The witch's words confirm my darkest suspicions. She actively feeds on the destruction of our kind, nourishing herself on our suffering.
Mira straightens her spine despite the pain it clearly causes her. "I learned my lesson the hard way," she says, her voice ringing with newfound clarity. "I broke free from the Council's rigid control. I finally see the world for what it is. But you? You are truly evil. You sit in the dark and prey upon the desperate, offering false hope while feeding on their despair."
I swim forward and grip Mira's arm, pulling her back as Oona's face twists into an expression of pure malevolence.
I turn, my body shielding Mira from the witch's sight. "We are leaving," I declare, the words carving through the water. "There is nothing for us here."
Oona's smile is a gummy crescent in the gloom. "Yes, swim away, little fish." Her voice is a wet, slithering thing. "You should have died from the potion. Your very breath is an insult."
Her attention travels over Mira. "Ten years, perhaps? If you're lucky," Oona purrs, relishing the cruelty. "The Abyssal Draught is a gift that keeps on taking. You are already a ghost, waiting for the shell to crumble."
A fire ignites in my gut, hot and immediate. My pupils expand, swallowing my irises as my vision sharpens.
"You parasitic growth," I snarl, the sound cracking the silence like a whip. It rattles the rows of glass prison-trophies on the shelves.
Oona's chin lifts, a challenge in her milky eyes. "And what will you do, beast? Kill me? Prove her right?"
My muscles bunch, a coiled spring of fury. Every instinct screams to lunge, to tear, to feel her life cease between my teeth.
But I hold fast, a dam against the torrent of rage.
"Karma is a current far stronger than you," I rumble. "And I... I do not need to be the hand that drowns you."
"But I do," Mira whispers, her voice a sliver of ice.
I glance down.
The frailty is gone, replaced by a terrifying clarity in her eyes. She is a flicker of movement, a flash of gray skin.
She lunges, not at Oona, but at a shelf of glowing blue concoctions. Her hand closes around a heavy vial.
With a scream that is equal parts pain and triumph, she hurls it against the central pillar of the cavern.
It detonates.
A violent, sizzling bloom of white foam erupts from the impact point, a cloud of chemical rage that dissolves the very water around it. The acrid scent of burnt magic fills the space.
Oona shrieks, a sound of genuine terror, her silver mirror clattering to the floor.
"My work! You fool!"
Mira is already moving. She sweeps an entire row of jars from a low shelf. Glass shatters. Preserved organs, strange floating appendages, and foul-smelling brine erupt into the water, a chaotic soup of stolen lives.
"Stop!"Oona screeches, scrambling forward like a crab. Her fingers latch onto Mira's shoulder, digging in with a sound that makes my heart drop.
Mira screams.
My arm shoots out, a blur of motion. I grip the loose, clammy flesh at the nape of Oona's neck and wrench her backward.
I throw her, sending her crashing into the far wall of the cave with a sickening crunch.
A small shower of brittle bones and dust cascades from the impact point.
Mira gasps for breath, a raw, ragged sound, but her eyes are burning. She turns to me, a wild, unhinged grin splitting her face.
"She doesn't know," the words tear from her throat, a trembling finger stabbing the air. "She's no alchemist. No Witch. Just a greedy, soul-sucking con artist sitting on a hoard of stolen shine. I used to want to be like her—like Vaelis, Thalos, Persephone with the perfect hair—"
"I don't understand," the words leave me in a rush.
