Chapter Twenty-Nine
Sylvia’s phone was ringing.
She had gone home to avoid the ringing phone.
First it was George, checking in after the “tragedy” of Lily’s snap.
Then it was Henry, checking in because that tragedy didn’t mean the coven got out of paying its bills.
Then it was she didn’t know the fuck who, because she’d checked out before anyone else could check in.
But unfortunately, they had decided to make these infernal devices portable, and so her annoyances had followed her here, to the one place left where she thought she might be able to find an ounce of peace.
She cursed as she pushed herself up off the Tempur-Pedic mattress of her four-poster bed, then walked over to the corner where she’d thrown her purse.
She let out another curse as she took her phone out and stared at the screen.
The number wasn’t in her contacts, the screen instead flashing with the all-caps name of the company it was registered to: KHATRI INTERNATIONAL, INC.
Three guesses as to who the fuck that was.
Sylvia wanted there to be a debate. She wanted some part of her to scream that she shouldn’t answer, to tell her that engaging was a foolish risk to take.
But that part of her was buried under the burning, irresistible desire to have a fight so many years in the making.
There was no way she wasn’t picking up this call. So she did.
“Sylvia.”
Nina’s voice hadn’t changed. Rich and layered—like a singer’s, which was ironic, considering how many times Sylvia had been reminded over impromptu karaoke sessions that Nina was unflinchingly tone-deaf.
But in speech, her voice was symphonious.
Beautiful. And tinged by an ever-present undercurrent of judgment.
“Nina. To what do I owe the pleasure?”
“Cut the shit. You tried to kill my son.”
Sylvia wedged the phone between her shoulder and her ear as she walked into the kitchen, opened a cabinet, and pulled out a glass.
She placed the phone on the counter, putting it on speaker and pressing mute as she filled the glass with water, then took a slow sip.
She’d been waiting for word on whether there had been any bodies found in the rubble of the hotel fire, but no such luck.
She took herself off mute, but left the phone on speaker, delighting in the image of Nina straining to hear her on the other end.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she said.
“Silas has been having a lovely visit in Los Angeles thus far. I think you’ll find Aestas has been nothing but welcoming to him. ”
She put emphasis on the word welcoming, the dig intentional. She knew she should be mature about this—show Nina she was above it all. But it was impossible to keep the hurt out of her voice.
The thought of how much power Nina still held over her made magic coil in Sylvia’s stomach.
Nina could rip the funding from Aestas. She could take away their spellbooks and cut the coven off at their knees.
She could make Sylvia lose sleep for weeks by sharing one photo of herself on Khatri International’s Instagram. She could—
Sylvia thrust down the surging magic as hard as she could, but she couldn’t stop it from fracturing her phone screen.
Fuck.
“Silas told me you set fire to his hotel, Sylvia. Locked him in his fucking room. Who does that?”
She supposed it was too much to hope that her snap would have broken the phone entirely.
“I didn’t do any of that,” she said, as she ran her finger over the cracks in the glass. It would cost an arm and a leg to fix. “Sounds like an unfortunate coincidence.”
“Save it,” Nina snapped. “I know how you get when your power is threatened.”
Sylvia scoffed. “How I get? That’s rich, coming from you.”
Despite herself, Sylvia couldn’t help thinking back to the last time she’d seen Nina.
She’d been twenty-three, her feet sore from the hours she’d spent pacing in too-expensive new heels.
She’d been waiting for days, fidgeting outside the doors of hours-long meetings about the future of Noctis now that Vikrant’s father had passed.
Vikrant had only just turned thirty, which would make him the youngest coven head Noctis had ever had—and on top of that, he wanted his wife to be his co-head.
His wife who, the board had repeatedly pointed out, had a baby to take care of.
Despite their disagreements, Sylvia bristled at the fact that the board thought Nina couldn’t lead because of her new child, but didn’t share the same concerns about Vikrant.
His and Nina’s appointments had passed, though, and now it was Sylvia’s turn to wonder if she could earn the board’s approval.
She’d submitted her application for Executrix two days before, but she’d been working on it for years.
Stockpiling sentences about her leadership skills, about her commitment to the coven.
