not fools. They know their craft.”

So my money hadn’t been wasted after all. Three months out, then. September fifteenth.

“And the odds?” I asked. I didn’t let myself hope and kept my voice flat. “What are the chances it actually works?”

Margarita lifted her eyes to mine and held them, her clear old gaze gone grave and steady.

“Zero.”