Archive of Our Own ^beta

Ophelia says she found me in some backwater mundane commune, abandoned by my parents and worth nothing to the world. She found me screaming my head off among the rolling hills being chased by a gaggle of small-fry malificaria. Apparently, I had tried to compulse her into helping me, which no doubt solidified her decision to snatch me away from the clutches of the mals and the compound’s mundane hippies. She brought me home to New York, clothed and fed me, her love and malia in turns. And so this meant that, in the currency of fear and obligation that the privileged trade in, I owed her my life, my future, and the very breath from my lungs. And for a time, I was happy enough.

The day she brought me back, Orion had been sitting rigidly, in that automaton way of his, beside his father in the living room. Obviously, they had been warned ahead of my arrival. Balthasar never cared for me much, but it seemed he didn’t care much about anything. Perhaps he resented his wife’s already limited time being spent on me rather than him. Or perhaps he just didn’t care to involve himself in the minutiae of his wifes scheming. He spent most days in his artifice workshop within the recesses of the enclave. Occasionally, bringing home Orion some toy of his own devising.

It was hard not to be envious of Orion growing up. People didn’t necessarily love him, but they definitely tried to, and our peers hero-worshipped him. Which is more than anyone could say for me. Everyone who knew Ophelia was a maleficer assumed I was her great dark working. And everyone who didn’t know, assumed I was someone else’s great dark working, here in New York not as a person, but as a weapon. My only solace was that I was Ophelia’s favorite of the two of us. Not that Orion cared. No, the only thing he cared about was me, fascinated from our very introduction like some sort of tacky fairytale. Of course, this helped me soften towards him too. I had never been loved before other than by my birth mother presumably, whom I could barely remember. To Ophelia I was simply a ward, not a daughter, maybe an ally, her younger-self manifest perhaps. But to Orion, I was everything, and he was my everything too. Who else could understand the weight of difference? When I would come back from his mother’s laboratories, fingers blackened, only the whites of my eyes showing, when the first irreplaceable cracks in my anima began to appear after I tortured an indie kid out of her mana until she died under Ophelia’s watch, he was the one who would grasp my hands in his and hold me in the dark. No one else would dare touch me, no one would even risk brushing shoulders in the hall. Let alone willingly extend a hand. How could I not love him, unquestionably and unequivocally? After my first human kill, I knew Ophelia could never know the foremost position that Orion held in my heart. While the indie girl was screaming the last breath out of her lungs, a hoarse death knell, I had seen the smallest smile grace Ophelia’s lips for the first time. For all she could pretend that she was cool and calculating, restrained and removed from the cost of malia, in that moment I knew that it touched her more deeply than she let on.

I think I first began to realize the true depth of her madness, her self-righteousness, in tiny bits of decay. The facade of her calculated perfection would fall, but what remained was the controlled certainty of being right, of arrogance burning cold. When we were alone in the dimness of her labs, in the very farthest and deepest corners of New York, she would talk about balance. How because of all the goody-two shoe wizards in the world, who bent and worshiped at the altar of hypocrisy, it was up to us to maintain the balance of mana and malia. It was up to us, maleficers, the real ones, not the selfish crazed maniacs who stole our name, to keep the world safe from the ignorant good intentions of our fellow wizards. After all, it was all the ‘good’ little mana users creating the mals that tore into their children at night. It didn’t sound like madness at the time though, it sounded right.

And so that was my life. I was good at it too. And too young to care about the consequences. The killing, the torture. The being sent out in the night, ripping open rival enclaves and stealing their wizards from their beds and the mana from their hearts. Funneling it all into my pretty filigree power sharer, that had been Ophelia’s when she was still a girl and capable of wielding mana. Did I feel bad about it? Does a bomb feel bad about the city after its been dropped? Does a knife lament the wound its rent? No, those feelings weren’t for me. So long as when I returned to the comfortable dark of the Lake apartments, and Orion was there to grab my hands as we lay on the floor of his room, my psyche could remain as intact as any regular maleficer’s.

Orion of course, knew nothing of these illicit activities. I’m not sure if it was a learned ignorance or if he really was clueless. And wasn’t I just the luckiest girl in the world? Where else could I have indulged the ruinous pitch of my affinity to such an extent? No, there was nowhere in the world that would have fostered me into the ghastly queen of rot that I was meant to be quite so well.

While the other enclaver kids were encouraged, no doubt both by Ophelia and their parents, to fawn over Orion. They didn’t seem to know what to do with me. Nobody really did except Ophelia, and what she did with me was point me like a nuke at her enemies and call it a day. No aftercare for a weapon of mass destruction. By virtue of the ominous aura of my affinity, most of the other kids kept a wide berth but remained differential to me in lieu of my position as the future-Domina’s apprentice. Orion is the only one who never wasted my time with wariness and respect.

Ophelia was a strict but patient teacher, settling for nothing less than excellence before moving on to the next subject. We spent probably more time together than she and Orion, but that’s because there was something not quite right about their relationship. He was her tool and happy to be one, and I think there was some love there but I also think they were two people who even if they had loved each other like a normal mother and son would not have known what to do with the emotion. I never really cared besides, it let me monopolize Orion’s humanity for myself.

Ophelia played at contentment with her lot in life the same way the Lakes played at being a family. Incredibly well, the cracks were so infinitesimal it was hard to tell where the truth ended and the lies started. I discovered the reason why Ophelia had stumbled across me in the first place one late evening, after I had been her apprentice for more years than fingers on a hand. We stepped out into the hall where she whispered it to me after a few glasses of wine, imbibed during one of the council meetings I shadowed her at.

“You don’t know how lucky you two are that you’re a matched set. Made by magic to be the other’s balance. It's quite sweet.” Ophelia sighed deeply. “There is no one in this world who will ever be my equal. Even Balthasar only loves the memory of the woman I was before shattering my anima. I am just her nefarious shadow to be feared. Be glad my son loves you wholly, Galadriel.”

I nod, uncomfortable at this uncharacteristic display from her. Staying silent as she continued.

