Work Text:
The Tower
Bloodshot hazel eyes shot open.
Lilia Calderu inhaled a ragged breath.
Blood gurgled past her lips. She could feel the blade between her ribcage sink a little deeper. Her body sliding lower on it.
She cursed her bad luck to fall so awkwardly upon her deathbed. To not even die by instantly being beheaded or with a pierced heart.
It was almost funny. She would have laughed if she could do anything more than barely inhale and exhale.
At least they made it. Teen. Agatha. Jen.
She smiled lightly. Jennifer. Goddess she liked Jennifer.
It was such a short time, but she felt she could talk—
The Hierophant
“–Rio would call Agatha a coward?!”
The voice was Lilia’s. But from too long ago.
She glanced at her reflection in the warm tea. Ran back through her memories and the conversation. The question piqued her interest from the moment she divined it.
How had she known what would happen in a time and place she would never survive to see?!
“Didn’t you see it?” Her Maestra responding as if noting was unusual about the conversation.
She was familiar with the Traveler’s journeys by now.
“I’ve never seen beyond my death before...Have I?”
Maestra chuckled lightly, as though at an inside joke.
Only Lilia was on the outside.
And there was no one else to hear.
Lilia glanced down at her hands. So youthful and naive.
“That depends, I suppose. On what you see as your life.”
Lilia groaned. Because of course it would be some philosophical riddle.
“Can you not just tell me what I need to know for once?!”
“You play The Fool, Lilia, but you See now. You are no fool.”
“I don’t know what you mean, Maestra, please!”
“Don’t you see? We’ve spoken so many times. So many you don’t even remember before we spoke, do you?”
Lilia didn’t think about life before Maestra often. Before her Coven.
When she was nothing but a bedraggled streetrat chasing scraps of food. Scraping by on a little divination and a lot of luck.
Maestra had seen her talent and taken her in.
“I died Maestra. I think it’s time we speak plainly, don’t you?”
“How could I be more plain? What do you see as your life?”
Lilia leapt up, rage flowing through her.
She was sick of all this. The twisting of fate or destiny or what ever the hell left her with nothing and no one.
“Starting from the point I was born to right up until I fell on a lawn of swords!”
“Ouch.” Maestra deadpanned.
“Is that all you have to say?! ‘Ouch?!’”
“Well.. You’ve seen.. So maybe don’t die?”
Lilia was about to blow up again when she stopped. Blinking in confusion. Maestra spoke it like it was… Possible. To choose not to die.
But it wasn’t. Was it?
“Maestra… Why—”
The Empress
“—talk to you all night, Agatha!” Lilia blinked. The words left her mouth without her knowing when they were spoken.
Her mind raced to find its place in time.
The forest… After Alice’s trial?!
They’d sat around the campfire, talking for hours about family. Friends. Scars.
For one night, she had had a Coven again.
“Yeah, well, apparently I put everybody else to sleep,” Agatha motioned to the area around them, where Jen, Alice and Teen were dozing before the fading embers of the fire. “I should start doing ASMR.”
“I don’t know what that is.”
A crooked smile came to Agatha’s face.
“Me neither!”
Lilia snorted.
“I prefer Tarot cards, personally.”
“Ah, of course… Can’t go wrong with good old fashioned 52 and a screw if you ask me,”
“You screw people over playing cards?!”
Agatha strolled to her coat, neatly folded to form makeshift pillow whenever she decided to get back to sleep. She pulled something from the pocket but Lilia couldn’t see what it was..
“I screw people over and use playing cards. Separate clauses. Not quite as efficient as you since you do both with ‘the Tarot,’” Agatha’s voice a cruel tease at the last word.
“Oh stop! It’s not a con or scheme. It’s…” Lilia trailed off. Not sure why she wanted to convince Agatha of anything, much less the value of Tarot.
Something sharp slid past Lilia’s nose. She jumped, glancing to the source of the object. Agatha smirked, flipping a playing card between her fingers.
“Oh, you’re a card scaler?!” Lilia scoffed.
