Page 129 of Mortdale

Her eyes widened, falling to her the heart I held in my hand. “I knew you’d come here. You came alone because you thought I’d be alone. I’m not alone anymore, Agnes. Sisters, mothers, wives, daughters. All who you’ve put in harm's way for years.”

“Don’t do it, Willow,” she crooned. “Willow, Willow, Willow.” Her smirk was taunting and twisted. “You’ll die. You know you’ll die, darling girl.” She lifted a hand forward, chasing me each step away from her. “Give it to me. Give it to me, and I’ll remove your malediction.”

I stopped. My legs almost gave out under me.

“It was you?”

“Of course it was me, you stupid girl.”

There were only so many times a heart could shatter. But now I could finally mourn myself. I could mourn my death without regret because I now knew how I’d died and who’d killed me. “Why…why would you do this to me?”

Disgust flooded her eyes. “You are the reminder of betrayal. A disgrace. Every time I looked at you, I was reminded of what your father did to me. Seeing you suffer, that made it all the better.”

Bitter tears slipped between my trembling lips. “Why not just kill me?”

“I wanted you to suffer like I did at the hands of your wretched father!” she bellowed. “He offered me to the pact like I was an animal!” She shook her head, grasping at the long, curly strands and pulling. “Bring back honour to the family, he’d said. The disgraced Briar family were given that chance—to offer their only daughter to Mortdale. My father spent all his life hunting down mutts, ensuring our kind stayed pure, only for Roderick to do this to me? And for what?” she spat, walking circles around me. “To breed more mutts which my own father had hunted down to kill all his life!”

I inhaled deeply, shaking my head. “For a curse that didn’t even exist in the first place. Right?”

She sucked in a deep breath, dragging a hand across her cheek to wipe the cold tears. “I do not resent the Bloodletting. We were always so weak and vulnerable in the hands of men. Now, we have an army. You’ve met my creatures,” she said, filling herself a glass of sherry from Logan’s cellarette. “Meridian has spent thousands of years building its very own army. Soulless puppets strung with magic. You have been a great help all these years, darling Willow, preparing all the host corpses so meticulously. Such a perfect girl.”

She circled around me, keeping her eyes on the heart in my hands. “When the vampires and humans are done slaughtering one another, I will march into Mortdale, Faegard, Grayvale, and Morngate with my puppets and claim them all. All of it will be one. One land ruled by witches. Ruled by me.”

“Where’s your daughter?”

Her face puckered with a sneer, and I jumped back when she smashed the sherry glass on the ground. “Ethel is a disgrace. The lengths I’ve gone to to disguise her putrid existence have cost me too much. I want them all gone. Gone!” she bellowed. “No more vampire half-bred mutts soiling chaos. No more halfling beasts. We need to remain pure, Willow. You have to understand that we need to remain pure.”

I froze. Shaking my head in disbelief. “No, she’s not…she’s not.”

Her fingers tangled in her dark curls, and the similarity struck me so hard I faltered a step back. “Despite how many times I’ve tried, I just couldn’t kill the brat. When she’d reach the perfect age, I would have harvested her heart. I couldn’t have her die. But how can you look at something that reminds you of your failure every day? I had to hide the half-bred freak of nature somewhere no one could find her, but still keep watch over her in case someone used her against me. I left the both of you on that orphanage’s doorstep. You were only a few weeks younger than her; I knew they’d pair and raise you together.”

“But…why did you bring me back to Crimson Weaver?”

“You have your father’s talents. Such a shame you have your mother’s face,” she said, her dark gaze ghosting down my face with so much disgust. “I knew every day of your life would be miserable and I’d be glad for it.” Glass crushed under her boots as she walked towards me. “And when you were willing to go so far to protect Ethel, I realised you would do anything I told you to do. And she listened to you. You’d keep her on track for just long enough until I could rip her ripened heart out of her chest. She stole my youth; I want it back. It’s only fair.”

Her fingers stretched in my direction. “Give me the heart. And I will fix you, Willow. I will right this wrong. And you can help me rule New Meridian—that’s what I will call it. Me and you, together.” Her mouth lifted in a sneer when the silence echoed around us. “I will kill Ethel.”

“You don’t have Ethel.”

Rage immediately infested her features. “How dare you—”

“Mirror of truth,” I whispered, grabbing a glass candelabra and smashing it against the wall. She stopped moving when I pressed the sharp edge to the heart, and said, “Mirror of the soul. Return this blessing to whomever it belongs.”

The witches, Meridian and Mortdale, clasped their hands together, locking in the curse, keeping it from leaking into the rest of the world. They chanted with me, chanted with the wind carrying the voices of a thousand witches before us.

Wind danced around us, blowing wildly, lifting glass shards and trifles all up in the air, crashing against walls and mirrors. The air burned as if the gates of Hell itself had opened beneath our feet. The heart in my hand jerked, beating again and turning red with life as blood soaked my hands, dripping to the floor and leading a trail that connected with Agnes’s feet.

“You stupid child!” she bellowed, shaking like a rabid animal when the scar on her chest tore right open, the skin peeling all the way back, rib to rib.

The world started darkening around its edges, each step becoming harder than the last. “For what you’ve suffered at the hands of your father, brother, and husband,” I told her, placing the heart in her chest, feeling my own peel apart fibre by fibre. “I am very sorry.”

“You…will…die,” she breathed as tears cascaded down her colourless face.

Tears weaved a known path down my cheeks. “But no one else will.”

She screamed. The windows shattered, spraying glass shards all over. My ears popped and my eyes stung as blood dripped down my cheeks and ears.

The women only chanted harder, containing the storm, the rage of the curse threatening to break out.