Archive of Our Own

All the smells, sounds and colours remind Millie of home. Well, not home exactly, home has been Chrestomanci Castle or school for years now. But the place where she grew up. Even the weather, hot and humid and altogether delightful (though not everybody would call it that). She has to shake her head to clear it and remember that this is a city called Bengaluru, in World 12B. She has an appointment; an invitation.

The house is large and whitewashed and has no visible windows on the outside, just like a temple of Asheth. (And does she feel the presence of Asheth more than she has lately?) She rings the bell, and a small dark person in white trousers and a long pink shirt lets her in and takes her through a courtyard, where it's relatively cool, to a door on the other side, and makes a hand gesture towards the door with a small bow.

"Thank you," she says, startled, and enters.

The woman inside could be her grandmother. The same light brown skin, the same thick straight dark brown hair (though in her case with silver threads through it), the same brown eyes, the same comfortably plump build, the same plain but honest face. "Welcome," she says. "Millie de Witt?"

"That's what I— yes."

"I go by Leela Vasanthi here. Please call me Leela. Or Aunt Leela, if you're not confident with my first name only. That's what the local children call me. Tea?"

"Yes, please." Leela rings a bell and the small dark person appears again. She speaks to them in a language Millie doesn't understand, making Millie wonder what language they have just been speaking together, and realize that it's her own birth language. Which must also be Leela's birth language.

The tea, when it comes, is spicy and bracing. They exchange pleasantries about it. Millie is still not brave enough to ask the question she came here to ask.

Leela knows, though. "I was Mother Proudfoot's first success. And you must be her latest."

"Yes," Millie says. "Three years, now. I haven't been back to see—"

"The new one. I didn't go back, either. I brought Asheth with me instead." Leela takes Millie to the courtyard, where there's a small shrine among other small shrines, all to the various gods of people inhabiting this palace-turned-into-living-spaces. Asheth, with her four arms and all her jewellery — most of it plaster and glass, and the gold is just paint, but she is there all right. Millie cringes.

"She won't hurt you," Leela says. "She's had a life from you already, or you wouldn't be here." She takes the shivering girl back inside, lends her a silk wrap. There's more tea and sweet pastries.

Millie recovers enough to ask more questions. "Do you invite everyone? All the — retired Living Asheths?"

"Only if I think I'll like them," Leela says. "I have my sources."

A cat comes by and head-butts Millie's hand. She absently strokes it. "That can't be a Temple cat, can it?"

"I think her great-great-great-grandmother was. Or perhaps a couple more greats. I smuggled a kitten in my sleeve when I left."

Now they can bond over cats. Millie tells Leela excitedly about Proudfoot, and Throgmorten, and their kittens. It becomes a really pleasant visit. When Millie goes home with an extra stroke for the cat she's positively glowing. "Let's do this again," she says, "perhaps with some of the others, too? I'm learning to bake, I can bring something."

"I was hoping you'd say that," Leela says. "We retired goddesses should stick together."

In the courtyard, the statue of Asheth glitters, never mind that she's got no real gold or gems. She does have an expression on her face that might be only a trick of the light, or it might be a smile.