“Taught Howard Thurston everything he knows!”
Lilia walked over to retrieve the card Agatha had thrown passed her with enough force to leave a papercut, picking it up and turning it over to reveal a Jester clad in black and red hat.
She snorted. Of course. The Joker. A Fool by another name.
“Thurston and this kid in New Orleans. I think he’s really gonna make a name for himself one of these—”
Agatha was still droning. Lilia abruptly stood and tossed the card at Agatha. It flittered aimlessly, and landed several feet away. It was Agatha’s turn to snort.
“You clearly didn’t much more than flip those Tarot cards of yours, huh?”
Lilia scoffed, but couldn’t fight the reddening of her face.
“You know, I met your pupil Thurston around Prohibition. He was a bit of a dick.”
“Like I said, I taught him everything he knows.”
“Well you are most definitely—”
Death
“—Die?!” Lilia blinked. Gone was the green room.
Gone was Agatha in her bright pantsuit with her cheery audience.
Now she was alone in a desolate fog.
Somewhere ahead of her a faint green light. In the outline of a door, perhaps?
“Are you ready to come with me this time?” Rio Vidal looked like Death.
Lilia shivered. It was cold in purgatory. Shouldn’t it be warm? No, Heaven was probably warm. Hell was hot. So purgatory had to be cold.
“Have I been here before?!” Lilia didn’t conceal her surprise. What was the point? She knew how this went.
“Yes. No. Maybe.” Rio replied with a grin that was evident even with the skeletal frame of her jaw.
Lilia tilted her head, utterly flabbergasted by the resemblance to an only slightly less unbearable witch.
“Unbelievable. You two really are made for each other huh, kiddo?!”
“I’ve existed since the dawn of life. ‘Kiddo’ seems a bit inaccurate.”
“Oh have you? Because I get the feeling you’re a little more complicated than that. Why would Death wear a face and have a name? Are you sure Rio Vidal didn’t exist?”
Rio didn’t reply.
“Maybe the robes and the sickle comes with bloodline?”
Rio didn’t reply.
“Or you read the wrong poem in a Grimoire of evil magic?”
A flash of something like… Relief in brown irises. As if to say ‘she’s off the scent!’
But Lilia and Agatha were cut from the same cloth in some ways. She was a con artist at heart. Picking up on the subtle cues that even Death couldn’t hide.
“No, I’ll stick with cursed to become Death by birthright.”
Rio’s face darkened. She huffed and turned around as though to storm away. Then stopped. Lilia fought to maintain a straight face, tilting her head.
“Forgetting someone?”
“Agatha and her stupid friends…” Rio sighed. She took a deep, cleansing breath, then turned around and extended a hand. “So….Are you coming?”
“I wouldn’t say Agatha and I are friends, actually. Not sure if she’s made for that. Or for… whatever it is you two have.”
“It’s called a ‘situa-hateyou-ship.’”
“Guess it’s a good thing you two never had kids,” Lilia muttered.
It hadn’t been bait.
Maybe that’s why Rio took it.
Her eyes pulsing with pain and shock for a fraction of a second before she hid the feelings behind the skeletal mask.
But to the Divination Witch, a fraction of a second was a lifetime.
“What?! You and Agatha—”
The Star
“—a son?!” Lilia blinked. She was back at the talk show. This memory the one she couldn’t decipher. It clearly wasn’t real whatever it was. Was this some twisted part of the afterlife?
“Well that was random!” Agatha forced an obnoxious laugh. Heading off the uncomfortable silence that followed Lilia’s words.
The audience—impossible to see beneath the bright lights—guffawed like trained seals, the tension dissolving in an instant at the behest of their constantly ebullient host.
“So I called you here today because we like to get witchy on this Road Show, and one of my favorite witchy things is Tarot!” Agatha spoke low, wiggling her fingers in a ‘spooky’ gesture. Lilia rolled her eyes.
“What happened to that being a con?!”
