to the Fallen, “exists in me, but it thrives in Priscilla. She fosters it, cherishes it … relishes it.” Noa fisted her hands just to stop them shaking. “Priscilla fought back against the Witch Finders the most. Against Auguste.” Noa’s jaw tightened as her eyes briefly drifted to Sela, Auguste’s brother, who looked so much like him that it was as if he was with them in the gym. “He hated her. Loathed her. Wanted to break her. So they hurt her the most, made her pay for her insolence. They tortured us all … but Priscilla …” Noa’s voice cut out when rage threatened to burst from her.
“They put her through hell,” Beth said. Noa closed her eyes, and she could hear Priscilla screaming, hear her cursing the Brethren in her family’s ancient tongue, casting curse upon curse on them as they tied to her to a stake and burned her, as they drowned her, hands tied behind her back, as they hanged her, only releasing the noose when her body began to shut down as death bit at her heels. “They didn’t break her. Even after all of it … she didn’t break.” Beth’s eyes glistened. Naomi nodded in silent agreement of how hard it had been to see Priscilla torn apart in such brutal, barbaric ways. Noa recalled the strength, the sheer will that Priscilla kept tight hold of, even when each of her fingers were broken, when she was half dead, barely breathing.
“So we trained,” Dinah said, picking the story back up. “We trained until we were one, just as the Witch Finders became each day on that training field. And then we waited. Sitting tightly in patience for months and months. We waited and waited, until the day Auguste was pulled away from our quarters, some kind of emergency in the city, leaving only a few of his men behind to guard us.”
Dinah nodded to herself. “Patience. We had to learn patience at such a young age. We endured their torture, fought to keep up our strength, and waited until the perfect moment to strike arose. We knew we only had one shot.”
“I taught myself how to pick locks,” Noa said. Gabriel closed his eyes and nodded, clearly tying Noa’s theft of the collar’s key and her past together.
“Priscilla made us weapons, slices of metal that we sharpened on the walls of the dorm to work as makeshift knives,” Candace said.
“And then we attacked,” Jo said. Noa could still feel that day like it was yesterday—the door they were trapped behind opening under Noa’s quick hand, Priscilla leading them like a Valkyrie from their dorm and into the hallway. They had never been outside of their dorm unescorted. But Priscilla had glanced back at Noa, and Noa, freedom coursing through her veins, had smiled.
Darkness to darkness. Like magnets.
Noa saw the guards rushing toward them. They fell into formation, just as they had seen the Witch Finders do so many times, as the Coven had practiced deep in the night. Noa still remembered the looks on their captors’ faces as they saw their prisoners, the so-called sinful witches, heretics, poised to fight—organized, ready … lethal.
The sisters were young, starved and frail, but the thought of freedom gave them ungodly strength; the need to taste fresh air and gain liberation made them an unstoppable force.
And so they fought. Priscilla and Noa killed. It was the first time Noa had ever taken a life, and Noa remembered the first spatter of blood that had kissed her cheek. It was warm and wet and smelled of rich copper.
It felt like sweet revenge.
In that moment, Noa felt something inside of her awaken, a monster stirring from a century-long sleep. She and Priscilla didn’t stop until every Witch Finder was dead. Their sisters fought too, fists and kicks, but their eyes were wide as Noa and Priscilla basked in the Brethren deaths, as they felt the blood on their skin, as luxurious as lying on a silken sheet.
“And then we fled,” Dinah said. Noa sank back into the present. But the buzz of those kills still stirred within her. She felt someone watching her. When she sought out who, she found Diel with a knowing smile on his face—he was just as bloodthirsty as her.
Her pretty, pretty monster.
“We ran,” Jo said. “We ran for weeks, stealing food and sleeping rough. Never stopping in case they found us and dragged us back.” She shook her head. “We didn’t know the outside world.