Vikrant had been thrown back by the force of whatever had erupted from Silas. He’d slammed against the shelves—blood, trickling over his limited-edition Jane Austen—before falling to the ground.
Silas managed to turn away before he threw up.
I did this.
I did this.
I did this.
It was like he…
Snapped.
His mother kept screaming.
“You killed her.”
Sylvia didn’t even bother denying it. Just silence.
It was worse than a confession.
“You… God, Sylvia. How could you?” Katherine’s breath caught, her chest tightening as rage threatened to swallow her words. “Everything we’ve worked for. Everything westoodfor. Was for kids like Lily. And you—”
Sylvia’s eyes flashed. “I didn’t mean for it to go that way.”
Katherine’s knuckles cracked as her hands tightened into fists.
“She told me she wanted her magic gone. I thought I could take it without her dying.”
“No,” Katherine snapped. “You made a choice to do that spell. You don’t get to write off the result as an accident.”
Sylvia’s cheeks reddened. “Do you think I don’t know that? I will be living with the consequences of my actions for the rest of my life!”
Katherine wondered if Sylvia’s indignation was because of Lily’s death or because she was being called out on it. She wanted to smash something. Preferably Sylvia’s face.
“Lily won’t have a rest of her life.”
Sylvia raked a hand through her hair, disturbing her ponytail. “I can’t undo what happened, but we can use this,” she said. “This one sacrifice can help so many unsettled witches. I’m strong enough now to make Aestas a major player. We can challenge the Khatris for power, make it so we’re the ones in charge. Force every coven in the country to become a safe space for unsettled witches. We’d be able to change things for so many people.”
Katherine flicked her caster open in her pocket. As she dug the blade into her palm, she turned her eyes to the ground, twisting her face in thought.
“You know that’s all I want,” she said. “All I’ve ever wanted.”
“Me too,” Sylvia breathed. “We can do that now. With this power, we can—”
Katherine lunged at her.
She threw out the spell to immobilize Sylvia as she did, her mentor’s body going stiff beneath Katherine’s hand. It wasn’t a good cast—doing magic distracted was never a good idea, and doing it after the emotional blow of Sylvia’s betrayal was near impossible. But it should still be solid enough to give her a minute or two to—
A burst of magic slammed into Katherine’s chest, sending her flying against the door. She yelped when her back hit the wood, fissures of pain shooting across her body as she sank to the ground.
Sylvia stalked over to her, a ball of glowing power in her hand, giving her face a ghastly red tinge. The power crackled at the edges, sparks forming a halo around Sylvia’s head as she peered down at her former protégé.
“I didn’t want to have to do this, Katherine.”
Katherine tried to push herself up, tried to dredge up her magic again, but her body wouldn’t cooperate.
Sylvia lifted that ball of magic in the air. Katherine tried to form the words to beg her to stop, tried to do something,anything, but it was too late. The ball was coming at her, those sparks turning the world red, and then everything was heat, and pain, and—
