Chapter Thirty-Nine
Sylvia stood on top of the hill in Griffith Park and surveyed her kingdom.
She had fought and clawed for this city, but over the years, it had turned from her playground to her cage. Noctis had penned her here, giving her control over this small sandbox while they built a world she wasn’t allowed to touch.
But Sylvia’s power was no longer small. Sylvia’s power was now boundless—and so was she.
The world belonged to her. It was time for her to announce that.
She bent down, burrowing her hands into the dirt as she called her power to the surface. It came so easily. No more digging. No more pulling. She simply jumped, and there it was. Like she was a kid again, fire in her bones, burning pain for her and her alone.
She would let her fire scorch today. She would let it rant and rage and destroy everything in its path, and then she would let it raise something new.
She was alone up here—she’d snuck off the beaten path half a mile back, landing in a copse of trees littered with cigarette butts and broken beer bottles.
But she could see the tiny dots of ordinaries below, hiking and picnicking and doing all of the other ordinary activities that made up their insignificant lives.
She could feel their energy, her magic roiling from the proximity. It wanted so badly to escape.
She wouldn’t make it wait any longer.
She tunneled further into her power, her eyes fluttering shut as it flowed to the surface, until her skin was crawling with it. The air heated, the bitter scent of magic filling the clearing as power flooded out of her. She held tight, keeping the leash taut until she had enough.
And then she let it go.
She opened her eyes to see the magic blasting through the air in waves of red sparks. They spread through the air over the park, and then on, and on, and on, until Sylvia could no longer see them, could only feel them. That extension of herself, rushing off to do her bidding.
She wondered how far it would reach. She wondered how long it would take. She wondered if it would even work.
Her heart beat faster for every second she waited, until it was slamming against her chest like a drum. Her stomach bottomed out, and it was an effort not to let her hands shake from nerves.
But then.
It started with one—one lone spark that appeared at the edge of her vision, solid and red, growing larger as it floated back to her and landed on her hand.
That one dot was followed by a few more, and then a few more after that, until Sylvia’s skin was freckled with red.
Magic calling to magic.
Like calling to like.
Sylvia laughed.
The solution had been so easy, once she cleared her head of the distractions her comfortable life had drowned her in.
An adaptation of the locator spell she’d used to find Lily and so many other unsettled witches before her—a ping of Sylvia’s power bouncing off theirs.
Except Sylvia hadn’t just sent a ping of power. She’d sent an ocean.
And everyone with unsettled magic in their blood returned it in kind.
Every dot of red represented an unsettled witch who had come into their power. Witches whose magic might not have manifested for months or even years.
Anyone who had enough power in their blood to respond to Sylvia’s call now had full use of that magic.
Sylvia knew that anyone who was in their general vicinity was at risk. She knew there would be collateral damage from this. Knew that there would be snaps large and small. Knew people would die.
And in the aftermath, there would be dozens of covens dealing with a bevy of unstable, dangerous unsettled witches they had no idea how to manage.
They would all need to come to Sylvia. She’d be indispensable. They wouldn’t be able to turn their backs on her. Not until every witch that snapped today settled.
And then? Well, she could just do this again.
She let her head fall back as the song got louder, basking in her new world. A world where Noctis would be nothing.
Music to her damn ears.
The waves of power continued to pour out of her, the red dots answering her song, until her hands started to tremble, her head splitting with a familiar headache.
She hadn’t thought there was a bottom to this power, but it seemed like there was, and she was rapidly speeding toward it, each wave pushing her closer and closer to splattering on the pavement.
And yet she couldn’t make herself stop. Couldn’t resist pushing out more magic. Each red dot was a step for her, another inch up the ladder toward undeniable success. She couldn’t give that up. Couldn’t give up the chance for—
She fell to the ground as her brain cleaved down the middle, as she was rent apart by the agony.
Burnout, on a level she had never experienced, on a level that felt like it was tearing her to pieces.
She broke, and broke, and broke, and yet she didn’t cap off the magic that still trickled out of her.
There was more out there. More power, more potential. Just more.
Until there wasn’t more anymore.
By the time the pain of that last, brutal push of magic faded, Sylvia was heaving, still on her hands and knees in the dirt. She clenched her fingers into the ground beneath her, groaning as she came back to a body that felt like it had been split open and then sewn back together.
And then she opened her eyes and took in the sea of red that had responded to her call.
For everyone unsettled. For everyone whose power was pushed down by a system designed to keep them locked away. For everyone who was forced to stay weak, forced to waste their potential, forced to languish in missed opportunity …
For them, and for her, Sylvia had changed everything.
Sylvia stumbled out of the clearing, venturing back into the world she had remade.