Page 153 of The Blood Witch

Vee didn’t say anything, so she went on.

“I’ve been a doll my whole life. I didn’t even realize. What you told me that night? How I was just a puppet? You were right. I’ve always let people use me. Including you.”

Vee opened her mouth to speak, but Amalia cut her off, quickly. She needed to do this, needed to get the words out.

Not for Vee, but for herself.

“I came down here because I wanted to thank you,” she said, staring into those beautiful green eyes.

“Thank me?” Vee asked, sounding amused. Her lips quirked up into a smile.

“Yes,” Amalia insisted. Her stomach twisted. Vee had the most beautiful smile she’d ever seen. Even now. Even when it hurt to look at her. “Thank you for telling me and thank you for helping break me free of it.”

She’d been feeling stronger lately. So much stronger. Like the elements inside her had been dormant, pushed down by something heavy until she could barely reach them. But now? Amalia let that power fill her, just a little, just enough to give her the strength to say what she needed to say.

She only needed to say this once.

“I’m done being a doll,” she said. Something crackled in her voice. Fire, she thought. “I’m done letting anyone else control me. I wanted to thank you for trying to break me, Vivian. Because you showed me how strong I really am. And I won’t be broken so easily. Not by you. Not by anyone.”

Amalia couldn’t identify the emotion she saw on Vee’s face, but she didn’t need to. She found she no longer cared. With a final nod of her head, she turned to leave.

“I wouldn’t have done it, you know,” Vee called out after her, shifting forward in her cell. Amalia stopped, turning back with a frown.

“Hurt you, I mean,” Vee explained. She chewed her lip, as though nervous. “I was bluffing when I told them I would… I wouldn’t have actually hurt you if it came down to that. You… you know that, right?”

Amalia’s chest tightened.

“Vee,” she said in a quiet voice. Vee looked up at her, and Amaliaheld that beautiful gaze. She believed what she was saying. Believed she wouldn’t have taken it any further. Believed, with all her heart, that she would have never done anything to hurt Amalia.

Amalia sighed.

“Youdidhurt me, Vee,” she said.

The look of pain that flashed in Vivian’s eyes should have meant something.

But it didn’t.

This time, when Amalia left, she didn’t look back.

Chapter 75

FEY

“Gather around, everyone,” Fey shouted, waving her arms at the crowd gathered on the Solare lawn and beckoning them closer. Today, at least, the group was smaller than usual. Most of her students with any power over Fire were with Joy and Sana today, learning the careful art of drawing sigils.

Their skills would be invaluable to the realm, in the coming months. They needed to conduct more testing, of course, but Joy’s hunch had been right. Whether from centuries of breeding with Witches, or some other hidden similarity between the two Factions, roughly half of all the Shifters they’d tested so far responded to Witch sigils. Not just the Shifters, either. A quarter of the Demons brought in were the same. Suddenly, broken bones and previously deadly diseases that had plagued the Fallen Factions were not only survivable, but easily treatable with the addition of a single healing sigil.

In one single morning, Sana and Joy had uncovered a miracle that could save thousands of lives every year. And they were working tirelessly to train the Witches necessary to ensure every Witch, Demon, and Shifter in the realm were given the opportunity to receive a healing sigil, if they so chose.

But that was their fight, andtheir legacy.

Fey’s legacy was here. With her students.

“Today we’ll be working with Air,” Fey announced, watching as some of the students preened, eagerly. The Air Witches were always thrilled to show off their skills. “We will be breaking into smaller teams, so?—”

Fey stopped.

There was a new face in the crowd this morning, one Fey recognized immediately. She had been waiting for her to show up for a long, long, time now.

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