Every corrupted witch dies, Keane said without inflection. The binding requires channeling their corruption back through the master’s network. We use them as conduits. Their consciousnesses won’t survive the working.
Silence.
My stomach soured. I already knew this, but it hit me fresh every time.
Thousands of witches. Young ones who’d been recruited with lies about revolution. Desperate ones who’d accepted corruption thinking it was empowerment. All of them would be casualties if we chose this path.
Option two, Elio continued, his illusions revealing the next strategy. We disrupt the wellspring network instead. Break enough nodes that the solstice alignment can’t complete. System collapses without activating.
Cost?
Thirty-seven wellsprings destroyed permanently, Elio said quietly. Not corrupted. Destroyed. Their consciousness shattered beyond recovery. And any witch drawing power from those wellsprings when we strike… the magical backlash will kill them. Conservative estimate: fifteen hundred casualties. Possibly more.
More silence. Heavier this time.
I took a breath. Scout nuzzled against my neck.
Option three, I said, forcing my voice to be steady. We allow partial activation. Let the solstice alignment begin and then redirect it. Use the master’s own ritual geometry against him. Channel the power into a binding that uses the system’s momentum.
Cost? Raynoff’s amber eyes—so like Cyrus’s—held mine.
Unknown casualties, I admitted. The partial activation will corrupt additional wellsprings before we can redirect. Witches connected to those wellsprings during the transition… some will survive the corruption. Some won’t. We can’t predict the ratio.
I pulled up the probability models Keane had calculated. Best case: two hundred additional corrupted witches, sixty percent recoverable. Worst case: eight hundred corrupted, twenty percent recoverable.
And the rest? someone asked.
Dead or permanently lost to corruption, I said. The words tasted like ash. We’d have to make triage decisions. Who to save. Who to abandon.
The three options hung in the air between us. Kill thousands of already-corrupted witches to bind the master. Destroy wellsprings and kill hundreds of innocents to collapse the system. Gamble with unknown casualties and make impossible choices about who lived.
There isn’t a version where everyone survives, Keane said into the silence. His analytical voice made it worse somehow. More real. Every viable path requires accepting loss. The only variable is which population we sacrifice.
Lord Raynoff looked at each of us. And your recommendation?
My hand clenched around the edge of the table as I met his eyes. Option three. Partial activation with redirection.
Why?
Because it’s the only path that doesn’t guarantee death, I said. Options one and two kill specific populations with certainty. Option three gives some people a chance—even if we can’t save all of them.
Let me make this clear, Raynoff said into the silence. Option one means killing everyone the master has already corrupted. Option two means destroying our own infrastructure and killing innocents in the process. Option three means gambling with unknown numbers and making real-time decisions about who lives.
Yes, I said.
And you’re choosing the gamble.
I’m choosing the option that doesn’t make me executioner, I corrected. The master created this situation. His corruption. His network. His victims. I won’t kill thousands of his victims to stop him. Even if the alternative is harder. Even if it means living with who I can’t save.
Silence again.
Then Raynoff nodded slowly. Option three. Partial activation with redirection. You’ll need full international coalition support.
We’ll have it, I said.
The council members filed out, leaving the four of us alone with the terrible choice we’d just made.
I FOUND MYSELF IN THE medical center an hour later, standing outside Raven’s room with my hand braced against the cold glass. The hallway smelled like antiseptic and static magic along with scrubbed air and faint ozone. Scout pressed against my neck, quiet as ever, his dark eyes fixed on the girl inside.
