Lunch was still going on, and I was busy licking a little bit of honey sauce off my finger, trying to decide whether doing it again would be rude or not. Adrian's feet swung under the table, slow and lazy now, and I accidentally bumped Klaus's leg.
He immediately returned the gesture, kicking back under the table playfully.
Adrian POV:
The plates were messy in the good way. Skewers pushed aside, bits of roasted vegetables scattered everywhere, streaks of honey and berry sauce smeared across the plates. I was full in the pleasant way that made my limbs feel heavy and my thoughts slow, like the world didn't need to be rushed anymore.
Finn reached for another piece of vegetable before Kol got his hand on it, unfazed by Kol's bickering. While on Esther's lap, Rebekah was pointing her tiny fingers at the meat pieces she wanted to eat, which Esther got for her, and sometimes she pointed at Mikael's plate too.
"Adrian," Esther called.
I looked up.
"Yes?"
"Do you need some more skewers, dear?" she asked in a very gentle tone.
I shook my head. "No, I'm full."
"Oh, don't be shy," she said gently. "Feel free to ask for more. This was all made for you, after all—to thank you for saving Rebekah that day."
'So that was why.
And here I was, thinking too much and getting worried over nothing.'
"I didn't really… do anything," I said honestly. "I just wanted to save her. And then it happened."
'Guess I get free food, since all of it was planned by me anyway.'
Esther watched me for a moment, her expression soft in a way that felt deliberate.
"That means your magic is very strong," she said gently. "Have you been trying to feel magic?"
Why is she asking me this? She clearly spied on me. What's her goal here?
Before I could answer, Kol jumped in.
"Yes, he has been practicing!" Kol announced proudly, like he was talking about his own achievement. "He even showed us a new trick today. He made fire that didn't burn."
Klaus nodded eagerly. "Yeah, we held it in our hands. It felt like holding sunlight."
Finn looked up too, his interest clearly caught now.
Esther's eyebrows lifted slightly. "Did you?" she asked. "Can you show me too?"
Everyone looked at me.
I hesitated for a second, then nodded. "I can try."
'They leaned in a little—even Mikael. He didn't say anything, but I could feel his attention settle on me like weight. It made my chest feel tight.
Everyone else was smiling, though.
So I decided not to do it properly. Just act like it failed.
I picked up an empty skewer from my plate and held it in my hand. I stared at it, exaggerating my focus just enough to look convincing.
Then I set it on fire.
The skewer blackened instantly, cracking as smoke curled up from it and the wood burned straight through.'
"Oh," I said quietly.
Elijah blinked. "That's not what it looked like before."
Esther calmly reached out and took the burned skewer from my hand before it could fall.
"That's alright," she said easily. "You just don't have proper control yet."
I looked at her, relieved she wasn't suspicious.
In reality, making fire that didn't burn had taken me almost five weeks to truly grasp, and it had only been a week since I'd supposedly discovered magic. I hadn't practiced actual fire much at all—especially not when Esther was watching.
She smiled again, then said, like she was remembering something small, "You asked me once if I would teach you magic, didn't you?"
I nodded.
"And I denied to teach you."
I remember that.
"Do you want to know why?" she asked, her tone light, almost curious—the kind that made children lean in.
She continued before I could answer. "Because knowledge of witchcraft is usually taught inside families. Passed down from generation to generation. It isn't taught to outsiders."
That's true, as far as I know.
"Oh," I said.
That made sense.
"So I couldn't teach you anything of magic," she continued, "even if I wanted to."
Lies. I know it isn't taught to outsiders, but there's nothing that's actually stopping you if you really want to. That's how covens are formed. She's clearly lying.
But that doesn't matter.
As long as I get what I want.
She tilted her head slightly, still smiling. "But I've been watching you since then."
I looked up at her again.
"You're very talented," Esther said. "And it hurts to see such talent go to waste."
Finn shifted like he wanted to say something, but Esther's hand rested lightly over his, stopping him without a word.
"So," she continued, her voice gentle and warm, "I thought of another way."
Is this what I think it is? Did she agree to teach me? But why suddenly I hoped for it to happen but it feels kinda wrong.
"Although I can't teach you witchcraft if you don't belong to my family," she said calmly.
Then she added, as if it were the simplest thing in the world, "However, if you were to be part of this family, then I could teach you magic."
Ayana's House — At the Same Time
Inside her cottage, Ayana was working in silence.
Sunlight filtered through the narrow window, catching on something in her hands. A pendant lay across her palm—an amber-colored crystal, warm and deep like frozen fire, held by a thin black cord woven tightly around it.
She turned it slowly, inspecting every angle.
"Done," she murmured. "Finally."
This was a bloodline artifact, crafted according to ancestral records. It could only be channeled by witches of her lineage, acting as an intermediary—a bridge—to draw power from Esther's bloodline.
She lifted it slightly, watching as the sun's rays passed through the crystal, igniting it with a quiet glow.
"All that's left," Ayana thought, "is connecting it during the ritual… when Esther allows me to bond with her bloodline."
Her lips curved faintly.
"For thousands of years," she continued silently, "even after the primordial passes away… whoever of our line holds this will be able to channel the power of all witches alive in Esther's bloodline and their descendants."
A lineage now empowered by two primordial sources
Ayana closed her fingers around the pendant.
Everything was finally in motion. She looked toward the Mikaelson house.
"All that's left to you now, Esther," she thought. "Convince the child."
Third-Person POV
"Join… like stay here?" Adrian asked, honestly confused now. "But I live with my grandma."
Kol's eyes lit up.
"Does that mean he gets to stay with us?" he asked, already grinning. "Like… all day?"
Klaus leaned forward eagerly. "Yeah! Like sleepovers?"
"And we can play at night too—every day?"
Esther didn't correct them.
She just smiled—warm, patient.
"Do you not want to learn magic?" she asked gently.
"I do," I said honestly. "I really do. But… Grandma—"
"Your grandmother would still be your grandmother," Esther said immediately, her voice soft but steady. "You wouldn't leave her."
"So… I don't leave her?" I asked.
"No," Esther said at once. "Of course not."
She paused a little.
"You would just have another place to call home."
_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_--_-_-_--_-_-_-_-_-_-
AUTHOR'S NOTE:
This chapter is a bit short because I couldn't make this scene any longer. I tried, but it turns out it's very hard to write a scene of an adult explaining something complex to a child.
I also saw many comments about the harem—people calling it out like a harem is collecting Pokémon. But come on, this is fantasy; we all get to fantasize. Still, I did take it into consideration, so I spent a lot of time thinking about how every partner's love turns out. The general idea is good—very good.
A bit of a spoiler:
All girls will have different types of love. For example:
Slow-burn love
Yandere (you can probably guess this one)
A girl in denial about being in love
One with Stockholm syndrome
A wholesome high-school romance (not the one you would expect—it's a surprise), etc.
And I need you help about How do you make a paranoid , crazy girl with trust and abandonment issues who was already betrayed once aka Qetsiyah fall in love with our protag who has multiple lovers.
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