“He’s lucky I found you too. At least he has a few moments of being a boy with you around.” She paused. “It was dumb luck really. A moment of weakness with infinite payoff. I had gone to see the famed healer, Gwendolyn Higgins you see, to see if I could restore my anima--to see if Balthasar would ever love me again.” She sighed, tonelessly. “It was stupid. My anima hadn’t been fully sundered yet, but Gwendolyn still couldn’t heal it. Regardless, Balthasar’s opinion is of no consequence to me anymore. He’s not strong enough to get in my way.” It had to have been a trick of light in the poor lighting of the underground hallway that led away from the council room, but she almost looked regretful. When we stepped out into one of the better lit rooms her face was smooth as a stone with its impassivity.

The year before we were inducted into the Scholomance, Ophelia gifted Orion and I matching power shares. Except they were one way. Orion’s feeding directly into mine, like he was some sort of infinite battery just for me.

“Of course, once your anima completely fractures and mana is out of the question, we will redirect Orion’s mana to the enclave’s power pool. But for the Scholomance I think this will do nicely.” Ophelia said offhandedly. Then she sent us into the night to do her bidding. As I knew, this was Orion's first foray into being his mother’s minion. He would accompany me on our more savory duties, fighting mals the size of buildings and other maleficers who wished to prey on New York. I don’t even think Ophelia really wanted to send him out with me, some dormant maternal instinct rearing its head. She had just given up any hope of her son being her charming heir, capable of cajoling the masses to her will, and had decided to set him loose on the mals as he had always wanted.

When I would go into the night, and take malia, scooping it, gooey and soft from the rind of wizard bodies, he never accompanied me. When I took a cursed dagger and cut a condition-based spell that would boil from the inside out if its needs were not met into a mana-only healer from Bangkok whose councilman father was causing Ophelia one too many headaches, he was not there. When I tore through the wards and into Santa Barbara’s enclave during the witching hour and put a wasting spell on the heiress to the Domina position who was powerful enough to upset the balance of power in the West Coast’s favor, Orion was not there.

As the time for my induction drew nearer, and the years under Ophelia’s tutelage had taught me less about being a wizard than being an instrument of misery. I was beginning to lose my patience. When Ophelia went on her midnight tangents about balance, about the horrible truth of enclaves and society, how me and Orion were her set of weapons instrumental to her success, and our horrible responsibility to bring it all down, I wanted to tell her she was stark raving mad. I wasn’t a maleficer because of any divine ordinance or working. I was not a confirmation of her pre-eminence or her fate as a domina of the entire world. I was a maleficer, because as a child, I had realized that that was the only way anyone in this world was going to love me. And bully for me, because I never got the full payout of that deal anyway. But I at least had Orion, and maybe I was greedy for wanting more. He should’ve been more than enough. But I supposed that’s what maleficers do: take and take and take and never know when to stop. So maybe this was always what I was meant to be regardless of Ophelia’s influence.

So when Ophelia, carefully instructed me in the disciplines required for a maleficer to avoid the aftereffects of our power, I listened, all about the importance of the balance of malia in exchange for mana, good for evil, life for death; how by the laws of magic nothing taken could ever be received freely. I want to note that the majority of this instruction was hypocrisy because she had long discovered my anima was heartier and more hale than most and had consequently sent me out to do the blackest of deeds that should’ve fallen to her, no doubt to extend her life a little longer. Or in a bid to break me faster, and render me just like her: free of a spirit. Thus there was no point to her tiny disciplines that could not turn the clock back on the wear on my physical and spiritual states, well-hidden to but the most discerning. But still we performed the rituals. And maintaining a balance of light and dark within my actions became a secondary nature. Like that mundane scholar said, for every action an opposite reaction.

I think the worst part is that it actually worked to slow my physical decline, showing that Ophelia’s hideous beliefs might contain some truth after all. And so I had the great joy of being able to cling to my sanity and my body as I entered my teens.

I was only thirteen, still pre-scholomance, but my power had already eclipsed a wizard in their prime by far. I had gems of cursed amulets, thrumming with malice, amplifying me. I had the New York mana pool on one wrist and the Orion fueled one on the other. I was nigh unstoppable. Of course though when induction did come around, the weight allocation would not allow me to bring all my artifice in.

Ophelia and I were taking one of our routine lunches in one of New York’s dining atriums, which were the height of luxury for an enclave. Floor to ceiling glass windows lined the majority of the walls, letting in real sunlight--if I closed my eyes I could feel the natural warmth featherlight on my skin. The wallpapered walls were in shades of pale mint and gold embossment artfully contrived into swaying foliage, a simple animation spell. Overhead the baccarat crystal chandeliers cast beams of filtered light in prismatic arcs.

Ophelia took a careful sip of her coffee from her small navy Wedgwood espresso cup. With a flick of her wrist, a morsel of malia, and a small incantation in Old English, she cast a privacy charm around our table.

“I’ve been wanting to talk to you, Galadriel. About your upcoming induction to the Scholomance.”

I took a noisy slurp from my own bone china cup, Ophelia wrinkled her nose slightly at me.

“Yes?”

“You’ll need to be extra careful. Out here, a malia-user can be a little more careless with their… less than savory needs. Especially as my ward and apprentice. If things came to light, people would be upset, but they couldn’t do anything about it. Not with me around. And eventually.” She paused, lips pursed. “They could be convinced, they would learn to understand why people like you and me are necessary in the grander scheme of things.”

I nod, used to her over-cautionary nagging, shoving a delicate pastry into my mouth.

“Galadriel, things will not be like that in the Scholomance. You will have the power and backing of an enclave yes, but it only takes a moment of carelessness for a group of no names to sneak up on you. Or heaven forbid, if word gets out about what exactly you are. The other enclaves would band against you out of fear, it would be a mob. After an entire year of students was wiped out a decade ago, people are apt to overreact when it comes to dark wizards these days.”

She reached to grasp my hands. Not out of any real concern, but most likely out of habit of her lifelong charade at pretending she’s something she’s not.

“I don’t want you to get hurt, Galadriel. Be very careful, only small workings. Let Orion take the spotlight and distract them from what you are.”

I shoved another pastry in, chewing slowly as the sugar flaked across my tongue in bursts of sweetness.

“Alright. I understand.” To which Ophelia gave me a tight practiced smile. “I’ll be a normal little enclaver. Mana only, even if you like.”

And because being contrarian was all I had. Mana-only it was inside the Scholomance. It was even fun, like a child’s game of make believe. Hullo I’m Galadriel, the normal girl! Nothing to see here and nothing to fear here.

