‘There are no servants in this castle,’ Allegra remarked, her voice quiet, tinged with curiosity. Mal shook her head slowly. ‘Then who makes the beds? Who brings the meals?’
Mal allowed a small smile to ghost across her lips. She remembered asking herself those very questions once, in the early days of her time in the land of the dead. ‘This castle seems to operate differently from the rest of the Underworld,’ she explained. ‘There is no real need to eat or sleep. Not for us, not here. And yet we do. And the castle… responds. As though it senses our wants before we voice them.’
‘Like magic?’ Allegra asked, her brows drawing together.
Mal tilted her head, considering. ‘Yes, I suppose so. Like magic.’
Silence settled between them like a velvet shroud. Mal studied the witch while Allegra cast her gaze about the room, clearly marvelling at the shadowed grandeur around her.
Without warning, Mal asked, ‘What was it like? To die?’
Allegra froze for the briefest of moments. She lifted her glass once more, took a long drink, and set it down with quiet precision. ‘Before I died, all I felt was pain. But the instant my soul left my body… it simply vanished. All of it. No pain. No noise. Just… stillness. It felt like drifting off to sleep. One moment I was aware, and the next, I wasn’t. As if I slipped soundlessly into the realm of dreams.’
‘Or nightmares,’ Mal murmured.
Allegra let out a breath of a laugh. ‘Yes. Or nightmares.’
‘Why did Hagan kill you?’ Mal asked softly, her fingers still curled around her wine glass as though it might offer her the secrets of the universe.
‘How do you know it was Hagan?’ Allegra replied, her stareunreadable.
Mal lifted one shoulder in a slow shrug. ‘I was there when it happened. But I was too late and could not save you.’
Allegra let her hand fall against the table, her fingers tapping a restless rhythm against the smooth stone, her thoughts clearly far away. ‘He wanted Vera to suffer. And…deep down, I think he always knew that if he didn’t strike first, we would. Sooner or later, we would have turned on him.’
Mal’s brow furrowed. ‘But I thought you followed him.’
‘I believed in the cause,’ Allegra said with a tired sigh. ‘In vengeance. In reclaiming what was stolen from us, rising from the ashes and making the Houses burn for what they did. I still want that. I still want them gone. But Hagan… he walks a darker road. One that leaves no one breathing in its wake.’
‘And the others?’ Mal asked. ‘They follow him still?’
Allegra gave a half-hearted shrug. ‘Some might disagree. Quietly. But they’re either too afraid to challenge him, or they’ve resigned themselves to his path. I think many believe in him still, in the idea of annihilating every kingdom until nothing remains.’ Her fingers resumed their tapping, steady and soft, like a lullaby of unrest. ‘For generations, witches have lived under glamour in foreign lands, forced to wear masks to survive. Or they’ve cowered in the ruins of what was once ours, too afraid to rebuild for fear patrols might come sniffing. It wears on a soul. One grows tired of being invisible.’
‘And you believe only through blood can you be seen?’ Mal asked quietly.
The tapping ceased.
‘You don’t know what it’s like,’ Allegra whispered, her voice tight with barely restrained pain.
‘Don’t I?’ Mal’s jaw tensed, her voice sharp now. ‘I share the same cursed eyes, remember. I know what it is to be looked atwith loathing.’
‘But your kingdom remained untouched,’ Allegra snapped. ‘You may have borne their hatred but you didn’t grow up among rubble. You didn’t wander through the ashes of your ancestors with nothing but ghosts for company.’
Mal exhaled, slow and steady, her expression softening. ‘You’re right. I didn’t. I was hidden away, kept apart from my people because of these eyes. But my kingdom remained whole. My people were untouched by fire and fear. I cannot pretend to understand what that kind of ruin feels like.’
Allegra gave a slow nod, accepting the words with quiet grace. She withdrew her hand from the table and rested it upon her lap as she glanced at the untouched glass of wine before her. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said at last, her voice scarcely more than a breath. ‘For killing your wyvern.’
Mal’s body stilled as if a chill had passed through her. Her purple eyes found Allegra’s and there, in the soft flicker of candlelight, she saw her own eyes mirrored perfectly in another face.
‘That was a long time ago,’ Mal said, her tone cool, though the words felt brittle on her tongue.
‘Time, as we’ve come to learn,’ Allegra replied with a weary sigh, ‘does not always stitch wounds shut. It doesn’t smooth the scars. And while an apology cannot undo the damage… I’ve also learnt that sometimes it helps. Not to heal, perhaps, but to soothe, to know the one who cut you regrets the blade they wielded.’
‘Does it?’ Mal tilted her head slightly, her expression unreadable. ‘If the kingdoms all said sorry for what they did to your people a century ago, would that ease the ache? Would it truly soften the blow?’
Allegra looked away, staring into the dim distance as thoughsearching for a truth on the far horizon. After a moment’s silence, she reached for her glass and took a long, deliberate sip. ‘No,’ she said finally. ‘I suppose not. I suppose there are wounds that no words can mend.’
Mal gave a solemn nod. She, too, understood the kind of pain that lived too deep for balm or apology.
