“I’m so sorry,” I said.
The only thing my father could offer was a choked sound when he landed on his side, and as I watched him die, I cried.
“What a horrible thing to have lost a parent, and by your own hand.”
Ravena’s voice echoed all around, and my spine stiffened at the sound of it. I looked up and around but did not see her.
“It is horrible,” I said. “The burden of a kin slayer is great, but you would know something about that, wouldn’t you?”
“Oh,” she breathed, and then she appeared in every mirror along the hall. She was untouched by battle—perfect hair braided to rest over her shoulder, her white robes far too pristine. It was how she always fought—through others or from afar—but one day, she would know the bite of a blade, and I wanted it to be from me.
She held The Book of Dis cradled in her arm, and it ignited something inside me, a deep and growing anger I did not completely understand. I was two people now, and I only knew as much as the other would give.
“The witches of High Coven were never my sisters,” she said.
“They loved you—”
“Do not!” she shouted, and in that moment, her face changed. She looked older and hate filled. Her eyes seemed to sink into her head and darken, taking on what I could only describe as an evil expression. This is who she truly is, I thought. This is what her path to power has cost her.
“Do not say they loved me! Do not say you loved me!”
I stared at her, breathing hard. I recalled caring for Ravena, but she sought power beyond the rules of High Coven, and it wasn’t until she’d tried to use it that she was exiled and a curse put upon her own magic.
It was why her spells did not work as they were supposed to—because she was forbidden from practicing magic.
“Do you know he never wanted me?” Ravena said.
“Ravena—”
“I was Dragos’s last resort,” she said.
The mist crept closer as she spoke, and I reached for my father’s blade, pulling it free from his body. I had no choice but to leave him and retreat. As I did, I passed mirror after mirror, full of Ravena’s reflection.
“At least you ended up by his side,” I said. “The rest of us turned to ash.”
I had no sympathy for her plight.
She was the reason my sisters were dead.
“Tell me,” I said, continuing my slow walk down the hall. One of these was not an illusion—one of these was a portal. One of them would bring me face-to-face with the real Ravena. “Did you kill us all because you knew you’d never be his choice unless the rest of us were dead?”
Ravena’s anger surged, and there was an old part of me that felt it like a tangible thing. I was getting closer.
“Your power could have been great. It was your mind that was weak.”
“My mind?” she snapped. “Says the witch who fell in love with a mortal. Even in this life, you haven’t changed. Tell me, did you enjoy the bloodletting?”
A cold sense of dread washed over me.
So she did know.
“You let him compromise the one thing you should have coveted—your life. Now who is weak?”
I took slower steps, her anger was a wall as red as the mist advancing upon me.
“Adrian’s love has always given me power,” I said. “It is what brought me back to life.”
That wasn’t a lie or an exaggeration.
I begged for you, he’d said.
“You are a fool,” Ravena spat.
“I am queen,” I said. “And despite all you have done, you are a powerless witch who hides in mirrors.”
Her anger flashed bright. It took everything in me not to react to it, not to turn then and let her know I’d found her.
“Not for long. I have the book.”
I smiled. “And I wrote it.”
She did not need to know that I had not recalled a single spell, that I had yet to remember why I’d even begun writing it in the first place.
“Pity you were not born with magic in this life,” she now mocked. “How will you ever defeat me?”
“I do not need magic to defeat you, Ravena.”
“Oh?” she asked, amused. “Tell me then, if not magic, what do you need?”
“Patience,” I said.
Then I shifted and flung my blade. It pierced one of the mirrors and lodged in Ravena’s chest. Blood spattered from her mouth onto the glass. I reached for a nearby candlestick and swung, shattering it, but I knew Ravena was gone when the mist vanished.