The induction itself was relatively lackluster. Us enclave kids had been prepped for years on what to expect and all the little tidy tricks to use handed down from parent to child, generations of wisdom improved upon through each age.

It was small work establishing the pecking order within our year. The New Yorkers at least gave me a wide berth, but were always polite, even when I stuck to my paltry displays of mana only magic. The other enclavers were less respectful, mocking me behind my back. Jealous most likely. Orion wasted no time in establishing himself as the valiant protector of our little lives within the Scholomance. They were upset that their protector didn’t want to spend more time protecting them by virtue of his company, and wanted to spend time with me. The enclave girl who showed no particular magical acumen, and seemed to be skating by with the protection of being an enclaver and the special attention of Orion.

I guess, my haughty attitude didn’t endear me to them either. I was somewhat miffed by their behavior, I had never really had to earn respect before. I made no effort to be friendly, and an atmosphere of malice around my person hovered relentlessly. Oh no doubt, whispers of my being Ophelia’s apprentice kept them from actively going after me, but it didn’t stop the snide comments behind my back and the backhanded statements to my face. I just smiled. After all this was part of the charade of normalcy wasn’t it? Normal girls didn’t subjugate their enemies, didn’t dismember them for careless words or cruel remarks. No, they sat there with a demure smile. And so I did, the perfect closed-lipped smile I had learned from Ophelia herself plastered on my face.

In a curious way, being in the Scholomance was the first time I truly got to know Orion, the person. While we spent time together before school, I was often away at Ophelia’s behest. What time we did have together was often chaperoned by Ophelia herself or Balthasar.

Inside the school we were practically inseparable. I had somehow taken it upon myself, to draw the line with other students trying to take advantage of his good nature. God knows, he would gladly sacrifice himself, body and soul, in the pursuit of mal hunting. And so, I learned all the facets of his personality that had once been unknown to me, and he began to be more than just my solace from a life of horror but also my friend and equal.

A year of mana only begetted some curious changes in me. At first it had begun as a challenge. To see how long I could sweat out the malia withdraws, to see if I could have the same mastery over my magic with just mana fueling it. Two things I was already familiar with, as Ophelia’s teaching insisted on a certain level of independence and discipline when it came to interacting with malia. But this was much longer than any of Ophelia’s assignments. The black hue and gnarled form of my hands began to regain the smooth luster of youth and original color. The need for constant glamor fell away. While my preternatural aura of charisma faded to just the usual disarming prettiness. Even tiny workings of healing became possible for me again. And though my anima remained deeply cracked, the damage did not worsen.

If you had told me a handful of years ago, that I would be happier playing at mana only in a school full of people who didn’t respect me, then being Ophelia’s lapdog I would’ve laughed. But I was happier than ever before. Practically incandescent with the glow of it. A thing I had never thought possible without the smear of violence and pain.

Thus the first two years of my time in the Scholomance passed without incident. Firmly cementing themselves as my most precious memories. A brief respite.

By the time of my junior year there was only one other maleficer. Oh sure, a couple students like Yi Liu were dabbling, but it was like they were dipping a toe an inch deep into the ocean, their anima smooth and clean still if not a bit sticky. But unlike the rest Jack Westing had fully submerged. No going back for him. I could smell the corpse-blood on his fingers from a mile away, I’d even licked the malia off his first kill. When he snuck into little Luisa’s room three doors down at the beginning of the year, his malia flaring like a beacon of intention, I stepped into the hall behind him under a concealment and sat outside her door after he went in. As far as I could tell, she only had a few seconds to beg, a clear mark of an-over zealous first kill. It was a simple equation: the more pain, the more fear, the more futile attempts at protective spell work bleeding into the air stillborn, the more malia yielded. A quick death is amateur work. From the deep shadows of my concealment spell, I watched him exit quickly, a self-satisfied expression plastered all over his handsome face. For some reason it made me unspeakably angry. But I leashed the emotion with the carefully taught control from years of being Ophelia’s premier apprentice and let him walk back to his room, undisturbed. Then I stepped through Louisa’s door.

Louisa, passably pretty, mouse haired Louisa was now nothing more than a dark puddle of blood and gore splattered throughout the walls and floor. Already, she was rapidly coalescing down the drain in the middle of the room. Sloppy work, Jackie-boy had left a wasteful amount of malia behind.

I leaned down, dipping my fingers into the puddle and licked. I shivered with the potency of the magic. Freshly spilt blood all for me. Jack really shouldn’t have.

You might think that us maleficers would have some sort of kinship with one another. After all, like had to recognize like. But no, this was hardly the case in the outside world and in a place like the Scholomance, a chance of alliance was even less likely. It becomes a territorial issue. In the Scholomance especially. Unlike the rest of the world, there is technically a limited amount of malia inside the school. All the wards that keep it out, all the mals that devour it, and all the weak kiddie wizards that barely generate enough of it, make it a very contested resource indeed. That’s why when kids go completely dark, like Jack had, pickings get slim. There’s only so many indie kids you can kill before your only option becomes the enclavers, especially with the amount of energy a newly born maleficer requires. Malia-users like Li Yue can get by, because they still primarily use mana. And I can get by because malia is my affinity, I need hardly any of it to cast workings of primordial destruction, not to mention the fact I had been mana only for two years.

That’s why I was going to poke at Jack. Just to see. See if he deserved to live as a maleficer. If he deserved to take up space. He’d have a choice of course, whether he would live or die was up to him. I was magnanimous like that, I almost always gave people a choice because Ophelia never did.

The day after Louisa’s death, Jack didn’t even look ruffled. In fact, he looked better than usual. Golden hair shining, skin aglow. No doubt, I had the same post-consumption charisma oozing out in near invisible aureate waves.

I had gotten to the cafeteria extra early, cutting the last ten minutes of class to do so. And then all I had to do was wait. Jack came in, got his food and went to sit with the usual group of low-tier enclavers he was a hanger-on of. I intercepted him from behind as he was in transition. Placing a cold, clawed hand on his shoulder and digging in with my nails.

“Hello.” I said. He turned very slowly around to look at me. Expression curious, but I could sense he was angry at my over-familiar touch.

“Yes hello, Galadriel. Is there something you want?” Jack said.

“Yes, as a matter of fact there is. You wouldn’t happen to know where Louisa is? I was going to help her with homework. I didn’t see her in class today.”