“You know I don’t mean the hurtful things I say. Except that thing about Teen’s hair, but tough love helps us grow! Besides, you never really gave me a reading!”
Lilia opened her mouth to respond but Agatha seemed to have decided the matter was settled. She reached into the drawer of the large mahagony desk and pulled out a pack of tarot cards.
“These are heavy! Could go far and do plenty of damage if one was so inclined!” Agatha winked, at the audience more than Lilia.
Lilia gave a snort that she couldn’t quite make derisive. Despite it all….
“It’s good to see you—”
The Tower
“Why did you die?!”
“Wait, what?! Who died?” Billy turned to her, a bit off kilter by the large black maleficent robes.
They were at the Trial.
Her Trial.
“Please tell me no one else?” Jen looked at Lilia, dark brown eyes barely concealing her concern. Then her eyes darted to Agatha. “Well, we could stand to lose one more, maybe…”
“Did you all forget we’re on a bit of a clock here?!” Agatha growled. She swiveled to Lilia, putting on a falsely sweet voice. “Lilia, dear, if you would please not listen to Jennifer subtly threaten me and focus on getting us out of here!” Agatha finished in a roar.
Lilia ignored her. Ignored the world. Remembering what happened.
Seeing it.
Scale.
“I’m the querent!”
It became a blur after that.
The words flowing from Lilia’s lips as much memory as divination. She knew what was at the end now. Unless…
A Witch Lives For Her Coven. Would the Trial—the boy’s own little space, perfected by the combination of his dreams and nightmares—pick up on the Sleight of Hand?
“I do See, Maestra…” Lilia murmured to the empty room. No. Not empty.
The room full of growing danger as the Salem Seven were closing in.
Except it was empty. Because the Salem Seven were dead. Skewered upon blades.
But that meant she was a Fool. Because if they were dead, then she was also…?
No. Lilia wasn’t a Fool. She was a Witch.
And a Witch Lives For Her Coven.
She thought of Death. The cold place before the end.
“Am I there…? Or—”
The Empress
“—had a child?!”
“Go Fish?” Agatha looked at her quizzically.
Lilia was holding a hand of cards. Her eyes floated over them without seeing them. She was seeing something else now.
She’d known Agatha had a child. But with Death? What were the costs of that? What had Agatha been forced to do to pay them?
No, if she’d been right. If Rio was cursed by birthright then would that mean…
“Oh, Agatha. I’m so sorry.”
Agatha stared at the woman across from the faded embers of the fire. As though trying to breach Lilia’s mind with those blue eyes of hers. Lilia’s hazel irises held her gaze. Trying to communicate words she would never be able to communicate again.
Because Lilia Calderu was dead and gone. No more use to her coven.
Goddess she loved being a witch.
And now it was over.
“Oh Agatha. You deserved more from this life.” Lilia spoke barely above a whisper.
Agatha’s features hardened. Don’t you dare pity me.
“I know you don’t hear that from many people. Know you probably hate hearing it. But I’m just an old bat on her way back into hell so… So don’t even worry about it, dear.”
“Lilia… I don’t know what it is that you think—”
“I think I played my cards wrong. I think I’ve seen your full deck. And that pain. That loss. You didn’t deserve it. And I wish… I wish you’d been my High Priestess before now. Because I would have fought for every bit of happiness you deserve with every fiber of my being from the moment that little girl was born!”
Agatha said nothing for a long moment. Perhaps for any other lifetime it would have been too long. But Lilia had already lived past this moment. And every other one.
“Boy.” Agatha whispered quietly.
“What?”
“The moment that little boy was born.”
Lilia’s eyes widened. More than a few witches—especially those of her time or before—considered the birth of a male child a blight. A curse. A mark of the forever evil…
Evanora…. She would’ve been a Spirit witch.
Like Agatha.
Every aspect of the Craft, every Element could move through her. Including Divination.
Lilia was still working through the thought as her mouth formed the words:
“You had—”
The Star
“—A dick!”
Lilia blinked. Sitting in a green room. But what on earth could the production she was awaiting be? Not that she was shy about the stage it was just unnerving to have no memory of where she would be performing.
