She smiled. Sylvia’s eyes narrowed in confusion.
“I didn’t,” Katherine said. “No one could stop this. Because you’re too much of a lonely, insecure little—”
Katherine was thrown again, but this time, she put all of her weight into yanking her body in the opposite direction, using the momentum to tug herself out of the magical ropes. She rolled as soon as she landed, hiding behind the bar to avoid Sylvia’s next wave of power.
“You’re just delaying the inevitable,” Sylvia snarled, the click of her shoes the only noise in the room. Katherine slid herself across the floor, pushing open the door just as Sylvia rounded the corner. She dodged another blast of magic as she bolted into the kitchen, slashing her palm on the sharp edge of the latch and slamming it against the frame as she performed a locking spell.
She knew it wouldn’t buy her much time—Sylvia’s power blasted through her work in seconds. But she only needed a moment to grab one of the heavy cast-iron pans and line it up for a slug at Sylvia’s head. Sylvia reeled back, her hand going to her temple, where a trickle of blood poured down from her split skin.
“What the fuck, Katherine?”
“You’re okay with murder, but you draw the line at hitting someone with a pan?”
“Yes!”
Katherine used her makeshift weapon to block Sylvia’s next burst of power, but she lost it in the process, the metal melting in her grip. She threw the useless lump aside and instead grabbed a butcher knife, running the sharp blade along her palm as Sylvia rushed at her. A blue rune lit up on her hand as the accoutrements from Tess’ latest meal flew off the counter at Sylvia, pots, pans, and cutlery knocking her to her knees.
Katherine wanted to fall too. Every part of her felt broken, and with her body in this shape, the few spells she’d done were already enough to push her near the bottom of her depleted magic stores. But there was no quitting until this was done. She scanned the kitchen, searching for something else she could use. She dove for the stove, turning on one of the burners and forcing out a Class 1 spell for a blast of wind to send the fire at Sylvia. But it was useless—all it took was a wave of her hand for Sylvia to dispel the attack, Katherine’s hopes of ending this turning to steam with it.
“Give it up, Katherine. You can’t beat me.”
Sylvia stalked toward Katherine, another ball of power at the ready.Her body lurched as she moved, pulled along by the sheer brute force of her will. Any other witch would have fallen by now, but Sylvia was not just any witch. She was relentless in pursuing the things she wanted. It was one of the things Katherine had admired most about her. Of course, that was until the thing she wanted was seeing Katherine dead.
Katherine didn’t have the energy left for another spell. She slashed out with the knife instead, catching Sylvia’s hand. Sylvia backhanded her, the force of it sending her makeshift caster clattering to the floor.
Katherine heaved, trying to find the energy to reach for the knife again, to make another cut, to try something, anything, but she couldn’t. All she could do was stay there on her hands and knees, waiting as the ropes of Sylvia’s power wrapped around her again.
Sylvia’s magic lifted her, throwing her through the wall of the kitchen back into the dining room. She heard something in her crack as she was tossed across the ground, slamming into tables and chairs. She couldn’t even distinguish where the pain was coming from anymore—her body was one massive ache.
She wasn’t going to last long enough like this. She needed to—
Another ball of power slammed into her, landing right at the center of her chest, where the skin was already raw and bleeding from the magical ropes. For a moment, Katherine just stared at the sparks that flew off it, marveling at their strange beauty.
Then the agony hit.
Sylvia stalked toward her again, and Katherine couldn’t even begin to move out of the way. Her heart felt like it had been struck by lightning, her chest like it had been trampled by a herd of elephants. This, she was sure, was the end. There was no way a person’s body could survive this much abuse.
Sylvia’s face loomed over her, her hand raising, filled with magic.
Katherine hoped she’d done enough. She hoped that Sylvia was weak enough now to take down. She hoped Fiona would be okay. She hoped someone would take care of Cheez-It. She hoped her parents found peace, even though they’d never know what happened to their daughter.
She closed her eyes and waited for death to come.
CHAPTER FORTY-THREE
Sylvia stood over Katherine, primed for the execution, and she hesitated.
Her mind was splintered, the amount of magic she was using cleaving something fundamental from her sanity. She felt torn between the past and the present, the agony of trying to pull magic when she had barely any left calling back to the time after she had first settled, pushing herself to the brink trying to chase expectations she could never catch. She wanted to kill Katherine, to erase the last person who had ever loved her, but she couldn’t stop thinking of herself as a lonely young girl, sitting in a tiny room in Pennsylvania waiting for someone to check on her, knowing they never would.
Katherine lay on the floor beneath her, struggling to get up. She reached her hand and gripped Sylvia’s, blood from their cuts mingling. Sylvia knew it was to try to drag her down too, but she couldn’t help but match that image to Katherine reaching out to her from the bus bench, all of her trust placed in the woman who promised she’d save her.
Sylvia was cracking, so overloaded with magic that she couldn’t pull up the mental wall that kept everything that needed to stay locked away out. The wall that helped her hide her past where it belonged, so she could focus entirely on moving forward. Upward. Every bit of power she used tore her apart further, and yet she couldn’t make herself stop.
This was not the first time she had not been able to make herself stop.
That night, she had been worried that the pounding of her heart would give her away. She was sure, as she led Lily into that bathroom, that it was louder than all of the other noises of Halloween revelry at Hollywood and Highland. Lily must be able to sense it, must wonder why Sylvia’s body was thrumming with anticipation.
But the girl hadn’t said anything. Not as Sylvia locked the door behind them. Not as she pulled her caster out of her pocket, letting its familiar weight settle in her palm. Not as she flicked the blade out, the fluorescent lights glinting across its sharp edge.