He gave me a cold look of derision at my bold-faced lie. An enclaver would never in a million years be helping an indie kid with homework for free, and Louisa definitely had nothing to offer. I had to give it to him, he wasn’t scared. Yet at least.

“No, why would I?”

The air around us fell a few degrees in temperature. I couldn’t tell if it was me or him finally getting defensive.

“Just wondering. You did go into her room last night after all. I didn’t know you two were friends.”

“We’re not.” He snapped. “And why does it matter to me if some loser goes missing?”

“I see. Thank you.” I said, tightening my grip on his shoulder briefly before letting go.

He went back to his table without looking over his shoulder, but when I went to sit with Orion, my back to him purposely, I could feel his gaze burning hot between my shoulder blades. No doubt he had realized his slip up. I had never said she was missing.

I’ll give it to Jack. It’s a pretty ballsy move to go after an enclaver. Especially one from New York. Especially Orion Lake’s one and only. But, two years of weak puny mana only spells, and jealous rumors spread by kids from other enclaves about how I was just Orion’s pathetic toy, seemed to give Jack the extra-boost of confidence to think he could take me out. He really was just another pretty face with no brains.

He tried to get the jump on me the same way he did with Louisa. Except he knocked.
I swung open the door, the pre-cast protective spell over my person flashing purple when it caught the light. Not that he noticed. Over-confident dickhead.

“I think I remembered something about Louisa, may I come in?” He said, almost meekly. I shrugged my assent and beckoned him inside.

“Well--” I began, when he cast a particularly nasty killing curse in Turkish, one that turned you inside-out. I snatched it, casting it into the void, where it hit the black expanse with a hiss.

Well, maybe not that confident, he clearly wanted to avoid a drawn out battle.

“That wasn’t very nice.” To which he snarled, eyes going white as he drew on the malia he had stored. I could hear him chanting in some sort of old runic german. But I definitely did not want to see where that led. So I encased him in stone, with a quick cast of my favorite spell. Once I had ascertained that it had successfully interrupted his casting, I exposed his face, pulling back the stone with a tiny counter-curse.

I wanted his head free so he could see his death coming, so he could know that it wore my lovely face. After two years of playing harmless spoiled enclaver, I wanted him to know what real power looked like. Wanted to taste his fear and watch the light fade from his eyes. Wanted him to know that unlike the rest of them I had already paid for my privileged place a thousand times over.

“You think you’re a big man?” I said, stepping into his space. I could see the droplets of sweat forming at his temples in a sheen.``Jack the big bad maleficer-- the next dark lord to enslave us all? You think you’re getting out of the Scholomance fueled by the bones of defenseless little girls and indie wizards?” I hissed in his ear as he trembled, and tried to open his mouth again to no doubt resume casting. “Well sorry to break the news but you’re not. Fauete linguis.” I incanted, flicking my wrists in tandem. It was a small favorite spell of some Roman maleficers. A classic really. It took only a second, and at no cost to me the air was so thick with malia and his fear. Then his bloody tongue was on the floor, thick and oozing. It steamed a little, fresh with the heat from his body.

“There we go. Let me show you how a real maleficer kills. Your display with Louisa left some things to be desired.” He was well and truly crying now, face wet and scrunched and doughy with pain and fear. Pathetic. A horrid death is an inevitability for our kind, he should’ve been ready to face his with his pride intact after that first kill sealed his fate.

I dragged his shaking carcass into the hall, flakes of stone coming away with the force of his trembling. Too bad for him. Curfew was in effect and no one would be coming no matter how hard he screamed.

I have to admit, I was quite excited. Two stale years of mana-only, however great and wholesome it made me feel, was nothing to the lingering poison-sweet embrace of my affinity for malicious destruction. And here was the perfect target, a petty little maleficer no one would miss. Most likely, killing him wouldn’t even damage my spirit, I would be restoring the balance. And if the drawn out nature of his death added to the sum of pain and suffering world, well that’d just be more malia for me.

I summoned some cursed nails, handy bits of artifice that the Scholomance and its love for maleficers was only too happy to provide after I spoke the charm. It even gave me a hammer to go with. It was a kind of fucked-up crucifixion, I nailed his palms and feet to the floor of the hall, not even the mals came close as I worked such was the cacophony of his screams. But there was nothing he could do. He was only a third-year with no tongue, and unfortunately for him wordless spells were a senior year seminar.

I put a small life support spell on him, not wanting the fun to end too soon. Then I summoned a dome of mortal flame around myself, burning so hot the flames were clear, its presence only indicated by the warping of the air around it and sat criss-cross inside. And thus the show began.

It was intoxicating, the hurting, the violence for violence’s sake. Like a sick version of magic's principles of balance: as long as you were inflicting the hurt you weren’t being hurt, as long as others were paying the miserable price of living you were safe. That's what power is, the choice of picking who suffers in your place.

First he wailed, as the malificaria ate him alive and no one came. And then he groaned, a low moaning sound and no one came. And lastly pathetic whimpers, but we remained alone with all the intimacy that comes with spectating someone on their deathbed. I could give him no greater mercy than my company.

After a few hours, I grew bored, the life-support spell was more effective than I thought it’d be. Once he no longer had a throat, Jack had begun frantically twitching, desperately trying to tear himself free to no avail. All it served to do was make the gaping holes of his pseudo-stigmata more ragged and bloated with gore. He was like a blind dumb deaf worm. By the end of it, he was just a flayed bundle of misshapen flesh, convoluted and warped throbbing in infernal pain; no better than the lowest of creatures. I stepped out of my mortal flame, and stood over him for a moment.

“Quia puluis es et in puluerem reuerteris.” I whispered, giving him the privilege of my mana. And watched as what little was left began to crumple into ashes, then into dust, and then into nothing. It was like he had never been.

I slept well that night and woke up with the luster of my skin even brighter than the day before. But my nails had turned the pitch of midnight and the skin on my hands and feet were gnarled like a crone. I cast my old familiar glamour, no-less effective despite the disuse.

When I sat down next to Orion at breakfast, he leaned in and bumped our shoulders. Staring at me for a moment.

“You look nice.” He said.

“Thank you,” I replied primly, dabbing a napkin against my mouth and leaning into where our shoulders touched.

