Chapter 57

Chapter 57

L ilith was fast, and the blast of power she released was strong enough to singe the wallpaper as it flooded the room. She was fast. But Fey was faster, and she had been ready. Since the moment the reality of Lilith's past hit her, Fey had been ready for an attack.

Fey flung herself backwards, scrambling over the couch, putting it between her and Lilith mere moments before the wave of Fire struck. Heat roared around her, crackling in the air as it passed above her.

This was bad . Fey had beaten Lilith in combat practice before, but she'd lost far more times than she'd won. Lilith was a better fighter, plain and simple.

But Fey was stronger. And if she had a plan….

"I'm honestly shocked no one figured it out before now," Lilith was saying. She sounded calm, almost bored. "Alice even met me ; can you believe that? Before they knew I only had the power over Fire, when she was first inducted into the Blades." She laughed a dry, humorless laugh. "Can you imagine? She met me and she still didn't put it together when they made me a Blade. Still didn't recognize me."

Fey scrambled to find a way out, looking left and right around the room. Merle's favorite chair had caught fire, and Fey was relieved to find it empty. Wherever the cat was, she hoped he was smart enough to stay there until this was over.

"Come out, Fey," Lilith sighed. She hadn't moved from her spot in the kitchen. "Stop hiding behind the furniture, it's beneath you. Come out and let's end this. Face me like a real Witch."

"We don't have to do this, Lilith," Fey replied, but the words sounded desperate, even to her ears.

Lilith sighed loudly. "Yeah, we do. And you know we do. This isn't a negotiation, Fey. You know what's going to happen, here."

Fey shifted in her crouch, looking around her for options. The couch was burning at her back, and she'd need to make a move soon.

"Did you really think I was going to let you kill our Queen, Fey?" Lilith asked, in a cold jeering voice. "My aunt ? You took the same oaths I did." She snorted a nasal laugh. "I should have known from the start you couldn't be trusted…"

"What if you do have the power, Lilith?" Think, Fey, think. You're running out of time. "You know what they've been doing—we have the antidote, why don't you try?—"

A blast of fire hit the couch again, jolting it closer and causing Fey to scramble away with a hiss.

"You don't fucking get it ," Lilith was shouting over the crackling sounds of the flames as they devoured the fabric and wood frame of the couch. "They wanted me to have power, Fey. I could have been Queen . They never gave me anything to take my power away. Why would they? My mother would have been thrilled if I could have wielded all four. The realm would have been thrilled if I'd wielded all four. They didn't take anything from me, I was already broken ."

Fuck . Lilith was moving now, making her way to the couch. Fey was out of time.

"Your fucking antidote won't work on me. This is who I am. What I am."

"It's not your fault," Fey heard herself say, but her mind was elsewhere. Think think think . "So what if you don't have all four elements? That didn't give them the right to treat you like you don't even exist. To make you a Blade instead of a Princess. That's not fair."

Lilith laughed. "Yeah, well, life's not fair, is it, sister? That's something you never understood. We all have to make sacrifices, for the good of the realm, even if they don't feel fair."

"Is that what they told you?" Fey asked, her voice mocking. "That you had to make sacrifices? Is that what they told you when they took everything away from you? Your past, your crown, your identity ?"

The Fire in the room stilled and pulled back, just a fraction—the only indication that Lilith was preparing to strike. Fey felt it, felt that shift in the balance of Fire in the room, and knew she had to strike first.

Her time was up.

Fey leapt from behind the couch, sending a blast of air at Lilith. Her face registered a look of surprise before the blast hit her, sending her flying back against the wall.

It was the only chance to escape she would get, and Fey took it, rolling to her feet and racing across the room as fast as she could, hurtling toward the door, toward the hallway.

The blast of fire hit her back like a bullet, and Fey twisted and fell hard against the ground.

It wasn't a wave, like Lilith had thrown at her before. It was precise, and practiced, and it knocked the air right out of Fey's body.

"I expected better from you," Lilith spat, walking slowly toward her. Fey tried to move, but only managed to roll to her side on the ground, struggling to draw a proper breath. "But you won't even fight me? You're just going to run, like a fucking coward?"

