“But it was a bonus, right?”
Sylvia’s silence was all the response Katherine needed.
“You know how traumatic a snap can be,” Katherine said, her voice low. “How the consequences will haunt him for the rest of his life. And you chose to force that pain on someone else.”
“He could have been strong enough to stop it. I was.”
Katherine’s teeth ground. “Snaps are not because of weakness.”
Another shrug. Katherine wanted to reach out and smash Sylvia’s shoulders down.
“Agree to disagree,” Sylvia said, as casual as if she were discussing the weather. “I gave Silas the weapon; he’s the one who discharged it. I consider it payback. For the trauma his family has inflicted on so many unsettled witches.”
“An eye for an eye leaves the whole world blind.”
“I never knew you to be one for clichés, Katherine,” Sylvia said teasingly. Like this was just a game.
“And I never knew you to be one for murder. Guess we all change.”
Sylvia leaned back in her seat. “You don’t understand what it was like, Katherine. I fought for so long to get here, and it was all being ripped away. My body was betraying me. My magic is the only thing that ever gave me any value. The only thing that made me worthwhile to those people. To lose that, to go back to who I was before I got this power… I couldn’t do it.”
Sylvia sighed. “I didn’t mean for this to go this way.” Her voice was so quiet that Katherine had to strain to hear, almost as if she was talking to herself. Trying to convince herself that what she was saying was true. “I knew there was a risk that the spell would kill her, but I thought… I don’t know what I thought. I guess I thought I was better than that. I thought I could do it right.”
She looked up at Katherine, tears forming in the corners of her eyes. Katherine shifted in her seat, unsure if this display of emotion was real or not.
“I have one goal, and that goal hasn’t changed,” Sylvia said. “I want to help unsettled witches. This power will help me do that. What happened with Vikrant will help me do that.”
She pinned Katherine with a look. “You can still help me do that.”
Sylvia stared at Katherine, willing her to make the right choice.
She had recognized a kindred spirit in Katherine all those years ago. The girl she found on that bus bench had been young, dirty, and exhausted, but she’d looked at Sylvia with the fire and determination of someone who didn’t know the meaning of giving up. She had fought to wrangle her unsettled magic, fought to move past the trauma ingrained in her, fought to make a world where no one would have to go through that again.
Sylvia loved her. Admired her.
And she’d ruin her, if that’s what she needed to do to make this world hers.
Katherine leaned forward, as far as the ropes would allow her. Her eyes went soft, her gaze meeting Sylvia’s, and for a second, hope surged.
Until Katherine whispered: “Absolutely fucking not.”
Well.
She’d predicted this, she reminded herself. Deep down, Sylvia knew as soon as she walked into that bathroom with Lily that she was giving Katherine up. The distance that had been growing between them, those small inches of space that were clawed away every time Sylvia bent the rules to keep the coven afloat—they became a chasm as soon as Lily’s blood touched Sylvia’s hands.
But the cut was too familiar. Too close to that moment when she was twenty-three years old, when her best friend in the world told her that she was worthless. Years of gluing the pieces of her heart back together, and now it shattered again.
She wouldn’t give Katherine the satisfaction of knowing how deep her knife went in.
Her eyes shuttered, her face hardening. “I’m sad to hear that.”
“Are you?” Katherine forced herself further forward, her eyes narrowing. “Do I still matter to you? Does anyone?”
“I am sacrificingmysoul so that unsettled witches can have a better future!” Sylvia yelled, too raw to keep from exploding. “That’s what a leader does. I put my emotions aside so that I can do what I have to.”
“You put your emotions aside?” Katherine scoffed. “I think you don’t feel them at all. I think something inside of you is fucking broken.”
“At least I can get through the day. At least I don’t bury myself in guilt until I can’t accomplish a damn thing. Do you think that makes you strong?”