Or what she was supposed to perform.
A panel of monitors turned on abruptly. Lilia twisted in the ornate chair where she must have just finished having her makeup applied. On the screen was a very familiar witch in a snazzy, over sized violet pantsuit, waving to an expansive auditorium.
Lilia couldn’t see the audience from the camera’s angle, but they must have been cheering fiercely the way Agatha danced out onto the stage.
Why was Agatha Harkness a talk show host?!
“Remote!” Lilia’s eyes darted around the room. Seeing nothing, she slid her hands between the cushions and felt a long rectangular plastic object. “Aha!” Lilia cried in triumph, immediately angling the remote the screen and pressing to increase the volume.
“WELCOME BACK TO THE ROAD WITCHES!”
Applause. Lilia could imagine the signs instructing the audience.
“Now I know you all are excited today to be in the Harknest because we are going to be talking to my favorite maiden! I really think of her almost as a Mother. But let’s be honest,” Agatha looked to her left and right, raised her hand and tilted her face in an exaggerated a whisper behind it, “She’s really more of a crone!”
Canned laughter.
Lilia didn’t know how anybody could stand this tripe. She pushed herself up from the chair, glancing around for the door as Agatha droned on.
“That’s right, it’s LILIA CALDERU! Give my girl a warm welcome!”
“What?!” How had she not seen that coming?
The door opposite opened. Lilia bit her bottom lip. She had next to no idea how she’d gotten here. Why Agatha was here. Was this another Trial? Had she somehow survived…
Wait. Survived?! Why did she think she’d…
“The Tower Upright!”
“What?! I couldn’t…. Did I—”
The Empress
“—happy again….” Lilia spoke to empty air. Not too far away, she saw her Coven. Dozing on the roadside. Except for two members.
She walked a bit up the road. Saw Rio and Agatha were parting ways.
Moments after nearly reuniting in a kiss. But Rio had pulled away, not given in to the temptation.
A kiss of death? Lilia couldn’t be sure. Agatha would have to know that Teen wasn’t… That she couldn’t be his mother. Would that have been enough to make her decide to finally move on?
Lilia didn’t know.
She did know she wasn’t forcing the smile as Agatha strolled to her.
“...So how much did you see?”
“You don’t have to explain anything to me, kiddo. We’ve all got complications and exes. And complicated exes. Situahateyouships and whatnot.”
“What?!”
“Nothing, forget it…”
Agatha was biting her lower lip. Like there was something on the tip of her tongue. Lilia could only imagine what kind of story it would be that was between them. But she would never get to hear of it.
Because she had died with nothing more to do with them than a warning to buy Agatha a few extra moments of life.
“Don’t I don’t have any interest in whatever it is that happened—or is happening-- between you and Rio—”
The Hierophant
“Fuck does it matter what I see if I can’t change it!” Lilia screamed.
“Language.”
“...Sorry.”
Maestra nodded, accepting the apology. Lilia sighed and settled back down.
“I’ve told you, Death comes—”
“Stop it! You know that’s not what I’m asking! You knew my power. Understood what I saw better than anyone! Yet you did nothing to guide them from the plague!”
Maestra sighed, leaning back in her chair.
“What could have been saved, Lilia? Did you not spend long enough running with these old women we called a Coven? Did you not find joy in waking in the same bed you had fallen asleep in? To join us for breakfast at the same table every morning?”
Lilia didn’t think about life before her Coven often.
But now she did.
“You knew you were going to die, but… you stayed because it was our home?” Lilia whispered, suddenly seeing her Maestra as though for the first time.
“Death comes for us all. Why run? I prefer to be buried on the soil that brought me life. Brought me joy. Brought me you!”
Lilia sniffled. Glanced down at the cup of tea, the leaf swirling over the reflection of her youthful visage.
She could stay too.
When the plague came. Curl up next to Maestra. Wait for the sickness to take her. There would have been no dingy motels, no Bar-mitzvah fortune telling booths.
