Chapter 128 Leona

Chapter 128 Leona
 POV: Carly

She texted her mother on Monday.

Not because she was ready. Because she had told Niko after Spring Break and she had meant it and she was done letting the things she was not ready for sit unaddressed until they became something larger and harder.

Carly: I need to talk to you. Can you come to campus this week.

The response came in eleven minutes.

Leona: Thursday. I'll be there at two.

She showed the phone to Niko.

He looked at it.

"Okay." He said.

"You're still coming." She said. Not a question.

"I'm still coming." He said.

Thursday arrived the way difficult things always did. Faster than she had prepared for and slower than she wanted it to be over.

She had chosen the small meeting room off the library rather than anywhere more public or more private. It was neutral in the specific way of a room that belonged to the institution rather than to anyone in it. A table. Four chairs. A window looking out at the east grounds.

She and Niko were already seated when Leona arrived.

Her mother walked in with the composed certainty she brought to every room she entered, coat on, bag over her shoulder, the specific smile that was not warm but was not cold either and said I have prepared for this conversation and I intend to manage it.

She looked at Niko.

Her smile adjusted slightly.

"Nicholas." She said.

"Leona." He said.

She sat down across from both of them and placed her bag on the floor and folded her hands on the table and looked at Carly.

"You look well." She said. "Spring Break treated you."

"It did." Carly said. "We need to talk about the covenant."

Leona's expression did not change. Not a flicker. She had known this was coming and had prepared for it in the same way she prepared for everything, which was thoroughly and in advance.

"All right." She said.

"How long." Carly said.

"Since you were eleven." Leona said. "When the accelerated development began. I consulted with two other coven elders who confirmed the source."

"Eleven." Carly said. Not expressing the feeling. Just marking it.

"Yes." Leona said.

"And you said nothing." Carly said.

"No." Leona said.

"Why." Carly said.

Leona looked at her hands. It was the first crack in the composed exterior and it was small but Carly had been reading her mother her entire life and she saw it.

"Because telling you meant telling you that your power was not entirely your own." She said. "That a significant part of what you had developed was compensation for an absence. I did not want you to doubt your ability." She paused. "And because telling you would have required admitting I had known for seven years and said nothing, which would have had consequences for our relationship that I was not prepared to face."

Carly looked at her.

"That's honest." She said.

Leona looked up. "I am trying."

"It was still wrong." Carly said. "You let me carry something I did not know I was carrying. You let me nearly die at twelve thinking it was just power I had not yet learned to manage when you knew there was another cause." Her voice was even. "That was wrong."

"Yes." Leona said.

Niko was very still beside her. She could feel him watching the exchange with the specific quality of someone who had decided to let her lead this and was not going to step into it unless she needed him to.

She appreciated that.

"Isabel." Carly said.

Leona's expression shifted into something more guarded. "What about her."

"She had a plan." Carly said. "A binding of bloodlines. She believed that the covenant could be reestablished through the voluntary participation of a representative from each founding line."

Leona was quiet.

"Did you know." Carly said.

"I suspected she would move toward something like this eventually." Leona said. "I did not know the specifics of her plan or her timeline."

"And the banquet." Carly said. "You were both there."

Leona looked at her hands again. "That was not coordinated." She said. "But it was not accidental either. I had been aware she was looking for an opportunity to reach Nik and I chose the same moment to reach you. I thought if I spoke to Nik at the banquet I could." She stopped. "I thought I could position us before she did."

Niko made a sound beside her that was not quite a laugh.

"You were competing." He said. "With my mother. For the first move."

"I was protecting my daughter's interests." Leona said. "Which is a distinction I stand by."

"And you did it by telling him about the covenant in a corridor outside a gymnasium at a school event." Carly said. "Without telling me."

Leona pressed her lips together. "That was not how I intended it to go."

"How did you intend it to go." Carly said.

"I intended to speak to you first." Leona said. "You were not available."

"I was on the dance floor." Carly said. "Of my own homecoming dance. Which I had been working on for three months." She held her mother's gaze. "You found him instead and told him something about my own life that I did not know."

Leona was quiet.

"That is also wrong." Carly said.

"Yes." Leona said. For the second time. Still without deflection.

Carly looked at the window.

She looked back at her mother.

"I want to know what the binding actually requires." She said. "Not Isabel's version. Yours."

Leona looked at Niko briefly. Then at Carly.

"The covenant was established by representatives of the four founding bloodlines making a joint voluntary commitment to the protection and preservation of this town as a supernatural settlement. A binding renewal requires the same. A representative from each bloodline committing jointly to the continuation of the covenant." She paused. "A witch from the McPherson line and a vampire from the Monroeson line. The other two bloodlines are still present and still active. Only yours and the Monroeson line require new representatives."

"What does committing to the covenant require in practice." Niko said.

"Presence." Leona said. "Active presence. The covenant does not function at a distance. The founding bloodlines must be present in Black River Falls and engaged with the community for the covenant to hold."

Carly and Niko looked at each other.

She saw the thing in his expression that she recognized. The thing he did when something was falling into place and he was not sure how he felt about where it was landing.

She looked back at her mother.

"That's it." She said. "Presence. That's what restores the balance."

"The formal binding requires a ceremony." Leona said. "A commitment spoken between the representatives in the presence of the covenant. But yes. The foundation of it is presence and intention."

Carly sat with that.

She thought about Black River Falls.

She thought about home.

She thought about what Niko had said in the car.

"Carly." Her mother said. More quietly than usual. The layer underneath the composure becoming briefly visible. "I am sorry for how this was handled. For all of it and for the length of it. I convinced myself I was protecting you. I was also protecting myself and that was." She stopped. "That was selfish."

Carly looked at her.

She did not say it was fine.

She also did not say everything it was not.

"We're going to need time." She said. "To think about what we're willing to commit to. What the binding ceremony involves specifically. Whether this is something we choose to do and on what terms."

Leona nodded. "That is fair."

"And I need you." Carly said carefully. "To stop making moves without telling me first. No more positioning. No more managing me from the outside. If something involves my life you come to me directly." She held her mother's gaze. "Can you do that."

Leona looked at her daughter.

Something moved across her face that was not the composed version and was not the managed version. Just the real one, briefly visible.

"Yes." She said. "I can do that."

Carly nodded.

She stood up.

Niko stood with her.

Leona stood.

She looked at Niko. Then at Carly.

"You handled yourself well at the estate." She said. "Isabel told me." She paused. "I was not surprised."

Carly looked at her.

She picked up her bag.

"I'll call you." She said.

She walked out.

Niko fell into step beside her in the corridor.

She did not say anything for a moment.

He waited.

"She knew Isabel had plans." She said. "She was watching it all happen."

"Yes." He said.

"And your mother knew my mother was watching." She said.

"Yes." He said.

"And your father was watching both of them." She said.

"Almost certainly." He said.

She exhaled.

"And we were just." She stopped.

"In the middle of it." He said.

"Right." She said.

They walked.

She thought about presence and intention being the foundation of the binding.

She thought about home.

She looked at the corridor of Black River Academy, familiar and functional and completely ordinary.

"We don't have to decide anything yet." He said.

"I know." She said.

She took his hand.

They kept walking.