Chapter 31 - Julia
Julia
Ifind Rebecca standing on Elizabeth’s terrace as dawn breaks, painting the frost-covered gardens in gold and pink. She’s wrapped in a maroon shawl, cradling a steaming cup of tea between pale hands, looking every one of her hundred and forty years.
She doesn’t turn when I step outside, though I know she senses me. The morning air bites at my skin, which is still sensitive from Hannah’s touch. I can still feel the ghost of her fingers in my hair and her breath on my neck.
We parted ways in the parlor, each of us needing to resolve our unfinished business: me with Rebecca, her with Riley.
So, here I am, knowing what needs to be said but unsure how to phrase it.
“The binding broke,” Rebecca says to the sunrise. Not a question.
“It did.”
“And yet you’re still here instead of disappearing into the wilderness.” She sips her tea. “Is the girl still alive?”
I bristle at the implication, but I deserve it. “Yes.”
“Surprising.” Her tone might be as close to approval as I’ll ever get. “I expected to find her corpse by morning.”
“As did I,” I admit.
I move to stand beside her at the stone railing, leaving a careful distance between us. Below, Elizabeth’s gardens sprawl in geometric patterns, everything controlled and contained.
“I took your sister from you.” My words come out steady, though my throat tightens around them. “I cannot undo that.”
Rebecca looks at me sharply. I see Charlotte in the shape of her eyes and the curve of her mouth, and it’s a punch to the gut I was not prepared for.
I make myself hold her gaze. “I understand now what I stole from you. Her life, her future, your future. And I—” I swallow, my voice wobbling. “I deeply regret it.”
Rebecca’s hand shakes, her knuckles whitening around her teacup. For a moment, I think she might throw the tea in my face. I wouldn’t blame her.
“Do you know what has tormented me the most? It wasn’t finding her body, cold and alone, or sorting through her belongings, or spending years learning dark magic while vengeance burned a hole in my gut.
” Rebecca sets the teacup down hard enough that it cracks, tea spilling across the stone.
“She died thinking you loved her as much as she loved you, and I’ve had to live knowing you didn’t.
” Her voice breaks. “She had stars in her eyes whenever she talked about you, Julia. She was infatuated with your power. She thought the two of you were forever.”
The words pierce me like daggers. My throat is too tight to speak.
“She wrote poems about you,” Rebecca continues. “About the love you shared, and how lucky she was that you’d chosen her. The last one was two days before she died. She said she’d never been happier. Did you know that?”
Good Lord. I grip the railing to stay upright.
I had no idea Charlotte romanticized our feeding sessions like that.
The part of me that’s still twenty-three and arrogant wants to argue that she knew what she was getting into, and she offered herself willingly.
But that’s a lie I’ve been telling myself since it happened, and I’m finished with it.
“I burned them all,” Rebecca whispers. “I couldn’t stand to read her joy when I knew what you’d done to her.”
Good. They should be burned. Those poems were written by a girl too enraptured to see she was being consumed.
I wipe my stinging eyes. God, I was so naive and reckless. I deserved every bit of vengeance Rebecca hurled at me.
“And in the wake of it all,” she snarls, “you ran.”
“I couldn’t face what I’d done,” I say, my voice broken. “I ran from you, from the truth of what I am, from anything and everything that would remind me of her.”
Rebecca scoffs.
“I did care for her,” I say, though the words feel inadequate. “In whatever way I was capable of then. It wasn’t enough, but it was real.”
“Real?” Rebecca lets out a bitter laugh. “You fed on her for months, Julia. You watched her waste away, and you kept taking.”
“I was immature and drunk on power. I thought I could control it. I—” I shake my head. “It does not matter what I thought. I was wrong.”
She glares at me, her expression glacial.
“You won, Rebecca.” The admission burns my throat. “The binding spell forced me to face what I am and what I’m capable of, and I hated every moment of it. I had to watch the same pattern threaten to repeat.”
She faces me, one eyebrow raised. “You’ve grown to care for the girl.”
I think of Hannah’s trust, and the way she looked at me even after learning what I’d done to Charlotte.
