It had been a spur-of-the-moment decision to do this, ultimately. Sylvia had been trying to convince herself for months that she could move on, pass the coven to Katherine and go play bridge and complain about her sciatica at some shitty rec center in the Valley with all the other retired witches until she finally bit the bullet and drove herself off a bridge.
But then Silas walked in with his mother’s eyes and his father’s hair and his own dickish pompousness, and she knew. Knew that her coven, her legacy, was no longer hers. Knew that everything she had worked for would be taken away from her and systematically destroyed.
Knew that the solution to all of that was standing right in front of her.
“Are you sure you want to do this?”
Lily had nodded, not a moment of hesitation. “Yes, I’m sure. I just want this gone. Ineedit gone.”
Well, then. If they were both sure.
Sylvia breathed in deeply, drawing the energy of the surrounding crowd close to her chest. She slid the blade of her caster along her palm, catching the reflection of her drawn lips in the metal as her skin opened. It barely even hurt anymore, this cut. She was so used to it, so used to the sight of the blood burbling out of her body.
“I’ll need to cut you as well.”
Her hand shook as she held it out, but Lily didn’t seem to notice. She was so eager to have her power gone that she couldn’t sense Sylvia’sechoing desperation. Want drowned out want, Lily’s fear of the unknown masking the true danger right in front of her.
Lily let out a harsh breath as the knife sliced into her hand. Cried out as Sylvia drew their palms tightly together. Started to question what Sylvia was doing before her words were cut off on a sharp gasp as the red of their mixing blood glowed with the light of magic.
There was no spell for this. No rune absorbed from some Noctis-sanctioned trash. All Sylvia had to do waspull.
Not on Lily’s physical body, but on the roiling coil of power inside of her. Sylvia’s blood gave it a path out, and it didn’t just take it—it ran for it at top speed, bolting away from the girl who had rejected it toward the woman who would do anything to have it back.
The effect was instantaneous. Sylvia felt like she was floating, air and heat andpowersuffusing her. Within moments, she was filled, overflowing, and she knew. Knew that she could stop and that this would be more than enough. Knew that all of her problems—her waning magic, her inability to keep the coven running, her worries about being replaced—would go away. Knew that if she pulled away now, Lily would survive this.
She could try to convince her guilt that Lily’s death was an accident, but she knew the truth. In that moment, she made a choice.
Enough was only enough if she limited her expectations. There was always somewhere more to go. Always more to take.
She grabbed Lily’s arm and scored another cut before the girl could react. Lily’s knees buckled as Sylvia yanked her closer, but Sylvia’s fingers dug into her arm, forcing her upright, forcing their arms back together. The coil inside the girl was gone, but Sylvia kept pulling, yanking at every scrap of magic she could find.
“Please,” Lily managed to say. “Please, I don’t want to die.”
Lily’s eyes had welled with tears that dripped down her still-baby-fat-laden cheeks. There wasn’t a mark on her, no scars or wrinkles or laugh lines. Nothing to suggest that she had actuallylived.
Sylvia lived. Every day, she lived. Fought for it. Clawed for it.
And now, killed for it.
She looked down at the bleeding, crying girl, and she smiled. “Think of this as a lesson. This is what happens when you give up your power.”
Sylvia pulled more, and this time, when Lily’s body collapsed, Sylvia let her fall. Sylvia cut again, and again, and pulled, and pulled, until Lily got her wish.
Until all that was left of her was the magic running through Sylvia’s veins.
Until the life she could have had—her friends, her lovers, her enemies, the lines that would have developed on that innocent, unmarred face—vanished into the ether.
At Sunspot, Sylvia looked down at Katherine, another girl crumpled on the floor in front of her. Katherine still had Sylvia’s hand clasped weakly in her own, a fucked-up reminder of the trust that Sylvia had broken.
She had been so hopeful when she first found Katherine. So sure that she could make a difference, that she could change the world without having to sacrifice any part of herself.
Life beat that out of her pretty quickly.
She had made bad choices. She was not the good guy.
But if she couldn’t be a hero, then she was going to be a damn good villain.
She closed her eyes. Gave herself a moment to imagine herself as she once was, standing on the doorstep of her sixth-floor walk-up in Hell’s Kitchen, a knife being pressed into her hand by a girl who said every day could be Christmas. And then she looked at her hand, still held in Katherine’s, and started to pull it away to do the spell to end Katherine’s life.