About her goals for the future, and the different perspective that her background could bring to the organization.
She’d dropped it in the stack with everyone else’s, on top of a dozen applications that ranged from somewhat viable to laughably off-base.
Her competition didn’t matter, she told herself.
She’d known Vikrant and Nina for years. Sure, she and Nina had grown apart since Sylvia settled and since Silas’ birth, but that didn’t matter.
A relationship like theirs didn’t just disappear.
It was a friendship built on a shared desire to make a mark on a world that kept telling them to sit down and shut up.
It was a friendship built on the understanding that strength was worth more than anything else. It was a friendship built on need.
Sylvia joining the board would be a boon for both of them. All she needed was for the board to say yes.
And so she paced and paced and paced in front of that office at Noctis, until finally the door opened and Vikrant and Nina walked out, their faces drawn.
In the present, Nina was talking again.
“I never resorted to attempted murder.”
Attempted? Sylvia wanted to say. It’ll be successful eventually, I promise you that.
Instead, she chuckled. “Have you been getting enough sleep, Nina? You get so cranky when you’re tired.”
“This isn’t a game, Sylvia! This is my son’s life.”
Sylvia’s hand gripped the counter, her knuckles going white. “Noctis was my life, and you took that from me.”
Vikrant had been the one to tell her that she hadn’t gotten the spot on the board.
It stung, but her mind was already swirling with plans—she was too young, Vikrant’s tenure still too new.
A few more years, and then she’d try again.
Work her way up the ladder. They’d see her worth eventually. They had to.
It was Nina who dropped the real news, and her poker face wasn’t as good as Vikrant’s. The glint in her eyes snuck through every few words before she forced it back down.
It was supposed to be a sad moment, telling your best friend that she was kicked out of the coven.
The words were the same as always—the epithets that had been whispered behind her back since she arrived. The things Nina used to defend her from, now pouring out of her mouth in that singsong voice.
As the coven heads, we have the right to remove members who we feel could be a danger to the rest of the coven. We just don’t know enough about your power. What if there’s still unsettled magic in you? What if you hurt someone?
Sylvia, you’re just not worth the risk.
She should have known. All those hours she’d stayed up studying and training and cutting and cutting and cutting … she should have known that there was no way she could ever be good enough for these people. No matter what she did, she would always be wrong.
And the one person who was supposed to see beyond that was just as bad as the rest of them. Nina would do anything to win, but she couldn’t beat Sylvia. So she chose to take her opponent off the board entirely.
Sylvia had never felt a moment of shame for what she did afterward, despite the consequences.
She’d known the attack spell wouldn’t land when she threw it at Nina and Vikrant—their advanced protection spells would never allow that.
But it was the principle of the thing, the shock on their faces that someone would dare to fight back rather than just accepting one of their decrees.
That their absolute power might not be so absolute.
Then Sylvia had fled. Bolted out of the building, throwing spells behind her as she ran.
She learned later that she’d just caused a few light injuries, ranging from minor bruises to what one man described in his application for workman’s comp as “at least six paper cuts, two requiring Band-Aids.” Vikrant and Nina, of course, sold it as near deadly, a harrowing experience only survived because of the coven’s inherent strength and righteousness.
Sylvia couldn’t stay in New York. She’d left the city she loved behind, flying to California that afternoon.
Even on the other side of the country, Sylvia knew there would be capital-C Consequences for attacking Noctis’ most important couple.
She’d avoided them for months, tooling around Los Angeles, trying to do magic without spellbooks.
But finally, she had one too many near-death experiences with old magic, and she was forced to eat crow.
When she’d gone to the then-head of Aestas to beg for the witching world’s forgiveness, she’d been sentenced to a three-year power dampener.
The punishment was unheard of. Six months, a year—that’s what Sylvia had been expecting. But Nina was determined to break her.
Sylvia couldn’t even remember those three years.
Not in full. Just bits and pieces of misery.
Full weeks at the start where she couldn’t get out of bed.
Forcing herself up when she found an eviction notice on her door.
Another job working the counter at a shitty convenience store, her manager constantly cracking jokes she didn’t have the energy to laugh at about how different the California branch must be from the Pennsylvania one of her youth.