It was more than a little difficult to go back to mana-only after my confrontation with Jack. All my dark desires had woken with fresh vengeance and were clamoring about inside me for a chance to be let out. I didn’t particularly want to go on a killing spree, tearing through my fellow students like paper dolls after all the trouble Orion had gone through to keep everyone alive. I couldn’t imagine how sad he’d be to know the one normal symptom of his love for hunting went to waste.

So I did the next best thing. I found Yi Liu, straggling a bit walking out the cafeteria behind the other mandarin-speakers, walking alone, a silly mistake that could cost her her life.

“Hello, It seems we both have a general linguistics course next. We could walk together?” I said, offering her my arm.

“Alright, Galadriel.” She only looked the tiniest bit wary, but she didn’t hesitate to link our arms like we were the best of friends.

I always had a soft spot for her, I won’t lie. She reminded me of myself in my first early days in New York’s enclave. Of course she was not a 6 year old girl who had been given-- or maybe stolen-- away. But still. In terms of malia’s evil art, she was a child. I wonder if she knew exactly what she was doing to herself.

“I thought I might lend you a hand.” I said, lowly as we walked through the Scholomance’s circuitous corridors. “Think of it as a second chance.”

“Excuse me?” Liu said, with the intonation of someone who is wishfully hoping that a language barrier of a long-fluent second tongue is interfering. I pulled her into an alcove. She was tense now, fists balled.

I cast a small cleansing charm before she could do something stupid like cast a spell, the looping vowels of Old English falling off my tongue. Usually I would be terrible at these but the intention of the moment changes when malia is filtered through. Then I kissed her, a quick chaste peck on the mouth, and there was a popping sound in the air like an atmospheric shift. I got a fresh dose of malia for my trouble and she got-- her nails had gone back to their natural color, but her face was very very pale.

“I’ve just sucked the poison out of the wound basically. The infection is gone, but the hurt is still there. You’ll most likely need to seek someone with a healing-affinity out to undo the rest of the damage to your spirit.”

“What have you done?” Liu said, rather angrily instead of the thankful response that what I had done for her necessitated. I got it though, I had just taken a choice from her.

I was about to say ‘saved you from yourself’ but I thought that might be a little condescending.

“Providing assistance.” I said. And then I had the bright idea to completely blow my cover, so I grasped her hands, and undid my glamor for the barest of moments.

It was long enough though, Liu dropped my hands like hot coals, and stared at them in horror.

“You seem like the kind of girl who knows when to keep a secret.” I said, stepping closer again. “So I’ll tell you one. Malia-use is a giant waste of time. You have an affinity, yes? Use it, it'll be better than this in the long run, trust me.”

She gulped, nodding. I held out my arm again, which she took, albeit shakily.

“Let’s get to class shall we. And if you need someone to cut your hair, I’d be happy to.”

After our chat, Yi Liu, won my eternal respect by resisting the lurid call of maleficery, and continuing on as mana-only. Despite my little display, she trusted me enough to cut her long thick hair in the showers one night. When she turned her back to me as I brushed her hair out my throat felt all choked up with emotion. I neatly braided the strands before cutting them, so she’d be able to store them easily. Wizard hair was a valuable commodity for any artificer after all. Then, because the halls were deserted in the few minutes before bed, I magnanimously walked her to her room, for which I received a brief sincere thanks.

I was indeed correct that Yi Liu was the kind of girl who knew when to keep a secret and things continued on as they ever did. Except sometimes, Liu, or someone she had obviously sent, would ask me to walk them to class or workshop. I was always happy to oblige, mostly happy to be of use after years of sitting idle in the schemes of others inside; relatively safe in the embrace of the Scholomance from politics.

My streak of good-deeds didn’t stop with Yi Liu. If I was as superstitious about the balance of magic as Ophelia, I would have said that killing Jack, had called upon the Scholomance to wield me as a protective talisman. Which was stupid. I couldn’t protect anyone. I couldn’t even protect myself really.

I was in the stacks, though I had been begrudgingly accompanied by Orion, who hated the library, to a study group. I watched from a distance, as people clamored for his attention around the couches. The library was overly packed, students flocking to both the safety of the space and Orion’s presence. I ruminated for a moment on how no one had even noticed I had stepped away. Not even Orion. Then I turned away and headed deeper into the stacks.

I had only stepped away for a moment when the background chatter turned into shrieks and the sound of things crashing into furniture. Craning my neck to peer back down the aisle, I spied the barrage of mals that had begun assaulting the unassuming students. Orion seemed to have it well in hand, so I resumed my perusal of the books.

That’s when I spied it, the maw mouth liquidly inching from the vent. Its bulbous borrowed eyes winking at me in the dimness of the shelves.

I supposed I had two choices: walk away and let it become a problem for later, which it inevitably would. Once it had gone through enough kids it would eventually reach me in the pocket of space that was the Scholomance. Or deal with it now. Orion’s proximity to its location urged me towards the latter choice, or else I probably would’ve left it be or at least gone and gathered some malia in preparation to fight it.

There was a lot of of hubbub around maw mouths. But it seems that Ophelia was right about something once more. There was no power in this world that could withstand my affinity for death. I even got a gift for my troubles fresh from the roiling depths of the Scholomance, The Golden Sutras, manifesting themselves prettily on the shelves.

I was elated at first, clutching my new prize like a stuffed toy every night when I went to sleep. I had the audacity to wonder if this was my gleaming ticket to some sort of redemption. But then I remembered the totality of a cracked anima and the Scholomance’s partiality to dark witches and wizards. There’s no way that this boon was given with the aim of goodness in mind, not when every other spell I had ever been given resulted in mass destruction.

That didn’t stop me from pouring over them, completely consumed. I used the weight of New York’s power to get the brightest minds of the school to examine and weigh in. I wanted to find the other shoe that was sure to drop.

The day that the seniors got it in their heads that they could convince Orion to sacrifice himself so they could have an easy way out at graduation, would have been their last if it was up to me.

They accosted us in front of everyone in the cafeteria, marching right up to Orion, smug in their righteousness. And demanded that Orion graduate with them. Their selfishness made me sick with rage.

I stood up, drawing attention to myself for the first time in years. “How dare you ask this of him.” I snapped.

Clarita, opened her mouth to say something that would no doubt sound like it made perfect sense and would convince everyone around us further of her rightness. But before she could, Orion interrupted.

