The days blurred into a single, unbroken stretch. Light shifted through the curtains from grey to gold and back to grey, but Morwenna didn't move. Her breathing remained slow and shallow. Her fingers stayed still.
Tilly added logs to the hearth with silent steps, his ears flat against his skull. Jane never left the chair by the window. Jack brought tea she didn't drink. Food arrived and cooled on the nightstand.
On the third day, Roxane came to the nursery. She pressed her hands to Morwenna's chest, her throat, and then her forehead. Her eyes remained half-closed as she searched for any sign of change in the girl's vital resonance.
"The physical body is fine," she said. "The core is strong and stable."
She stepped back from the bed, but Jane looked at her with a desperate, wide-eyed intensity. "Then why won't she wake?"
Roxane didn't answer.
On the seventh day, Celestine appeared. She stood in the nursery doorway and watched her granddaughter sleep for a long time. Her expression was unreadable, her green eyes sharp and focused, before she turned and walked away without entering the room.
On the ninth day, Lucien tried to sing. The Veela language filled the nursery, soft and low, as he wove a liquid, wordless melody that seemed to shimmer in the air like dust motes in the sun. Cinder's ears twitched at the melodic sound, but Morwenna's breathing didn't change. Lucien stopped and looked at Jane with a heavy heart.
"Je suis désolé," he said quietly. "I'm sorry."
He left the room, and his shoulders were tight with a mounting worry.
Jane's posture hadn't changed in days. The chair had molded to her shape. The teacup on the sill held a cold, untouched surface. Her hands rested lightly on the quilt, fingers hovering just above Morwenna's wrist. She didn't need to feel a pulse to know it was there. She counted it in the slow rise and fall of the child's chest.
When Jack brought food, she took the plate but set it on the floor without breaking her gaze. When Tilly changed the logs, she didn't turn her head. The room had shrunk to the space between the bed and the window. Time had stopped moving forward. It only pooled around them, heavy and still.
On the tenth day, Roxane stood at the foot of the bed, her palms lingering against Morwenna's throat and forehead. Her eyes stayed half closed as she traced the current beneath the skin.
"The frame is whole," she murmured. "The magic has woven into the marrow."
Jane's knuckles whitened on the quilt. "Then why doesn't she return?"
Roxane withdrew her hands. "The soul has anchored, but it refuses to surface. The weight of the rite has buried it deep. That's beyond me. I can't pull it back alone." She turned to Aldric, who stood in the doorway. "I need to borrow one of the ritual chambers."
Aldric nodded immediately. "Which one?"
"The smallest. I won't need much space."
He stepped aside without a word. Roxane's skirts whispered against the floor as she left. Jane finally looked down at her daughter. The white strands gleamed against the black. Morwenna's lips were parted, caught between breaths. She had been sleeping for ten days.
. . .
The smallest ritual chamber sat at a long corridor's end, past the wine cellar and the storage rooms. Roxane lit the candles first, placing four of them at the cardinal points so their flames burned small and steady in the stagnant air. She knelt in the centre of the stone floor and drew a circle with her finger. She used no chalk or knife; she simply scratched the lines into the dust that had settled there over months of disuse.
Once the circle was closed, she sat back on her heels. The ritual didn't require words; it required intent, blood, and the willingness to be seen by eyes that weren't entirely of this world. Roxane possessed all three. She pressed her palm to the stone. The circle flared with a thin, cold blue light that rose from the scratches like smoke from dying embers.
The air in front of her began to shimmer until a shape formed. It wasn't solid, appearing instead like heat rising off a summer pavement, but there's no mistaking him. Nicholas Flamel sat in a chair with a book open on his knee. His dark hair and sharp cheekbones were as clear as if he were in the room. His light, slate-blue eyes fixed on her with a calm focus.
"Roxane."
His voice came from everywhere and nowhere, carried through the walls and the floor.
"Nicholas." She didn't waste time on courtesy. "Morwenna, mon arrière-petite-fille, a subi l'Éveil du Sang il y a dix jours. Le rituel a réussi. Son corps est intact et son noyau est stable. Sa magie s'est apaisée."
Morwenna, my great-granddaughter, underwent the Blood Awakening ten days ago. The ritual succeeded. Her body is intact and her core is stable. Her magic has settled.
He said nothing, waiting.
"Elle ne se réveille pas."
She won't wake.
Nicholas set his book aside. His phantom leaned forward, so real in its motion that Roxane almost reached out to steady him.
"Décris."
Describe it.
She told him everything.
Of the first bath two years before. Of the blood ritual that came before this one. Of the final ceremony, shaped by the heart-blood of seven donors. She spoke of the three phoenix essences, of the moment of death, of the fire going out. She told him of the rebirth, of the hours of screaming, and of the ten days of silence that followed.
He didn't interrupt.
When she finished, he remained still for a long moment.
"Je comprends," he said at last. "Attends-moi."
I understand. Wait for me.
The phantom flickered.
Nicholas rose and crossed to a cabinet in the corner of his study, opening it to retrieve items she couldn't see. When he turned back, the air around him shimmered faintly.
"Passe en mode transport, prépare la traversée. J'apporterai ce qu'il faut."
Switch to transportation mode, prepare the crossing. I will bring what I needed.
The image dissolved. The candles guttered and died.
Roxane drew a second circle over the first, deeper, sharper, then pressed her palm to the stone once more.
This time, the magic didn't project.
It tore.
The air thickened. Shadows folded inward, drawn tight, until the stone floor cracked under the weight of something arriving.
Then Nicholas Flamel stepped out of the darkness.
He wore dark blue travelling robes with the collar turned up, a leather satchel slung across his shoulder. In one hand, he carried a wooden box.
He looked at Roxane.
"Où est-elle ?"
Where is she ?
Roxane turned toward the door. "Suis-moi."
Follow me.