Scarlet (An SGE Fanfic)

Truth

"This will make you feel better."

I scooped more murky yellow broth from my cauldron into a bowl. It had been more than a week since Hester had woken up, and she wasn't getting much better. The failed curse had diminished both her magic and her spirit, and after the taxing ritual I had enacted the day before to reattach the demon limb that had been left in the woods, she was most certainly back to square one.

As I carried the bowl across the room, several drops dripped onto the floor. My rats converged, eight inches bigger now, biting and clawing each other to get first licks.

"Your talent's coming along," Hester croaked, her lips twisting into a half smile.

I sat on the edge of Hester's bed with the bowl, my hand hovering near hers. I wanted to take it, to comfort her, to help her through the pain.

I pushed the traitorous thoughts away, holding the bowl to her lips and steadying her face with my hand, just as I had done many times since the Trial.

"Just a few sips," I coaxed. Hester managed only one, then fell back.

"I shouldn't have tried it," she wheezed. "She's too good. She's twice the witch I am—"

"Shhh," I interrupted, placing the bowl on the bedside table. "Don't strain."

"But she loves him," Dot said from where she was curled on the bed, repeatedly casting nervous glances at Hester as if she would drop dead at any moment.

"She thinks she does," Hester said, her face contorting in pain. "Just as we all once did."

Her words felt like a punch in the gut. I'd never heard any Never say this so blatantly, call us out on the disgusting, unnatural weaknesses that we all feel at some point in our lives. The weakness that, as much as I hated, refused even, to admit it to myself at the time, I'd been struggling with once again recently. I glanced over at Dot, who looked similarly shocked, her eyes bulging and her cheeks slightly red.

"Please, Dot. You think she's the only Never who dabbled in love?"

"Hester, enough," I pressed, wanting to get out of this dangerous territory.

"No, let's have the truth," Hester said, struggling to sit up. "All of us have felt shameful stirrings. All of us have felt weakness."

I tensed, my stomach squirming. "But those feelings are wrong," I said, more to convince myself than anyone else. "No matter how strong they are."

"That's why this one's special," Hester said wryly, her sad smile returning. "She almost convinced us they were right." There was a moment of silence.

"So what happens to her now?" Dot asked.

Hester sighed. "The same thing that happened to all of us."

We fell into another solemn silence, but this time it was broken by distant clacks in slow, menacing rhythm. All three of us craned to the door as the clacks swelled toward us, cruel and clean like whip cracks. They grew louder, sharper, impaling the hall, then ebbed past the room into silence. We let out a collective sigh of relief.

The door slammed open. Hester and I screamed while Dot belly flopped off of the bed.

A draft blew the hanging dresses past the torch over the door, casting flints of light over the shadow's face.

The hair gleamed, spiked and slick, black as smeared eye sockets and lips. Ghost white skin glowed against black nail polish, black cape, and black leather.

Sophie stepped into the room, high black boots stabbing the floor. Or, rather, the witch of the Wood Beyond, who'd taken her spot in Evil at last.

Hester, who had apparently forgotten about the last few months shed spent plotting Sophie's demise, grinned. "Welcome home."

"But where will we get a new bed?" Dot peeped from the floor.

I looked at Sophie, then at Dot. I was supposed to be a villain, but recently, I had gone soft. Villains are ruthless. Villains don't have friends. Villains have assets. And Dot, no matter how fond I was of her, was not an asset.

She didn't even get to collect her snacks. For the rest of the night, Dot pounded on the door in banishing silence, but it was no use.

Three witches made a coven and she had been replaced.