“Please Gal, let me help them,” Orion wheedled, using the nickname that he alone was allowed to use. “We have the power to save them all. It would cost us nothing”

“You’re an idiot if you truly believe it would cost nothing.” I retorted.

“Yes, and it’ll cost us everything if you don’t do something to make up for what your boyfriend here has done.” Clarita said pointedly.

And from there the argument dissolved into petty squabbling between us and the seniors.
We finally reached some accord by agreeing to fix the Graduation Hall’s machinery. And thus the rat race leading up to the big day began.

What I didn’t tell Orion after I had agreed to his ridiculous plan, was that I still intended to pay the Scholomance’s cost. For two reasons. Firstly, years of studying with Ophelia had made maintaining the balance almost a compulsion. There’s a perverse balance to wielding malia that regular wizards just don’t understand. It’s even more important for maleficers to observe, because our repercussions are direct-- the rotting of the flesh, the blackened skin, and the like-- if a maleficer is not actively paying, or making someone else pay, for their workings the price is high for the body and mind. And as the local maleficer within the school and therefore the easiest target for the laws of the Scholomance, it's a price I’m not willing to pay just because Orion wants to go around playing hero. Secondly, I didn’t want to decimate the New York power sharer before our own graduation. And despite Orion’s personal one funneling to me, well, for a maleficer no amount of power is truly enough. And a maleficer I would return to being, Jack’s death had jump started it, but I had always known I would have to go back to old and familiar ways to guarantee that me and Orion would get out of this place. I was always willing to play fast and loose with my own safety but for Orion I would take no chances, spare no personal expense.

The night before graduation, our industrious group went down into the maintenance shaft.

Clarita cast her marvelous multicaster protective barrier and we all joined her in song while Orion cut a swatch of destruction outside its warm glow.

There was little to note, other than the exotic swearing of the maintenance kids, though I could see the others shiver as my portion of the spell work took the lead for a few lines. Luckily, it only felt like a cold spot in a room, and in the drafty graduation hall I doubted anyone was going to start pointing fingers at my being a maleficer over it. There were a few moments where some of the seniors would look a little pale, and I would have to take a little extra from my power shares, and sometimes even a little malia and shove it into the spell to cover for them. But the maintenance kids did deft work and it was only a little under an hour before we were being yanked back up all in one piece.

After everyone had gone to bed, flush and elated with the high of success, I had other plans. The thing about graduation is everyone’s so distracted by their own impending doom their minds will not be on other inconsequential things such as the most irrelevant mewling defenseless beings in the school: first years. So I went to the freshmen dorms at the top of the school. Up the winding stair wells of the Scholomance. Thinking about Ophelia’s principles of balance, I wondered what unspeakable hell was coming for me after all the virtue I’d been pushing out into the world. No good deed should go unpunished after all, and I would much rather pick the poison I was to ingest. It didn’t take very long for me to reach the landing that signaled my arrival to the freshmen quarters.

I had saved a good chunk of freshmen from the maw mouth, who no doubt after the library would have gone through their dorms. And got the Golden Sutra’s for it. But now me and Orion were going to save a year's worth of seniors, after Orion had been cutting down the student casualties our entire school career. The cost had to be paid. I hope that some of the kids had enjoyed the extra time I had bought them with my maw-mouth slaying. Small mercies.

I crept into the first room, closest to the stairs, the unluckiest spot. If it wasn’t me it probably would have been something else eventually. I touched my hand to the door with the tiniest bit of malia, tearing through the feeble locking charm like paper. I crept over to the boy’s bed, disabling the one other protective charm just as easily. I decided to do it the old fashion way with no mana or malia, I didn’t want to waste anything before the real party had gotten started. I cast a compulsive charm, one that induced peace and stillness, I wasn’t a total monster. He would feel nothing, just have to lie still and be a spectator to his death. Once I was sure the spell was in effect, I wrapped my hands around his neck, fingernails turning black with malia as I drained him dry of magic. His throat turned a mottled purple beneath my hands, and soon the rise and fall of his chest faded to nothing. Thus the night went on, I used the malia from the first kill to cast a silencing spell so the rest of the school wouldn’t come running. Then I started cutting them down in droves with spells of mass destruction and murder. I didn’t want to linger so I tried to make the majority of it quick, funneling most of their exhumed magic back into the Scholomance as I went. The classic wall of mortal flame for one hall, then a poison gas for the next. I was feeling particularly dark by the time I had reached the last stretch and somewhat bored. So I used a mass compulsion spell to make them all fight each other to the death. I walked through them as they tore each other to bits, faces plastered in fear and disgust at what they could not stop from doing. I closed my eyes and let the arterial spray splatter me in a twisted baptism, knowing after this my descent could not be slowed let alone stopped. I thought about Ophelia’s comment so long ago, made about people being scared of dark wizards wiping out entire years. Well, I definitely proved them right. The mass killing was more gruesome and less intimate to be sure. The first boy who I personally strangled that night, is the only one whose face I see in my nightmares.

The next morning as I prepared for the graduation run, I was surprised to find my anima had only fractured into great big pieces instead of wholly disappearing. If wholesale slaughter of defenseless children wasn’t enough to make me lose my spirit, I was curious if there was anything that would.

Out of the sanctity of my heart, and also because I didn’t want to be seen anywhere near the freshmen dorms the next morning, I agreed along with Orion to help the seniors out. With yanker spells attached to our backs me and Orion escorted the seniors through the graduation hall. It was light work, the maintenance machinery having done its job. I carefully avoided sending my heavier spells of destruction towards Fortitude and Patience.

Years ago, in the half-light of her laboratories, Ophelia had imparted to me the grand secret of enclave building. And our glorious goal to put an end to it all with the only cost being an untold amount of human causality. After all, what was all the horror, killing, rotting, worth if it was not in pursuit of some beautiful finale? I didn’t believe it was possible, but because I loved Ophelia the way you love a mother but just a little to the left, for her I would do what was asked of me. In a way it made some twisted sense. Me and Ophelia were like the maw-mouths, rotting and sacrifice and tragedy coalesced into a monster. Like the souls feuling the maw-mouths, sacrificing an eternity of pain for generations of safety, I had to hope that we were accomplishing the greater good as well. Or else everything I was, was for nothing.

So I knew the secret of the enclaves, and Ophelia had cautioned me not to rock the boat too much before her glorious plans came to light. Therefore, Patience and Fortitude had to remain relatively unscathed.

