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I had to try. Right? I had to get help. It would take formidable power to contain Ally when she finally broke, and she would break. It was only a matter of time⁠—

—a broad hand closed around my throat. A heartbeat later, I was hauled back against a wall of muscle. Bergamot and embers slammed into me as the breath left my lungs and I was turned… back toward the ballroom.

“Poison is a fickle mistress, sunshine,” Adrastos breathed against my ear, so softly I strained to hear him over the cacophony. “Sloppy. Uncontrollable. Too much risk for no guaranteed reward unless, of course, the aim is to take out an entire dinner party.”

His stone grip on my jaw forced me to look. To see. A dark, humorless chuckle rumbled through my ribs and over my temple, feeding my hatred. This wasn’t entertainment.

This was devastation.

Nat always told us witches embodied both faces of the goddess. Light and dark. Life and death. Love and apathy. We were all and none. In Magnolia’s case, quite literally. I’d always understood the parable in theory. This was different. All-consuming. Too much and too little at once.

Too much. Too cruel. Too barbaric. The cries of the grieving shredded through me, as though every life lost cleaved away another piece of my soul and cast it toward the devil where murderers belonged.

Too little because…

Because I hated them.

Hated him.

Hated the image of Alvara’s broken body and the cowards too weak to face her at full power, preying instead on a half-dead woman.

Hated the memory of the prince’s return. The prodigal son who brought warriors to their knees in reverence of his ‘greatness.’ Greatness didn’t gloat. It didn’t need to. Adrastos had paraded his victory with the flourish of a bard, and they’d eaten it from his palm just as readily as they swallowed their king’s vitriol.

The world withered outside these walls while innocents died, and I hated them for it. They deserved to suffer. To hurt like the people they tortured.

That rage was hot, blue-center-of-a-flame hot, melting flesh from bone. It itched beneath my skin, writhing like worms until I wanted to claw my way out of my own body.

But he was still standing. Moros barked orders at the healers tending Marlana, snarling like the world had wronged him. A growl slipped out of me, and the motherfucker pinning me in place chuckled.

“Was that the goal, witchling?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“So, you’re not about to get yourself shot fleeing toward the cliffs?”

“No,” I breathed, the sound more a whimper.

“Because death is what waits for you outside that door, witchling. In every thread. Trust me, if there were a positive outcome, I would’ve let you take it. But I’m frankly unprepared to watch another light go out. You know no mercy will be shown tonight.”

“I was scared,” I breathed, grateful I sounded it.

“I’ll admit, I’m impressed,” he drawled. “I didn’t think you had it in you when the first threads appeared. Certainly not after five months of this docile little wallflower act, always doing as you’re told. You would’ve let Marlana fuck you earlier, wouldn’t you? In the name of survival? Put on a pretty little show if I told you it would convince them you were pliant?”

“You’re insane,” I snarled, but he only tightened his hold on my throat, my words drifting into a squeak.

“And she was innocent,” he snarled back, moving his hand to my jaw and forcing my face to the side…

Where unseeing blue eyes stared at the ceiling, blonde hair splayed around a too-perfect face. Guilt and anger detonated together in my chest.

“She was loyal. Courageous. She cared very little for her own survival—a trait you’ll find common among the changemakers of the world. And your recklessness ended her.”

Vow breaker, vow breaker, vow breaker. The words screamed louder with every repetition, my soul recoiling from the massacre. From the knives he threw so quietly only I could hear them over the tumult.

But one sentence replayed in my mind—“Apologies, slave.”—and some sick, twisted satisfaction pulled a humorless laugh from me.

“You’re mad your whore had enemies? I can’t say I’m shocked.”

“Charlotte did more for the cause than you could begin to understand.”