Page 91 of Malicent
These are young girls who haven’t bled yet, their magic still dormant. They’re heavily guarded. Witch fertility is fragile, and many never conceive. Because witches aren’t created like humans, conception is rare. When a pregnancy does occur, the coven treats it as sacred. The child is raised communally and treasured like royalty.
The carriage ride is quiet for a while, but I remember how odd this is, as Felix never shuts up.
“Have you ever been to another coven? You know, outside your own?”
She shakes her head. “I have not.”
I already knew that. Her little imp-fueled meltdown told me as much. I’m still curious. “Why not? Witches not very social?”
“We’re not,” she says simply. “Not with anyone outside our covens. It’s been that way since the days of creation…when we were hunted—young and vulnerable. Or so the old texts say. Trust kept us alive. Over time, we grew stronger.”
She pauses. There’s something more behind her silence. I feel it.
A temptation rises in me.
Right now, I’m Felix. She won’t have her guard up the same way she would around me. I could slip into her mind, quietly. I’ll pull at the answers I want.
I don’t, but not because I don’t want to. Ido—so badly it burns.
If I go digging, I won’t stop. I know that. I’ll strip her thoughts raw, clawing at every buried truth until I find what I want: why they tortured a child.
I want to know if they still did it to others.
Violating her would feel like justice. Like revenge.
She’s not Nora.
I remind myself of that, even as my thoughts twist and warp to make her into the woman who haunts me. Millicent moves, and I see Nora in her. She speaks, and I hear Nora’s venom. My mind finds patterns—just enough to justify the hatred, to make it feel right.
I want to be right.
I want to end Millicent just to take something from Nora and make her feel what I felt. I want to strip her of the only witch in history with two magics coursing through her blood.
Felix said he never pried. So, I don’t. Instead, I ask her everything else I can think of.
Did she like the palace? The food? Her room?
She answers, polite and composed. I learn she’s been spending a lot of time in Iris’s lab, assisting her. Her only complaint is the lack of training.
“Kalix or Cage would train with you. I can easily command it,” I say casually, knowing Felix would do whatever he could to meet her needs, as he does for everyone.
She chews on her bottom lip in contemplation, and my eyes flick to the movement before I can stop them, the sight causing my jaw to tense slightly.
When she finally releases it, swollen from the pressure, she looks out the window and murmurs, “I’ll think about it. Thank you.”
Thank you? So, shedoeshave manners. Maybe all I need is golden hair and a king’s smile to earn a little respect around here.
We were just children when those deaths occurred at her coven that night. It wasn’t something I did on purpose. It was self-defense. A loss of control, yes, but not malice.
I buried the guilt a long time ago. Can’t she let it die too?
She should accept her coven’s failings, as well as her own, and maybe—just maybe—treat me like I deserve a sliver of decency.
I catch myself pouting and quickly glance away, fixing my eyes on the landscape outside the window, hoping the passing trees will distract me from the ache still buried in my chest.
She can make me her monster.
I am what they created after all. My sympathies slithered from gaping wounds long ago, until there was nothing left—until the world was black—and I didn’t even think I had any blood left.