Every day the same, bleak and gray, as though she’d never left home at all.
As though the past ten years had been a dream that ended in a nightmare.
Sylvia never let herself break.
That was always what Nina failed to realize about Sylvia. Nina thought she was hungry, but if you put a meal in front of her, she’d take her time, pushing food around the plate, leaving half of it to the side because she didn’t want to eat the garnish, the fat, the burnt bits.
Sylvia wasn’t hungry. Sylvia was starving. She’d grab the meal off the kitchen window and devour it whole, plate and all.
Three years was nothing.
She wished she could’ve seen the look on Nina’s face when she came back.
When she joined Aestas, quiet and conciliatory, and started playing their game, slowly rising through the ranks and gaining support among the coven.
Nina’s outsized punishment had been brutal, but it had given Sylvia a gift—a new start.
No one could have gone through that without learning the error of their ways.
She was rehabilitated, freed from the burdens of who she had been.
Everyone was impressed by how much she had clearly grown. Hear that, Nina?
The Nina on the phone—this Nina who Sylvia hardly knew, and yet still knew far too well—let out a loud sigh. Sylvia could picture her standing in her office, her right hand rubbing the back of her neck, like she always did when she was stressed.
“Sylvia,” Nina said, and for a second, Sylvia thought she could hear a twinge of genuine remorse.
But Nina had always been an actress, she reminded herself.
A good enough liar to convince Sylvia she was a friend for years, when she was really her biggest enemy.
This was a change in strategy—Nina using what she knew about a girl desperate for love to get what she wanted.
Unfortunately for her, Sylvia had cut out that part of herself a long time ago.
“I’m sorry for what I did,” Nina said. “I was young and foolish and scared, and I made a mistake.”
Words Sylvia had waited so long to hear. Words that meant nothing, because Nina didn’t mean them.
Nina only did things for Nina’s benefit. She expected everyone to kowtow to her will because she was her, because she was perfect, because how could anyone not?
Sylvia could use that.
She let a crack enter her voice. Let herself mist up, let the tears enter her words. “Thank you, Nina. You don’t know how much that means to me.”
“I want us to be friends again, Syl. Like we used to be. You meant so much to me.”
It was hard not to scoff at that, but Sylvia managed to keep it down. “I want that too. I promise I’ll keep Silas safe.”
“Thank you. Really, truly, thank you. I hope this can be a new start for us.”
“I hope that too.”
A brief goodbye, and then Nina hung up.
Sylvia stormed back into her bedroom, hurling her phone at the mattress. She had spent so long designing this room, hand-picking every element until it was perfect. Until it was hers.
She’d grown up dreaming of having a space like this. A place that radiated thought. Care. Love.
She stared at it, and then she snapped her fingers and watched it all turn to ash.
The bed, a California king made out of a deep brown oak that she polished every month, went first. Her closet went next, the tastefully elegant wardrobe she’d spent so long curating—the one that was far too reminiscent of Nina’s—disappearing in a blaze of heat.
Then the entire bedroom was burning away, ash stinging Sylvia’s eyes as she watched it all disappear.
She stalked into the rest of the apartment, a snap of her fingers bringing about its end. Her mind was solely focused on destruction. Destruction of the living room, the kitchen, even the patio, until all that was left of the life she’d so carefully crafted was a thick layer of soot.
She smiled as she stared at the carnage. This was what she needed. No strings. No attachments. Nothing to lose.
Just her and her magic.
Except, no. Not quite.
Sylvia stared down at her hand, now covered in so many more lines than it had been when she’d reached it out to a scared girl on a bus bench. Finding Katherine had felt like purpose. Sylvia had saved Katherine, but Katherine had saved her too—given her life meaning again.
Sylvia could destroy her home, but she wasn’t strong enough to destroy her heart.
Her fucking phone was ringing again.
She grabbed it, ready to smash the thing, except then she realized the ringing wasn’t her phone—it was her doorbell.
She stormed to the front door, expecting to find an overzealous delivery man, but instead she was confronted with a very beaten-up Byron Chambers, holding an ice pack to his bruised forehead.
“About fucking time, Sylvia,” he snarled. “It’s over for Katherine Barnes.”