I did not speak; words were for lesser creatures. I only lifted a hand, languid and graceful, toward the box and its macabre treasure.
Amabel’s lips curved, soft, amused, predatory.
“How thoughtful,” she murmured, her voice dipped in honey and arsenic.
Eluned, my bright little terror, clapped her hands, a child’s delight in a grown woman.
“Isn’t that fun!” she trilled, as if admiring a new bauble. “They carved it and everything!”
For a moment, I let them play, let them savor.
“Darlings,” I crooned, and both went still as statues beneath my gaze. “Why don’t you take a peek at dear Serafina’s new little haven?” My smile sharpened. “Have a look around the place, so we can remind her where she truly belongs.”
Amabel’s lashes lowered as she all but purred, “As you wish, Mother.”
Eluned wriggled, shivering with glee. She spun once, her laughter trailing behind her like the scream of breaking glass.
The door whispered shut behind them, and the room fell to silence. I paused a moment longer, and the air hummed. Foster waiting, knowing.
A flick of my wrist, and the box and its gruesome offering dissolved into ash. Claudio had served his purpose. His body was meaningless.
But the message? The carving?
Thatmeant everything.
They loved her. Enough to kill for her. Enough tomarktheir kill for her. And that would be their undoing.
I would not break them quickly.
Oh, no. I would make them watch as everything they loved, includingher, burned.
#
Eluned
We were two clever little ghosts slipping through the night, unseen, untouched.
I stifled a giggle, twirling once as the cool air wrapped around me. The maze was perfect, tall and dense, swallowing us whole. The stink of damp earth and crushed leaves clung to my clothes, but it didn’t matter. We werehere. Right under their noses!
I grinned at Amabel, expecting the same spark of satisfaction in her dark eyes. But no, just that familiar, cool indifference. The way she watched the house, its golden glow spilling onto the garden, made my skin itch. Like she thought she was better than me.
“We shoulddosomething, Am,” I whispered, bouncing on my toes. “A little message. A little—” I spiraled my finger through the air. “Tornado, maybe?”
“No.” Amabel didn’t even look at me.
“Why not?” I huffed, crossing my arms. “We’re already here. What’s thepointif we don’t leave our mark?”
She sighed, long-suffering, like I was a child begging for ice cream before dinner.
“We’re here to observe, El. Towatch.” Her gaze flicked to me, sharp and disapproving. “Not to throw a tantrum.”
A tantrum. Atantrum?
I curled my nails into my palms. She always did this, always acted like she was the smart one, the rational one. As if she hadn’t clawed and bitten just as hard when we were little, fighting for Mother’s attention. As if she wasn’t just as eager for Serafina to return to her belly in the dirt at our feet.
“She’shappy!” I said, not bothering to hide my disgust. “Look at her. Laughing. Dancing. Like shelikesthem.” I wrinkled my nose. “Like she’s forgotten her true place.”
“She hasn’t forgotten. She’s pretending. She’ll see soon enough that this isn’t where she belongs.”