When she first offered herself to me back at her house, I feared she would meet the same end. It seemed like the only possible outcome. But Charlotte only loved my power. She loved what I could give her, and what we had never extended beyond that. But Hannah…
I stop that thought before it can complete. I will not admit this to Rebecca. What happened between Hannah and me is none of her concern.
Instead, I say, “I cannot bring Charlotte back, and I cannot undo the pain I caused you. But I want you to know that her death changed me, even if it took your curse to make me understand how.”
Rebecca’s exhaustion is plain in every line of her face. It’s not just tiredness, but the bone-deep weariness of carrying hatred for over a century.
“I don’t forgive you,” she says finally. “I may never forgive you. Charlotte was my sister and best friend, and you took her from me.”
“I know.” I expect no forgiveness, and I will not ask for it.
“But I’m so damn tired of hating you, Julia. I’m tired of letting what you did consume me the way you consumed her.” She laughs bitterly. “Do you see the irony? I’ve spent a hundred years letting you feed on me in a different way. My anger, my grief, my entire life has been about you.”
She balls her fist as if she’s about to strike me with magic.
“I dedicated my life to planning revenge, perfecting the binding spell, and ensuring that journal was never lost, knowing that if you ever awoke, I was going to make sure you suffered. And now that it’s happened…” She frowns into her tea leaves like she’s reading the future.
“It doesn’t bring her back,” I finish.
She turns the cracked teacup, examining the damage.
“Revenge hasn’t filled the hole Charlotte left.
It just made it deeper. I thought seeing you broken would heal something in me.
But you’re standing here, and Charlotte is still gone, and I’m still the witch who wasted a century on hatred.
So I’m choosing to stop. Not because you deserve it, and not because I forgive you, but because I refuse to let you destroy the remainder of my life the way you destroyed hers. ”
I nod, unsure what else to say.
She sighs heavily. “Perhaps I can rest knowing you now understand what it means to risk losing someone you—” She pauses, giving me a meaningful look. “Someone who matters.”
Heat creeps up my neck, but I don’t deny it.
We stand in silence as the sun climbs higher, burning off the frost. The light is almost painful after the long night.
“I suppose I’ll see you at coven circles,” Rebecca says.
“If you’ll have me.”
“That’s not up to me.” She steps back, looking me up and down with calculating eyes. “Don’t expect us to be on good terms. If you return, the best I can offer you is neutrality.”
“That’s more than I deserve.”
“Yes. It is. But I’m not doing it for you. I’m doing it for myself and what’s left of my life.” She walks past me to go back inside, then pauses. “Charlotte loved easily. She was soft and trusting, and she would have forgiven you even as she was dying, because that’s who she was.”
The words hang in the cold air.
“But this girl isn’t like that, is she? Hannah sees exactly what you are. The monster, the killer, the creature who can’t help but consume everything she touches. And she’s choosing you anyway.”
My throat tightens. Indeed, Hannah is nothing like Charlotte. Charlotte made me feel powerful. Hannah makes me feel human.
“I wonder if it’s better or worse that Hannah sees through you,” Rebecca muses.
“Charlotte died believing the lie that you loved her and were worthy of her devotion. At least she had that comfort. But Hannah knows the truth. She knows what you did to my sister and knows you could do the same to her. And she’s foolish enough to still want you.
” She shakes her head slowly, pulling her shawl tighter.
“Maybe that makes her braver than Charlotte. Or maybe it makes her more broken. Either way, I hope you see what’s happened here, Julia.
You didn’t become a better person. You just finally got caught and forced to face consequences. ”
The words are a slap, sharp and stinging, because they’re true.
The door closes behind her with a click, leaving me alone with the dawn. A strange, hollow feeling lingers in the air as our vendetta ends, not with violence, but with exhausted acceptance.
Rebecca is right that Charlotte was soft and trusting. She believed the best in everyone, and she deserved so much better.
Now, there’s Hannah, who’s been guarded since we met, unwilling to be vulnerable. She sees exactly what I am and has seen me at my worst. And she still bared her soul to me. Is that courage or self-destruction?
I gaze out beyond the garden, where the forest leads to a wide world I have yet to explore.
The binding is broken. Nothing holds me here except my own choice. It’s time to do the noble thing and let Hannah move on. Time to let her find someone who won’t drink her essence and bring her to the brink of death with every feeding.