Beatriz

Beatriz clutches Daphne to her chest, the weight bringing her to her knees. She lays Daphne down gently, trying to focus past her panic, on the dagger sticking out of Daphne's stomach.

"Don't remove it," Cliona says through gritted teeth from a few feet away. She's managed to sit upright, the bloody stump of her wrist wrapped up in the skirt of her gown. She's pale, sweat covering her face in a glassy sheen, but she's alive.

"I know," Beatriz snaps. "Can you untie them?" She nods toward Pasquale and Ambrose.

"Don't worry about us," Pasquale says. "Get help for Daphne."

"From whom?" Beatriz asks. She's sure the guards will be quick to switch sides now that the empress has fallen, but Beatriz knows her sister won't survive the journey upstairs. She looks down at Daphne's slack face, touching her hand to her sister's cheek.

She can't die,Beatriz thinks. Not after all of this. If she does, what is the point of winning? Of saving a world without Daphne in it?

Cliona moves to crouch beside her, Daphne between them. She examines the wound with a shrewd eye, but when she doesn't speak, Beatriz knows exactly what she sees.

"It's fatal," she says. "Isn't it?"

"Yes," Cliona says, her own voice tight with tears. "Yes, it's fatal."

It isn't fair,Beatriz thinks. None of this is fair.

"Beatriz," a voice whispers through her mind. Violie.

"Not now," Beatriz snaps.

"Just listen—whatever you're doing, we're coming."

"Too late, unless you have a miracle."

"We do," Violie says.

Beatriz tightens her grip on her sister, holding her tight as Violie tells her the plan they're enacting, giving Beatriz a choice, though Violie doesn't realize the true choice she's giving.

She doesn't need to use magic to destroy her mother—Daphne took care of that. But she can use magic to save Daphne, wishing on the sun to heal her. If she does that, it will cost her the last of her humanity. If she saves her sister, she will die. She knows this deep in her bones.

Looking down at Daphne's face, her expression slack, her chest rising and falling in shallow breaths, Beatriz realizes it isn't a choice at all.

"Do it," she says through gritted teeth.