Lilith crooked her foot back and kicked Fey in the stomach, and Fey groaned, curling around herself.

"Pathetic," Lilith said, more to herself than to Fey. She knelt over Fey, one knee on either side of her, and brought her hands to Fey's throat.

Fey struggled to breathe, one hand scratching ineffectually where Lilith held her. Power surged between them, and Lilith's hand began to burn against Fey's skin as her sister called Fire.

"I'm sorry it came to this," Lilith was saying as Fey struggled. She didn't sound sorry at all as her fingers tightened. "But I told you. I told you to let it go, Fey. But you just couldn't, could you? Even after that Shifter nearly killed you, even after I set you on fucking fire , you wouldn't stop. "

It had been Lilith at the warehouse, Fey realized. Lilith, who had tried to kill her, who had forced her to throw herself off the cliff and into the water below. Lilith, working against them this entire time.

Her fingers were burning through Fey's skin, and flames were licking down the inside of her throat. Lilith was going to burn her alive, from the inside out. It would be painful, incredibly painful. But more importantly, it would be slow.

This was how Lilith killed, if she could. Painfully. Slowly. And it put her exactly where Fey had needed her to be.

With one hand still clawing at where Lilith held her throat, Fey brought her other hand up to Lilith's chest, as though to push her away. But she didn't push, didn't try to move her.

Sometimes, to kill someone, you need to let them get close enough to hurt you.

It had been the first lesson Fey had ever learned about death, the night she had killed her own father. The night she'd finally escaped her family. And it served her well over the years. Being burned from the inside out would be slow . An agonizing, slow death.

Water was so much faster.

"I'm sorry," Fey managed to choke out, her voice full of pain and fire and ash. Smoke drifted from her mouth as she spoke.

Fey called Water.

Not in her own body—in Lilith's. Her hand pressed to Lilith's chest she drew every ounce of power she had over the element and gave one single command.

Freeze .

Ice burst like a star from where her palm pressed against Lilith's chest. As Fey watched, their gazes locked together, Lilith's eyes widened in surprise, then in horror. The ice spread almost instantaneously, shooting through Lilith's body, filling every part of her.

Lilith's eyes began to freeze over while Fey watched. Her mouth, open ever so slightly in shock, released a single fogged breath speckled with snow, and then it, too, turned to ice.

It took less than a handful of seconds for Lilith to die, every cell in her body turning to ice at Fey's command.

It took much longer for Fey to peel her sister's hardened, ice-cold fingers away from her own throat. Burned bits of Fey's skin remained stuck to her frozen hands, as though even in death Lilith would not let her go.

When Fey pushed Lilith's body off her, she hit the ground with enough force that her arm shattered, fragmenting like broken glass on the floor.

Fey rolled to her hands and knees, coughing up ash and smoke. Her throat burned and every breath was like swallowing sharp bits of metal. But she couldn't stay here. Joy would have felt her final sister die and she'd be on her way back.

Fey had to find Alice.

The faint patter of tiny feet made Fey look up.

"Hey, Merle," she greeted him, coughing. His favorite armchair was still on fire, a causality of Lilith's anger, and Fey sent a silent thanks to the Goddess that Merle hadn't been anywhere near it at the time. Calling her own power, pulling air from the flames until they died out, Fey brought the fires in the room to an end. "Sorry about your chair, buddy."

She held her hand out toward him, and Merle pattered closer, pushing his soft head into her palm and nuzzling against her.

"It's not safe here anymore," she told him, not bothering to question why she was talking to a cat in the first place. He was family, after all. "Go find Joy, okay? You gotta get out of here, bud, just in case."

Merle yawned, stretching and arching his back. Then with one final look at her, he loped away, disappearing in the direction of their quarters. Fey wasn't too worried. He'd found them once, hadn't he?

He'd find them again.

With one last glance at Lilith, her face forever frozen in a look of horror, Fey whispered a quick prayer to the Goddess, got to her feet, and left.