Page 63 of Wicked Endeavors

Gaspar turned as she stepped through the door, a triumphant smile on his face. “We’ve done it. All three potions, all three antidotes, are right here.” He gestured toward his desk, where six ornate bottles waited for her attention. Two were reaper red, two morpher white, and two crafter green. “It seemed only fair that we should take them together. After all, you should know how power truly feels before we take it all away.”

“Yeah?” Marisol couldn’t hide her smile. “You’d share this with me?”

“Of course. This is yours as much as it is mine.”

She sat down in the chair before his desk, watching him pour all three potions into a glass that he handed to her. He poured the remaining three into a glass of his own, and, instead of sitting, he leaned against his desk with a sparkle in his eye. Marisol gazed down at the liquid, which had swirled into a dull brown color, and then she looked back up at Gaspar.

He brought his cup to his lips. “Shall we?”

Marisol downed hers in three large gulps. Magic like nothing she’d ever felt swelled inside her chest, as if it was larger than her body could handle. She remembered to breathe through the ringing in her ears and the throbbing in her skull, waiting for the discomfort to pass so she could wield her new powers.

Seconds turned to minutes, and it didn’t pass.

Her breathing grew shallow. Her muscles grew weak. Her vision blurred, and, when she blinked the dizziness away, she was on the ground. Her chair was tipped over as if she’d fallen from it, and the back of her head ached where she must have hit it against the floor. Her heart felt as if someone had reached inside her chest to squeeze it, every painful thump a warning that she was dying.

“Gas… par…” she managed, words burning her throat. “It’s… too much…”

But her guardian was not on the floor with her, she realized when she tried to reach for him. He was in the same place against the desk, his empty glass next to him, watching her with cold fascination.

Marisol’s heart stung in a completely different way. “You… lied…?”

“I find it makes people more likely to do as I wish,” he said, his voice alternately too loud and too soft as her headache grew worse. “Each of your potions contained a slow-acting poison. For what it’s worth, there were times when I thought I might keep you around, but your youthful rage has made a mess at every step. You are weak. A liability in the grand scheme of things.”

Marisol felt herself cracking into a thousand pieces, and it wasn’t just the poison. “But… I thought… You trained me…”

“I have had years to plan, to think.” He glanced toward the bookshelves, as if he couldn’t bear to look at her. “There was no amount of time I wouldn’t invest, no amount of money I wouldn’t waste, in order to form a weapon against the witches. You went where I couldn’t without my absence being noticed, and you’ve served your purpose. Now you know too much, and you act too erratically. I don’t need another child, Marisol. I need a blade, and you’ve dulled yourself.”

That’s not my name, she thought. Somehow, it was even more painful to know that he had killed her without even giving her the decency of dying as anything other than what he’d made her.

“With the Crown Coven in place, King Alvaro will be able to drain the witches bearing the mark of their magic, neutralizing them as a threat.” Gaspar picked up the two glasses. “And with these potions, he’ll be able to give himself and his supporters that lost magic. We’ll be the most powerful country on the continent, and we’ll soon be the largest empire in history. Meanwhile, I have been named Witch-hunter General, leader of the inquisitions into their crimes. They will answer for the deaths of my family at last. They will pay.”

He stepped over her as though she was little more than trash. Marisol was transported back to House Muerte, to how Bas and Teo had tried to warn her that King Alvaro and Gaspar had their own plans. At the time, she’d thought they had just been trying to manipulate her, to get her to agree that their decision to go rogue was somehow for the best so close to the finish line. But Gaspar had never planned to just depower the witches. He planned to become one, and then he planned to kill the rest.

She was such a fool.

Tears burned her eyes. “Did you… ever… love me? Even… even a little?”

Gaspar paused by the door. “I need to go to the Palacio Real to uphold my end of the bargain.” When he looked at her over his shoulder, his expression was remote. He could have been looking at a wall, for all the emotion he was displaying. “Try not to vomit on my floor.”

Then he was gone, and she was nothing.

Again.

Too frail to even turn her head, she let the tears fall. Teo had claimed to care for her, but he had created the Crown Coven on behalf of his family. Bas had claimed he hadn’t wanted to hurt her, but he’d been a member of the Criterion, working to undermine her at every step. Noelia had claimed to be her friend, but she’d also been a rebel, allowing them to be attacked in broad daylight just to pass supplies to her allies. Now Gaspar…

A scream was trapped in her throat.

Everyone she’d ever trusted had left or betrayed her. She had loved people who didn’t exist; like the Seawards, who smiled at her over dinner while torturing her friend beneath the palace; or people who were glad to be rid of her, like the children and the matrons at Kindred. Her parents were dead. Rodrigo was dead.

Marisol Vinyet was dead.

She wanted to be angry. Anger was safe and motivating. But her body had gone numb and the only thing she had room for was despair.

She was a fool, a fool, a complete and utter fool.

And now she would die like one.

MARISOL AWOKE WITH A GASP. HER CHEEK STUNG, which was a new enough sensation that her failing pain receptors had registered the complaint. She must have been dead already, because she was still in the study of Ruiz’s house in Alta Lira, but it was Noelia Galvan who was hovering over her with a raised hand and a determined scowl.