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Ruby and Martha looked at Lucinda, tears welling up in their bug eyes. “Circe isn’t the fairies’ creature!”
“Of course she is!” spat Lucinda. “She’s turned against us for the love of Nanny and her horrible sister, the Fairy Godmother. They’ve asked her to be an honorary wish-granting fairy. Our Circe, an honorary fairy! After everything they did to Maleficent? How could Circe even conceive of the idea? She is a witch! Honored by the gods and conceived of the three. There is no way I will let her be tainted by the fairies. And there is no way I will allow them to use our daughter while they sit in judgment of us. I can’t believe you would be content in just waiting! Waiting? Have you lost all your senses? What has happened to you, my sisters?” Ruby and Martha looked at Lucinda sheepishly, finally answering.
“You happened to us!”
“What madness is this? What have I done?”
“You told us we must try to be better witches for Circe. Now you want to kill everyone she loves!” Ruby said.
Martha chimed in. “You insisted we speak properly, stop meddling, and make all our decisions with Circe in mind.”
Ruby took over again. “You said making her happy would be the only way to get her back, Lucinda! And we want her back! We want her back!”
Martha joined her sister’s chant. “We want her back!” Ruby and Martha stamped their feet, spinning in circles, and ripped at their tattered bloodstained dresses, their voices growing louder with every revolution. “We want her back! We want her back!”
Lucinda stood twitching before her sisters. “Stop this at once! I won’t have these theatrics!” She stood there, looking at her hysterical sisters in their ruined dresses, tattered and torn, barely clinging their thin, frail bodies. She didn’t even have the power to give them something decent to wear. Even the most mundane non-magical person in the dreamscape had the power to change their clothing, but Circe had taken everything from them. Including their dignity.
Still, Lucinda knew her sisters were right. She had said those things. How was she going to make Ruby and Martha understand it was time to change their methods? Time to be the powerful witches they were? At long last, it was time to leave the dreamscape and reclaim their rightful place in their own lands. But Lucinda wasn’t sure her sisters were ready to hear the truth, so she kept it to herself. Her sisters had always been fragile, but she feared for their sanity now more than ever.
She had been keeping a secret from them for their entire lives. To tell them now would almost surely mean disaster. It was a secret she hoped even Circe wouldn’t learn. As much as she loved her sisters, she knew their wills were too weak to keep something like this to themselves. Oh, they knew part of the story. But they didn’t know the most important part, and it could destroy them all if Circe found out. And that was why more than anything they needed to get out of this place. They needed to destroy Gothel’s library.
“Sisters, listen, I am the eldest. I need you to trust that I know best.”
Her two sisters started to laugh. “Oh, Lucinda knows best!” cackled Ruby and Martha. “Lucinda knows best! Did you hear that?”
“Sisters, please. Use all your will and try to listen to me! This is important!” But Ruby and Martha kept mocking their sister with their chant.
“Lucinda knows best, Lucinda knows best!” Without her magic, Lucinda was forced to put her hands on her sisters, taking each of them firmly by the neck and lifting them off their feet to dangle like helpless rag dolls.
“You will stop this at once and listen to me!” The room started to rattle and shake, causing the mirrors to vibrate and bow until they nearly shattered. Lucinda released her sisters to the ground, where Martha clung to Ruby in fear.
“What’s happening? Lucinda, stop! We will listen to you!”
“Oh, Lucinda, we are sorry! Please stop this!”
Lucinda went rigid, silently considering the room. Considering the mirrors. Something was wrong. She searched each mirror for the witch she was certain lurked behind one of them.
The room continued to shake. “Lucinda, please!” Ruby and Martha clung to each other. “We promise to do whatever you say! Don’t break our mirrors, it’s all we have!”
“This isn’t my magic, you fools. We have no magic here! Now get back! Behind me, now!” Lucinda pushed her sisters behind her and stretched out her arms.
She hissed, “Reveal yourself now, witch!”
The mirrors in the chamber trembled, filling with green flames.
“It’s Maleficent!” screamed Ruby. “She’s back! She’s found her way out of the darkness! She’s crossed the veil without our help! Oh, I knew she was strong!”
The flames grew, so bright and hot they seemed about to jump out of the mirrors and into the room itself. Then a face appeared from the flames, reflected in every surface. It was pale, with large beautiful dark eyes. She looked exactly as the odd sisters remembered her so many years earlier.
It wasn’t Maleficent.
“It’s Grimhilde!” the three sisters said at once.
“Hello, foul witches.” Her voice echoed from every mirror in the chamber. Ruby and Martha spun in circles, trying to figure out which of the many reflections was the real Grimhilde and which were illusions.
“Sisters! She is there,” Lucinda said, pointing at the mirror directly in front of them. The old queen Grimhilde looked more striking than Lucinda remembered.
Cold. Steely. Beautiful.
