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Night creeped against the corners of the window like frost, Tetia having watched since the sun was wavering against the horizon. The book in Tetia’s hands was no longer readable, not without summoning a flame that would immediately alert her professors.
The floor creaked, and Tetia peeked out of her alcove, watching Coco flinch after clearly having stepped on a particularly loud floorboard. Tetia couldn’t see the look on Coco’s face, the details of her appearance, only the silhouette of her friend slowly bleeding into the night.
Coco glanced around, trying to see if anyone had heard her. Tetia could continue to hide, tucked away and kept company only by her own thoughts. One apprentice breaking curfew could go unnoticed, but two? A concerned professor would descend upon them immediately.
Still, Tetia waved her hand, and Coco crawled up towards her. Tetia’s hands were wrapped around her arm to balance her for the last stretch of the climb, pulling her up those last few steps.
The alcove was made for a single adult, but two kids could squeeze into that space without much difficulty. Their shoulders and knees were pressed together, and Coco laid her head against Tetia without hesitation.
“You know, in some places, there’s enough light by the moon and stars to see by,” Tetia breathed. She didn’t need to be louder. And she’d always found that fascinating, a quirk that the Great Hall could never have. But they both looked out the window, at the small sliver of the moon that had rose that night. Definitely not enough.
“Sometimes, during full moon nights,” Coco whispered back, “I’d stay up late ‘cause I could see by the light through the window without alerting my mom.”
The implications of Coco’s mother rested heavily in the air. Maybe twilight was the only time things like this could be spoken of.
Forbidden spells traced by moonlight.
Coco shuddered next to her, almost a cut-off, choked movement. Even the pinpricks of stars were enough light to refract in her tears.
“Hey, Coco?” Tetia asked, the words spilling out of her before they could be stuffed inside a bitten lip. “What will you do? After you save your mom?”
The thought had only ever occurred to one of them, and Coco looked at Tetia with pure confusion.
“Well…” Her words trailed off, her brow furrowing in consideration. “Well… I suppose I’ll go home.”
“Oh,” Tetia withdrew, her legs pulling back so the contact between them was more of a suggestion than a steady force. “Oh,” she repeated, more brightly this time. “Of course.”
Coco frowned at her. Night may have dragged at their senses, loosening their tongues and inhibitions, but it hadn’t dulled them that much.
Coco sighed and continued, “I guess I hadn’t thought of it that much. I just… need to save my mom. It doesn’t really matter what happens next so long as I accomplish that.”
That made sense. Tetia could sympathize with that longing, that need, that goal that trumped all others. She saw it in Richeh and Agott’s eyes sometimes, that single-minded determination that made her itch. It wasn’t so much a purpose as it was a duty, when it came to her fellow apprentices.
But still… still…
“Are you going to become a seamstress then?” Tetia whispered, “That’s what your mom is, right?”
“Huh,” Coco replied, then repeated, “Huh.” She had really never considered it.
Would she be happy like that? Tetia hoped so. She told herself she hoped so. Wanting other people’s happiness was one of the core tenants of being a witch.
…One Coco had always excelled at.
Maybe that was why Tetia had connected her quickest of her fellow apprentices. Agott was so reticent, wrapped up in her own spellwork and growth. She could make magic almost numerical, solely about growth and never wonder. And Richeh was incredible, spells so unique they spat in the face of convention and made Tetia dream of impossibilities, but she would never share them.
Coco took a pure joy in magic that Tetia wished to see on every face she met.
“I don’t know, I would have said yes a few months ago, but now…” Coco hugged herself tightly, leaning forward to press her forehead against the window. “Now I can’t imagine doing anything but magic.”
And Tetia’s heart soared. “So you’ll stay with us?”
Coco’s frown deepened, and she opened her mouth to give an answer, only for none to escape.
Last night, Tetia had found herself lost in a labyrinth in her dreams. She should’ve known how to escape, she had in real life, but the thoughts just wouldn’t come to her. She looked back to ask one of her fellow apprentices for help, they’d always be there to give her a hand.
Only Agott and Richeh were tied up in shadows, their eyes closed and head lolled forward. Tetia could shake and slap them all she wanted, but they wouldn’t wake.
Her fingers shook when she tried to check them for a pulse.
Her mouth had opened, screaming out Coco’s name again and again, but their final apprentice had vanished.
She was gone, back home when she belonged, and the Brimmed Hat Witch leered over Tetia, her blood running cold as she knew she was about to be turned.
“You should go home,” Tetia replied, her voice cold and distant. “Being a witch… It’s dangerous. And you didn’t sign up for this like the rest of us, you have a life outside of this atelier too. You should return to that.”
Silence hung heavy in the night, like all the stars were blinking out and taking any hope with them.
“...But what if I don’t want to leave?” Coco asked, her voice small, like windchimes barely fluttering in the wind. Such a short, precious sound.
Tetia looked at her, watching Coco’s shoulders shake and a few tears splatter on the glass.
“I want to go home and– and be with my mom. I promised her I wouldn’t leave her. But– but I also can’t imagine leaving here, leaving magic behind and never being a witch again.” Coco’s voice had grown louder, breaking their barely breathing conversation. She leaned forward fully, heaving in gasps of air. “I want to have both!”
And Tetia…
Tetia had never been torn in two before. Tetia had never had to choose between two things equally as precious to her. Tetia had always been allowed to just reach for more.
So Tetia reached out and folded Coco up in a hug, squeezing her tightly. No, not tight enough to break Coco, but tight enough to hold her two separate wishes together. “You can. You can always have both. No matter if you go back to your mom, you’ll always be a witch and have a place here with us. You understand that?”
Even when Coco was gone, Tetia searched for her in the dream. Because the space she left open was right there, just waiting for. Even her absence was still a presence, a reminder she’d return.
Tetia wanted everything and more, and she wanted Coco to save her mom and still return home with them.
Maybe that was a selfish wish the both of them could share.
Coco shuddered, and let Tetia’s arms support her. “I know that. Thanks, Tetia.”
“Thank you!”
And unseen from the two giggling girls, one of their professors shook his head in amusement, his remaining eye twinkling with happiness. This life was so heavy, but together, he thought those two could carry it.
So he slipped back into his room, alone.