After all the seniors had cleared out. Me and Orion stood there, in the graduation hall, our connected power shares flaring like promises in the spell light. It was disgustingly easy really, between the two of us, the mals never stood a chance. Only one or two seniors got snatched up by Patient and Fortitude, overall a resounding success of disgusting costly do-goodery.

There was one final surprise for me. For when we had escorted every last senior to their freedom, in the scorched creaking graduation hall Orion kissed me, like I was air and he was a drowning man. And I kissed him back, hands tangling in his hair, high-off the unfamiliar physical intimacy and the adrenaline from all the workings I had cast. For a moment, I forgot what masses of screaming freshmen sounded like.

It was a miserable last year in the Scholomance. In wake of the freshmen’s destruction, everyone was suspicious and on edge. With Orion’s help, I was able to avoid the brunt of the suspicion, though some rumors I was a dark witch surfaced.

The one time someone had ever suspected me, though it was musingly, half a joke, Orion had even shouted at the hapless fool who had brought it up.

I would have believed that Orion didn’t suspect me, though he was the only one in the school other than perhaps Liu, who knew the extent of my power. But as he delivered his defense of me to that previously mentioned hapless fool, stating that I could never be capable of such horror, his lip quivered ever so slightly, the same way it did when we were kids and he would desperately beseech Ophelia to let him hunt mals. The same way it did when and only when he desperately wanted something.

In private, Orion would press soft questions about it into my hair when he thought I was vulnerable. Bully for him. I would rather die than for him to know the truth of the matter. I had spent our whole childhood hiding the extent of my corruption from him, it wouldn’t do for him to know me now. Let him love the glittering woven lie.

Thus senior year sped by, with graduation fast approaching and a fresh-from-induction parchment paper note from Ophelia, there were a few orders of business to take care of.

Firstly, I found a good time to take Liu aside a quarter into the year. She had kept her mout shut, a trait I highly valued in a person, and she deserved something for it. I told her she was free to write her name next to mine, Orion's, and whatever useless New York enclavers had fought their way to a spot on our team for graduation. She gladly accepted.

Our own graduation was less eventful than the previous year. Everyone was scared but not really because they had us, or rather Orion. The freshmen were probably most terrified upon discovering the speculations and reasons there was no sophomore class. I could have told them there was nothing to fear, or at least no more than usual. I was getting out of the Scholomance this year, I had no stake in maintaining its balance. Lucky for them.

I had let all the malia I harvested from the freshmen ferment within me till the graduation run. The major arcana casting was somewhat tiring. The only fun part of it really was the look on peoples faces when I summoned the two thirty foot walls of mortal flame clearing a straight path through. The force of the spell lifted me off the ground to forebodingly hover over the clamoring masses as they rushed to escape, a halo of crimson around my form.

It would’ve gone completely smooth had Orion had any sense in that hollow head of his. After everyone had cleared the hall the big fat idiot tried to shove me out before him. With what aim, I’m not sure, all I know is I sent a snatching charm at him and we ended up physically tusseling around, rolling around the sooty floor of the graduation hall. Whatever mals were left too scared to show their faces.

“What the fuck are you doing?” I screamed at him. “It's time to go home.” We regained our footing, panting, eyeing one another warily. Then I shoved at his chest with my hands in the direction of the doors, the spell hot on my tongue, “Get the fuck out of here!” The look on his face was almost comical, as he was rapidly whisked out the doors with a pop. He didn’t even have time to say goodbye.

I took out Ophelia’s note, which had been burning a hole in my pocket all year. And cast the spell written out in her spidery handwriting. There was a resounding shuddering boom, and the support beams that lined the graduation hall like a ribcage between to creak ominously. I didn’t want to stay around for what happened next, so I incinerated the note with a word and leapt out through the doors.

When I was released, gasping and sodden with mana and malia sparking from my fingers, I looked around me shocked. There was no Orion, who I had pushed out with that nasty shoving spell. There was no bustle of transport portals, no arching roofs of old Penn Station. No crowds at all. In fact it was extremely obvious, I was not in New York City. The rolling hills of that long-ago hippie compound, nearly faded from memory, were around me instead. I was in front of a sad squat looking yurt, facing a gobsmacked woman who had dropped her bundle of washing in shock. She recovered after a moment stepping closer-- this was already bizarre, usually my aura of malia is so off putting no one ever willingly steps close, unless it's Orion of course. But this woman not only came closer, but stepped into my personal space, reaching out to cup my face in a very over familiar way.

“El, is that you?” She gasped out.

“It’s Galadriel actually. I’m not overly fond of nicknames. I’m assuming you're Gwendolyn Higgins?” I said taking a random stab out of the selection of women I knew to live in the middle of nowhere. The faint wash of healing magic she was rudely shoving my way without permission was unmistakable, and I could connect the dots between the information that Ophelia had let slip over the years.

“Oh El, my baby. Whatever happened to you?” Gwendolyn Higgins sighed deeply, reaching out to clutch my hands between hers. There was a moment of tenseness, I held my breath hoping my glamour would hold, which it did. Though I could feel the beginnings of a set-right spell, a warm suggestion, fluttering over me. But there was nothing that could be righted. My anima was cracked beyond repair, my body permanently altered by malia, there was nothing to be done even if I had wanted to change. Which I didn’t. I was what I was. I accepted it.

I hated the sight of this woman who made me question that. Made me wonder if instead of the sleek and coiffed Ophelia Rhys-Lake, malcificer extraordinaire, if I had been raised by this soft and radiant woman who I would be instead. Wonder if it was the soil I grew in that poisoned me or my own wretched nature. For a brief moment I was envious of this El, Gwendolyn Higgins wanted me to be, surely she would have the answers, the goodness and discipline that magic seemed to prize. Surely her insides would not be slowly rotting and flaking under the strain of a lifetime of malia use.

But that other life was neither here nor there, whomever El was to Gwendolyn, it surely wasn’t me. I inexplicably braced for this woman's disappointment, filled with a strange desire to not let her down.

The look on her face as she took a step back, and no doubt registered the traces of malia, well-hidden to be sure, on my person, I will never forget. It crumbled and shuttered. Her question answered. She looked as if she might cry. I wouldn’t know what to do if she did. Ophelia never cried, or showed any emotion other than grim satisfaction or disinterested frustration with the rare exception. So I remained silently watching her, the way one watches a car accident in motion. Only I was forming the inkling that the real car accident was my wreck of a life.

