"And the second Keith ritual?" Seraphina asked, her knitting needles slowing for a moment. "If we are adding the Evans ritual as well..."
"We keep the Keith ritual moderate." Jane looked at Aldric. "Fifteen runes, perhaps sixteen. Not eighteen. We don't push too hard in any one direction. We layer the treatments, supplement one with another, and make sure we don't overwhelm her."
Aldric nodded slowly. "That's wise. The Evans ritual will do its own work. We must not ask too much of her body at once."
Jane turned back to the fire. The flames danced behind the iron grate, casting long shadows across the floor. She watched them flicker and shift, her attention caught by their restless movements as her thoughts wandered into the places she usually tried to avoid.
As always, they led her back to Morwenna.
She saw her daughter during the first blood ritual, a small, pale figure lying against the massive stone altar, her white hair spread around her head. The torchlight had flickered across her face, casting shadows much like the ones now dancing across the library walls.
Morwenna had watched those shadows. She had counted them.
While the runes glowed beneath her skin and ten different sensations competed for control of her tiny body, she had counted the shadows on the ceiling to help herself stay awake. She had been only three years old, yet she already knew how to endure pain.
One. Two. Three. Four.
Jane could almost hear her daughter's small, steady voice counting through the pain. She remembered the movement of Morwenna's lips, forming numbers too quiet for anyone else to hear.
She remembered those green eyes following the shadows across the stone ceiling, searching for something to focus on besides the fire burning through her veins.
Five. Six. Seven. Eight.
And when it was over, when Jane had lifted her from the cold altar and gathered her into her arms, Morwenna had looked up at her. Her green eyes were hazy with exhaustion, but she had still managed to whisper three little words.
"I brave, Maman."
Not It hurt. Not I'm scared. Not even I love you.
Just that simple declaration, offered like a gift or proof that she was still herself. Her voice had been hoarse from the whimpers she had tried so hard to suppress, and her body had gone limp with exhaustion.
Yet her eyes had remained fixed on Jane's, holding a fierce certainty that seemed far too great for someone so small.
She had claimed her bravery as though it were her birthright.
"I brave."
Jane's chest tightened. The memory pressed against her ribs until drawing a full breath became difficult. Her daughter was so small, impossibly small, yet she carried herself with a dignity that belonged to someone far older.
Morwenna counted snowdrops in the garden, spoke to the portraits in the hallways, and told the painted serpents they could go to sleep. She sensed thestrals in empty meadows and pressed her palm against frost-covered windows, waiting for her magic to answer.
She was only three, and she had already endured more than some witches experienced in an entire lifetime.
And she was brave. So incredibly brave.
The thought of the second maturity struck Jane like a wave of cold water. She had spent months keeping the fear at the edges of her mind, refusing to examine it too closely. Now, it rushed forward, filling every corner of her thoughts until she could no longer push it away.
Two years.
Less than two years remained before Morwenna turned five.
Less than two years until her second magical maturity, when her daughter's core would expand, shift, and settle into a more permanent form.
Less than two years until they would have to face L'Éveil du Sang, the ritual that had been performed only three times in five hundred years.
Three times. Only three children in five centuries had required it.
And of those three...
Jane's mind recoiled from the conclusion, but the words pursued her relentlessly. She remembered what the ancient woman had said, her words carried to the family through Aldric.
There have been so many Alberich who died young. Who didn't survive their second maturity.
Died young. Didn't survive.
The words sounded clinical, almost detached, but the grief behind them was immeasurable.
Centuries of children like Morwenna, born with that extraordinary balance of power, burning too brightly and fading too soon. Some had survived twenty years. Others had lived to sixty.
But for Olde Ones, descendants of the Firbolg-born, sixty years was hardly a lifetime. It was a blink, a heartbeat, a single page turned in a book meant to span centuries.
In my eyes, they still died young. Still children.
Jane's fingers tightened around Jack's hand. Her grip became desperate, her nails pressing into his skin, but she barely noticed. All she could feel was the dread settling in her chest like lead.
"I want her to live."
The words escaped before she could stop them, raw and unsteady.
"I don't want her to die."
Her voice trembled. The terror that had haunted her through every quiet moment was finally spilling out.
She thought of Morwenna convulsing in the bath, of those piercing screams that had become impossible to forget. She remembered her daughter going limp afterward, so pale and still that Jane had feared she was slipping away.
"I don't want her to die young like so many of them did. Twenty years, sixty years... That's nothing."
Her voice rose with anguish as she imagined Morwenna at twenty, a young woman with an entire life still ahead of her. Then she imagined her at sixty, an age when a human might already have grandchildren, yet an Olde One would still be near the beginning of her life.
Morwenna should have centuries ahead of her. Centuries to discover the world, to love, to learn, and to grow into the person she was meant to become.
"That's a candle snuffed out before it can truly burn."
The image came to Jane without warning. A small flame, bright and beautiful, reaching into the darkness, only for a hand to close around it and extinguish it. All that remained was a wisp of smoke and the memory of its light.
