While my mind was briefly occupied with the answer Lady Hecate had given me, the odd, monotone world in which we had talked dissolved, leaving me with a lot more questions and far too few actual answers for my taste. I had no real idea what had happened, just that I had briefly spoken to a Goddess, but what She had told me didn’t help me too much. Sure, I had a few answers I hadn’t had before but those answers only opened up more questions that needed answers of their own.

There were new notifications floating in the corner of my eye and when I focused on them, I was informed that I had gained a new trait, the Blessing of Mother Moon. Just like the Blessing of the Moon, the description of this one was rather brief and cryptic, only telling me that I had been blessed by Hecate and that the Light of the Moon would shield me and my children. The second notification was related to the Blessing, telling me that my children, without actually specifying what that meant, could travel with me as they wished, without causing me to suffer from the Lone Traveller Trait.

It was a wonderful boon, though I was wondering how the system defined children in that case. Making the case for Lia was pretty obvious, she had been reborn through my magic and blood. That, in addition to the new name, made it pretty obvious but Sabrina’s case was less obvious. I cared for her, had called upon a deity for her, but was that enough to make the system see her as my daughter? I had no idea, though I wasn’t overly bothered by it. If nothing else, I could bind her to me, using the Lone Traveller Perk itself.

Shaking off the fog still wafting around my mind, I looked around, immediately noticing that the statue I had created was gone and the ritual circle looked a little worse for wear, with some of the glyphs blackened, as if they had been consumed by some sort of fire. Those glyphs might be the ones that would have connected the ritual to the Grandmother, only to be overpowered by the intent of the ritual users, the power of Hecate poured into the ritual by Silva and me and, finally, the statue of Hecate I had created myself. Those had obviously been enough to redirect the ritual or my conversation with Hecate would never have happened, but the contradiction in the ritual caused one set of instructions to be destroyed. At least that was my conclusion and I was planning to note down those glyphs as soon as possible.

But first, I had to take care of my two companions, Sabrina was curled into a fetal position, looking completely out of it, and Silva didn’t look much better, panting with her tongue hanging out of her maw.

Looking more closely at Silva, I noticed that her aura had grown quite substantially. It was almost as if there was a dim, silvery light surrounding her, only that it wasn’t a physical light but simply an expression of her power. It took a moment for my tired mind to make the connection, allowing me to realise that my companion seemed to have crossed the first Divide, possibly because of Hecate’s Blessing. Given that Silva was one of Her hounds, that made some sense to me and I was curious what new abilities my companion had gained. If only one of them was the ability to speak our language, or maybe one that allowed her to communicate telepathically. Maybe that was something I should actively investigate, it might just work out, given that Mind Magic was one of my strongest abilities and I had recently gained the Extra-Sensory Perception: Mind.

It only took me a moment to make sure that Silva wasn’t actually harmed in any way, she was just exhausted, just like I was. That certainty allowed me to focus my attention on Sabrina, moving over to her and gently checking her over, making sure that there was no physical damage that might worsen if I moved her.

Luckily, there wasn’t any that I could detect, she was, like Silva and me, completely drained but there was more to her change. I wasn’t able to completely pin down the change, but it was less a physical one and more one in her aura, the magic that gently emanated from her body and made up that unique signature scent I could detect if I really tried.

Knowing that I wouldn’t harm her by shifting her body, I gently pulled her onto a blanket before resting her head in my lap, stroking her hair while I waited for her to move. She was out of it, and I wanted to be there when she awoke.

In the meantime, I continued to study the ritual circle, noting down the changes it had undergone and wondering what the slight alterations meant. I was pretty sure about those burned-out glyphs, but there were other changes, most of them subtle and slight, but enough to make me wonder just how far off my ritual had been. Rituals were fairly interesting pieces of magic, incredibly versatile in effect but just as far-ranging in the requirements.

Some needed absolute precision, down to the composition of the chalk, with tolerances almost as tight as modern electronic equipment, to the point that they would fail if a single line was just a fraction of a millimetre out of place. Other rituals were far more forgiving, they only needed the caster’s intent and passion to guide them. A dance, guided by the ebb and flow of an unseen wind was an excellent example, the exact movements within the dance didn’t matter, the caster only had to sense and follow the streams of magic the ritual was invoking, or a song, driven by the passion of a hundred voices. Those means could evoke power, too, just as much, if not more, as a minutely prepared and utterly complex circle. Different means, different purposes and measures, it all depended on the purpose of the ritual and the abilities of the caster.

In this case, the ritual had been mostly done by preparation, even if it was now quite obvious that I had made a few mistakes. Luckily, it didn’t seem like Lady Hecate had deemed my mistakes worthy of punishment, though I made a mental note to be more careful in the future. Dealing with Powers far beyond my reach was fraught with dangers and I couldn’t constantly rely on the Lady’s goodwill. She had demonstrated it in the past and had done so again in this case, but at some point she might just decide that I hadn’t learned from past mistakes and let me suffer. Not something I wanted to experience, if I could help it.

Hearing Sabrina groan in my lap, I put away the notepad I had used to study the alterations to the circle and focused on my daughter. It took her a few moments to fully come back to consciousness and her first action was to try burrowing deeper into my lap, making me squirm a little from the ticklish sensation.

“Now, little one, we’ve got a few things to talk about, don’t we?” I gently asked, threading my hand through her hair. The texture of her hair had changed a little, it had some added volume that made me wonder whether she had gained a boost to her charisma or something along those lines, but I wasn’t about to ask. We had more important things to talk about and slight alterations to her attributes didn’t matter in the grand scheme of things.

“Five more minutes, Mum,” she pleaded, making me laugh just a little. From what little I had heard, it was teenagers who didn’t want to get up in the morning but maybe the munchkin was starting with that early.

“You can rest but I think we should talk about the things that happened, shouldn’t we?” I prodded and she started to move, pushing herself into a sitting position next to me.

Looking at her like this, I could see that there were a few more minor changes to her body but only one change that I considered major. When she looked at me, and I saw her eyes directly after the ritual, I had to blink for a moment, noticing the somewhat unexpected change. Before, her eyes had been fairly expressive but otherwise ordinary. Now, her eyes were the opposite of ordinary, they easily rivalled Lia’s eyes in exoticness and it only took me a moment to realise what I was looking at. The sclera, the white parts of her eyes, had darkened considerably, turning into a dark grey, almost black, that made me think of the night sky, while the iris was interesting in its own right, the colour immediately reminded me of the silvery-grey expanse I had just stood on, while the shape brought a connection I hadn’t realised until just now. Her eyes had the exact colour and shape of the full moon, making me wonder if that was a not-so-subtle nudge from Lady Hecate.

“It looks like the Lady Hecate gave you a new name,” I gently told my munchkin, knowing how much she had looked forward to this, “From now on, you will be known as Luna Morgana, daughter of Jade Morgana and little sister of Carnelia Morgana,” I solemnly intoned, before pulling her into a hug.

“Welcome to the family, little Luna.”