Chapter 146: And on Saturn...

LYCAON

Her death would tear a rift straight through her family’s entire coven, none of them ever accepting quietly that their talented daughter had simply gone demented without cause or warning. They would hate the royal family for it. Every Delicate who heard the eventual details would refuse to touch anything connected to this matter ever again, terror doing more work than any threat I could personally offer. That alone would shield Edelina from the scrutiny currently tightening around her like a noose. She’d better thank me properly for this particular sacrifice, once she finally understood the full shape of what I’d given up on her behalf.

I glanced at my daughter one final time before committing fully to the choice. Watching her grow into her power while remaining so thoroughly, achingly lost in the process had been entertaining in its own way, watching pieces of myself surface in her without her even recognizing them yet as mine. I didn’t particularly mind this small setback today. This era belonged to me regardless of how today concluded. Edelina would come crawling eventually to free me the moment she realized she couldn’t finish any of this alone, especially once she understood exactly what I’d sacrificed on her behalf today.

"Answer me! What did they ever do to you?"

It was Bonnie’s voice that took me out of my thoughts.

Using Willow’s voice box one final time, I let something cold, and I was certain they would find it semi-reasonable for a traitor like me, slip free. "They have the blood of traitors in them. What else could this possibly be about? Kill me if that is not enough for you."

Lysander’s voice cut in immediately, sharp with command, barely restrained panic threading beneath the authority. "Don’t kill her. We need that vile witch alive."

Something in his tone told me exactly why he cared so specifically about that outcome. I had, after all, been listening in on that Elder Circle meeting. I understood precisely what a dead Willow could mean for his own precarious position, especially if it could be spun that the girl had once again lost control. That gave me a delightful new idea, one worth pursuing regardless of what happened to this body in the next few minutes.

I’d already planted the seed carefully in Bonnie’s mind, the quiet, patient suggestion that she couldn’t fully trust this royal family, couldn’t hand them her whole unguarded self without holding something back in reserve. Now here was a new question worth testing properly, in real time. Could this man actually love her fully, trust her completely, if a single mistake of hers cost him everything he’d spent his short reign building toward?

This would help Edelina too. It would help Johann, whether he ever properly appreciated it or not. Multiple birds, one considerably messy stone.

"Okay," Bonnie said, and immediately began to release her telekinetic grip, some instinctive mercy overriding her fury the moment Lysander spoke.

It was a shame because I refused to let that outcome stand uncontested.

I held Willow’s body suspended, tight and trembling within Bonnie’s loosening telekinetic hold, and began my performance properly. In the most pathetic, broken voice I could manage, I begged. "Okay... wait... it hurts... Stop... Let me down. Please. Please, just let me down."

Then, the instant her grip slackened further, I tightened my own magic around the witch’s throat from the inside, wrapping it directly around the very gift Bonnie had cast, squeezing harder than Bonnie herself had ever intended.

Lysander rushed toward Bonnie immediately, alarm spreading fast across his face. "Madeline will contain her. Let her go, Bonnie, now."

"I am... I have," Bonnie insisted, though genuine doubt crossed her face plainly, some flicker of uncertainty over whether she was actually the one still holding this grip closed, or whether something else entirely had taken the reins from her without permission.

Poor girl. She would need me terribly after this was finished. She truly would, once she understood even a fraction of what was to come and how that man she seemed to care about would look at her.

I continued the performance, forcing Willow’s body to thrash and buck within the remaining threads of my grip while pretending it was the work of Bonnie. The performance got even better as my limbs jerked in exaggerated, theatrical desperation. "Wait," I gasped through her mouth, voice cracking convincingly. "It hurts. I’ll talk. I’ll fucking talk, just let me breathe."

Then I tightened the gift of small miracles around her own skull from within, compressing it smaller, smaller still, even as the sensation burned through me just as viciously as it did through her, the real Willow’s consciousness screaming somewhere beneath mine now, begging for a mercy I had absolutely no intention of granting her.

I didn’t stop.

My vision washed white at the edges, spreading fast, and the last thing that reached me before the borrowed body finally gave out entirely was a wet, final pop, sound and pressure collapsing together into nothing at all.

Then I was standing in the dreamy meadow again.

That false, comforting reality my own mind had built ages ago to survive the endless dish of pure wolfsbane currently dissolving my actual flesh somewhere far beneath this estate, drop by agonizing drop, day after day after day. Grass swayed gold and green around my boots, the sky stretched impossibly blue overhead, and for one merciful moment, none of it hurt at all.

I heard a whoosh beside me, the false dreamy air displacing suddenly, and I turned.

My mother stood there.

Her arms were crossed tight over her chest, her expression carved from something colder and harder than the stone that made up half this false meadow’s borrowed scenery. Those silver eyes, bright and furious, fixed directly on me without a single trace of the warmth I sometimes still, foolishly, half expected to find there.

I smiled at her anyway, wide and unbothered. "Isn’t this a surprise?"

Her frown deepened further, something ancient and thoroughly unamused moving behind those burning silver eyes.

"You monster," she said.