That was what the ancient woman had described. That was what might await Morwenna if they failed.
Tears blurred Jane's vision. She blinked, but they spilled down her cheeks anyway, hot against her skin. She made no attempt to wipe them away.
"I want her to see Hogwarts. I want her to walk through those doors, sit in the Great Hall, and watch the ceiling change."
She could picture it so clearly. Morwenna at eleven, her white hair falling past her shoulders, her green eyes bright with curiosity as she entered the Great Hall for the first time.
She would look up at the enchanted ceiling, watch the floating candles, and stare at the long tables filled with students. She would probably be sorted into Slytherin.
She would make friends, find rivals, and collect memories of her own. She would learn magic that Jane could never teach her, discovering parts of herself that only life among other young witches and wizards could reveal.
"I want her to fall in love."
Another future unfolded in Jane's mind. Morwenna at sixteen or seventeen, older and more confident, looking at someone with an expression Jane would recognize.
Someone would stand beside her, holding her hand and leaning close, sharing a private language of glances and small gestures.
Jane wanted her daughter to experience that first rush of affection, to discover what it meant to care for someone so deeply that their happiness mattered as much as her own.
"To marry, if she wants to. To have children, if she wants them."
More possibilities followed. Morwenna dressed in white, standing before an altar. Morwenna holding a baby of her own, wearing that same fierce expression and carrying the same determination to protect what she loved.
Jane imagined herself as a grandmother, watching another generation grow and discover the world.
"I want her to grow old. Truly old," she whispered. "The way Olde Ones are meant to."
That was what made her fear so different from ordinary maternal worry. Morwenna wasn't only her daughter. She was an Olde One, descended from the Firbolg-born, with a natural lifespan that should stretch five hundred years or more.
Anything less would be a tragedy, not only for their family but for the bloodline itself. Generations of ancestors had passed down their magic and their hopes, waiting to see what this rare and precious child might become.
"I want her to live."
Jane's voice fell to a broken whisper. Tears continued to run down her cheeks, but she barely noticed them anymore. All she could feel was the weight of her heart, heavy with love and desperate hope.
"That's all. I just want her to live. There's nothing more to say."
Jack drew her into his arms, and she went willingly, pressing her face against his shoulder. He held her firmly, offering the warmth and steadiness she needed when her thoughts threatened to carry her into a future she couldn't control.
One hand cradled the back of her head, his fingers threading gently through her hair. He said nothing. There were no words that could erase her fear or promise that everything would be all right.
But he was there, holding her and sharing the burden. For now, that was enough.
Seraphina's knitting needles had fallen completely silent. The familiar clicking that had accompanied countless conversations in the library had stopped, leaving the room strangely quiet.
Jane didn't look up, but she could feel Seraphina watching her.
Seraphina had been through this herself. She had watched her own children face their rituals and held them afterward, counting their breaths through the quiet hours of the night. She understood a mother's fear in a way that needed no explanation.
Across the table, Aldric stared into the fire, his expression unreadable. He remembered the ancient woman's eyes and the sorrow buried within them, the weight of centuries spent watching, hoping, and losing.
She had seen Alberich before. She had watched them burn brightly and die young, their names entered into the family records and their portraits added to the gallery.
A log shifted in the hearth, sending a few sparks upward. They rose brightly for a moment before fading against the dark stone.
The shadows continued to dance, indifferent to the silence that had settled over the room.
No one spoke. Jane had said everything that mattered: her fear, her hope, and the desperate love that drove them to keep planning even when every instinct told them how much they stood to lose.
They all understood that love. They all shared it.
Morwenna wasn't only Jane's daughter. She belonged to all of them, a child born from two ancient lines, carrying the hopes of both families and the promise of a future generations had waited centuries to see.
Losing her would mean losing more than a child. It would mean losing a future they had barely begun to imagine.
The silence stretched on. Jane clung to Jack, and he held her as they waited for the worst of the pain to ease and for the strength to continue. It would come. Somehow, it always did.
For now, there was only the quiet library, the warmth of the fire, and the love that bound them together. Beneath everything else lay the same unspoken prayer, repeated in every heart.
Let her live. Let her live. Let her live.
At last, Aldric spoke.
"Then we do everything we can. Every layer, every preparation, every ritual that might give her a better chance."
Jane nodded against Jack's shoulder. When she finally pulled away, her eyes were dry, though her face remained pale.
"Then it's decided." She looked down at the parchment on the table. "We prepare for fifteen runes in the second Keith ritual. We schedule the Evans ritual for December or January, using all six essences along with the strengthening ingredients. We research everything and prepare as thoroughly as we can. And we watch her every day to make sure she is ready."
Jack looked at his father. Aldric met his gaze and gave a single, firm nod.
Seraphina picked up her knitting again. The needles resumed their steady rhythm.
"Then it's decided," she said quietly.
Jane leaned back in her chair. Her tea had gone completely cold, but she barely noticed. Her thoughts had already moved to the parchment, the ingredients they would need, and the letters she would have to write to France.