No Teen.
No Sharon (it wasn’t really Mrs. Hart… Was it?)
No Alice (dying). No Rio (taking her whole damned coven).
No Jen (Oh, precious Jennifer).
No Agatha fucking Harkness.
“A Witch Lives For Her Coven, Lilia.” Maestra was explaining to a version of her too bright eyed and naive to understand the weight of those words.
“So does that mean she—”
The Star
“—Am I here?! Doing Tarot? You know, don’t you?” Lilia’s face hardened as she looked at Agatha.
“I know that I’ve got about five minutes before we need to wrap this segment so we can get the ghost dog on set, could you please just work with me, Lils?!” Agatha leaned in to whisper, then pulled back and gave a girlish giggle that got the audience clapping.
Lilia inhaled steadying her nerve. If her mind was going to play tricks on her, she could at least put them on her turf. She reached for the Tarot deck.
“Fine, we’ll do a three card spread: One card for each Past, Present and Future," she shuffled the deck. Precise and poised. Agatha watched, mesmerized.
Lilia slapped the cards back down, cleared a space at the desk, saw there was already a mat with various spreads outlined. Repositioned so that the Three Card Spread was focused. She took a card from the top of the deck and slid it onto the surface, facedown.
"First, the Past….”Lilia flipped the card
The King of Wands
“The King of Wands. Reversed. Indicates you were once reckless, domineering and tyrannical." Lilia locked eyes with Agatha, driving each word home. "Some people never change.”
The audience howled with laughter at Lilia’s jab.
Agatha gave another nervous giggle, looking out at the audience, red tinging her cheeks.
“Doesn’t sound like me!”
Lilia rolled her eyes both at Agatha’s half-hearted denial and the audience’s raucous laughter.
“Next, the present:" Lilia slid another card from the top of the deck. Placed it in the middle slot of the Tarot Spread mat. Flipped it over.
The Empress.
“The Empress:...Nurturing… Abundance… New life…” Lilia whispered. Her eyes flicked up to Agatha.
The showmanship was absent. Agatha’s eyes were shimmering, her lips beginning to upturn into a gentle smile. Her hand hovering over her stomach.
Holy shit.
But it couldn’t be… Could it?!
“Who on Earth….?!” She glanced back down to the card as though expecting it to change. But no, the slightly round belly of the Empress, set on a shimmering throne, beaming as she looked out at the luscious fields of green before her. A too crimson apple in her hand.
No, not crimson. Scarlet . And Green.
“For Hecate’s sake Agatha! What the—”
The Empress
“—Dies for them too?” Lilia sighed. Trance broken at the edge of the next Trial. It would be Agatha's. Which meant the Salem’s Seven were….
“What?!” Jen jumped.
“Did she just say something about dying?!” Alice whispered behind a hand.
“Hey! If you’re planning on killing someone, Lilia, please make it one of those backwards walking bitches before they turn into some sort of flesh eating werewolf and eat Teen!” Agatha was grasping her shoulders and gently shaking her.
Lilia sighed, looking to where they would see the Seven passing into view at any moment.
“Hey! Why would they eat me first?!” Billy asked, voice an octave too high.
“It’s funny: I did kill them for you. Even though you’re a terrible sister in the Craft.”
Agatha stopped shaking her.
“...What are you talking about?”
“Don’t worry about the Salem Seven, Agatha. A Witch Lives For Her Coven, no matter how terrible their Spirit Witch may be.”
“...I’m going to pretend that was a compliment.”
“How could that possibly be—” Teen began, but Lilia interrupted.
“I’ve been circling. Trying to figure out where to go. But maybe I always knew. I keep coming back to this time. Our time. Because you’re my Coven. And I would… I did….”
Death
“….Die for you.”
Rio was waiting patiently. Whatever awkwardness forgotten. Lilia looked skyward at the inky darkness that revealed nothing about this inbetween world.
“I have my answer.”
“Oh, goodie.” Rio said with a deadpan drawl.
The Tower
Her hand was barely gripping to the table. She wouldn’t be able to hold on much longer. Lilia, Teen and Jen were safe. They would always be safe. She could give in here and now.
The Star
“Lil’s? You still with me?” Agatha was asking over the desk, voice hushed.
“I just need to play one more card, Agatha.”
Agatha tilted her head curiously.
“But… These old hands.. They’re not what they used to be. Think maybe you could play it for me, sister?”
Agatha smiled gently, nodding. She made a show of steadying herself, taking a deep breath and closing her eyes for several long seconds.
"This card is... The Future…."
The Tower
“Scale!” Lilia had whispered before releasing Agatha’s hand. Agatha’s only acknowledgment was a the quirk of an eyebrow. She didn’t look at the Tarot card slipped into her right hand. It slid up the long sleeves of the Wicked Witch’s robes as she raced for the exit with the Salem Seven on their heels.
She’d communicated the same when she’d palmed the card. Slid it to Agatha right after the reading. The barest touch and a single whispered word communicating everything between the High Priestess and her Foolish, Foolish Traveler.
The Star
Agatha flipped the card from the top of the deck... Lilia saw her holding it at the Tower that had taken her life once before.
But that was before.
Her past. Now she saw her future.
“This card means… Hope. Faith. Purpose. Healing. Renewal. Give in to the fall. To Death. And be Reborn!”
Agatha smiled and suddenly her Maestra was looking at her.
The Hierophant
“Ah. You See. And you Understand. Then I suppose….”
Death
“….You won’t be coming with me, yet, again?”
The Empress
“I did die for you. Now I’m going to live for you… And that baby you’re gonna have because Goddess knows they’re gonna need more reliable parental figures in their life!”
“The what I’m going to ha—”
The Tower
She hadn’t heard Agatha return. She just felt the whir of the card. Launched into her waiting hand by a once in ten generation talent at throwing cards.
The hand not gripped desperately to the edge of the table squeezed the Tarot card (because of course Agatha fucking Harkness could scale a Tarot card like it was nothing!). She heard Agatha’s footsteps fading a heartbeat later. Because Of course Agatha fucking Harkness wouldn’t risk sticking around.
But that was fine.
Lilia just needed the chance to play one last card.
She inhaled, swung as far as she could forward extending the hand with the card towards the Tarot Spread. Would touching the table be enough? It would have to be. She’d lost her grip.
She was falling.
She was Dying.
The card she had played shimmered reacting with the magics laced throughout the table.
A card for Hope.
Purpose.
Renewal.
“The Star.”
Beyond the confines of the Tower a meteorite sped through the air. It tore through the wrought iron windows like wet tissue paper, raced past Lilia’s falling form leaving her dress unscathed and crashed into the center of the room, obliterating the remnants of the Seven, the blades and the ground below. Lilia closed her eyes as she fell through the hole left in its white hot wake.
“AGH!” She couldn’t help screaming even though she didn’t think she would fall to her death. Thankfully she was right.
“Yes!”
Lilia hopped up from… The cellar?!
Right where they’d entered the Road. She frowned as she looked around. Memories of things that hadn’t yet occurred to be remembered flowing through her.
Watching, hidden, not far away as Rio and Agatha brawled, staying just as far away, crying silent tears as she watched Agatha decompose. Gathering herself and resolving to watch over Teen and find Jennifer.
Reacting with shock and perhaps a bit of horror upon seeing the Ghost of Agatha arrive and help Teen understand what he’d done.
And more besides.
Agatha and the Scarlet Witch.
And Rio.
And Alice. And Teen.
And was that… Mrs. Hart?!
And of course… Jennifer.
She shook her head. She’d been through a lot.
“I need a drink.” she said to the empty basement. She dusted herself off and left.
The sky was bright for now (in a few hours, when Agatha raged at Death it wouldn’t be). But there would be plenty of time for her Coven later.
It felt a little Foolish thinking it, but as far as Lilia Calderu was concerned:
She had all the time in the world.