She wiped the still-born tears from her eyes. “I placed a find your way home spell on you when you were a baby. All you had to do was look for a way back.”

I blanched. Embarrassed that I had never once tried to find her. Too comfortable in my life in New York. And how could I have ever let go of Orion? Impossible. I couldn’t bring it in myself to apologize for it either. Why would I want to come back here? To these sad little mundanes, and no doubt that little yurt clearly devoid of any creature comforts was hers. All the power and luxury in the world in exchange to sing kumbaya with crazy wanna-be spiritual fools and this woman who no doubt wouldn’t have understood the dark witch her daughter was destined to be.
“I didn’t look. The Scholomance sent me here. I think your spell probably confused the return process. And again no one calls me El, I go by Galadriel.” I said, answering the unspoken question she had posed.

“I see.” Gwendolyn said, slowly. “Will you spare me some time? Just a little bit, I’ll make some tea. I want to know what happened. That’s all.” It was such a sad small request. I couldn’t say no. A mother talking to the changeling who had stolen her daughter's future. She deserved to know the truth, that the El she loved was already dead.

“Alright.” I said, awkwardly following her into the yurt, which was just as miserable looking inside as it was outside. I was very polite, I didn’t comment on the general shabbiness of the decor. Nor did I make any accusations about her letting some maleficer with a god-complex kidnap me as a child. I even very graciously didn’t tell her I preferred coffee to tea. Blood had to stand for something after all. Instead I sat there silently and sipped at the tea she had poured into a chipped mug, waiting for her to get whatever it was she wanted to say done with, while I desperately tried to think of a way to break the news that this was no homecoming.

When she didn’t speak, I sat down and I told her my story, with all the particular nasty bits left out, so it took hardly any time at all. To which she sagely nodded and gave me a tight hug. Then she tried to cast a myriad of cleansing charms on me for the better part of two hours. None of them would take. I couldn’t bear it, so I gave Gwendolyn Higgins a tight hug goodbye and a soft ‘sorry’ as if that could encompass the disappointment and pain she must have felt at having a daughter like me. Then, for better or worse, I headed back to New York.

The second to last time I saw Orion, he was dressed to go hunting. It was the night before the final confrontation that Ophelia had been planning for years, which would take place at the gates of the Scholomance I had so helpfully given her the perfect excuse to meet at. Most likely he was gathering some last minute mana on the enclave’s behalf. He was cutting a handsome figure in his dragon scale lined gear in one of New York’s empty amphitheaters. His usually blank expression was frenzied, as he grasped my hands.

“Galadriel, I know everything.”

“Of course you do, dear.” I said, with not the faintest idea of what he was talking about. But I wasn’t going to give anything away.

“The freshman, my mother, your plans.”

“Okay.” I said. Letting the silence drag on between us. I couldn’t comprehend what kind of reaction he wanted from me. Or if he would even need one. We were two broken things, tools, playing at being people.

“Gal, I forgive you.” He said, kissing my hands, only pausing for a moment as the glamour broke and he could see the gnarled black claws that had replaced the unblemished bronze skin before kissing them again. I huffed, annoyed that my attempt at scaring him off had failed. A brief moment of unspeakable anger burned through me like a mortal flame before snuffing itself out. Like I needed anyone’s forgiveness.

“Of course you forgive me. You love me.” I said. He smiled sadly at that, and suddenly I was terrifyingly a little less sure of the truth of my words.

“I just wanted you to know, in case.”

“In case what” I said, eyebrow raised, unimpressed with this new penchant for obfuscation that Orion seemed to have developed while I was doing Ophelia’s most recent dirty work.

“In case tomorrow doesn’t go as planned.”

I resisted the urge to snort. Ophelia had been plotting this for longer than we had been alive, she was ruthless and meticulous to the point of insanity. What Ophelia wanted, Ophelia got. I leaned in, placing a fleeting kiss to the corner of his mouth.

“It will. This is your mother we’re talking about. In a few days, we’ll be standing right here celebrating.” Celebrating what I didn’t know for sure. Ophelia’s justifications were shrouded in a haze to me, but my morality had splintered into nothing long before. Reasoning was not something I required any longer when ordered by my mentor. Though Orion still looked at me, with something akin to sadness but maybe closer to pity. I had to fight to smother the rage building within me again. I wish I had gone in for one last kiss, or at least a hug. Instead, I ripped my blackened talons from his warm hands and stormed back into the recesses of the enclave. I could feel his gaze on my back but I didn’t turn around.

The culmination of all of Ophelia’s nefarious plans felt rather anticlimactic the next day.

I was bored out of my mind with nerves. I had been sent ahead as a vanguard to clear the way, so I didn’t even have anyone to talk to. All I did was people-watch, staring at the little threads of mundane lives that happened to cross mine, as the miles were eaten away.

Upon my arrival it was easy enough work, I slaughtered a handful of small-time enclavers who had also gotten there early, and used the malia to rework the ritual that guarded the gates to the Scholomance. It took most of the day, careful spellwork was not my forte.

When I reached the cavern, I stared at the crumpled doors of the Scholomance and felt a pang of sadness, brushing my knuckles against them. While it had been a place of horror for most students, it had housed some of the happiest moments of my life. The few years I had with Orion, and even some of my peers, feeling like a normal girl was a gift I never expected to appreciate.

Soon enough wizards from both sides of the conflict between the East and West, began to trickle into the cavern. Setting up tents and instruments of war in a hustle.

Orion had come to see me before the great battle. It seemed like he had a lot to say, but honestly I didn’t want to hear any of it. I wrapped him in a big hug, which he returned after a tentative moment. We couldn’t even snatch away more than that moment because then Ophelia came over and separated us, sending Orion to the vanguard of the host and me to the back with the artillery.

As I stood there, staring at the mass of wizards about to slaughter each other. I felt like my eyes had been opened for the first time. Like the whole of my life had been spent with cotton in my ears and in my throat and in my brain clogging up all sense. I could see the heavy mass of Orion’s magic almost bubbling out of him as he prowled around the frontlines. The glittering sanskrit of the Golden Sutras flaring before me in my mind, the margins scribbled with notes by the prospective valedictorians and Liesel herself. And the reality of what Ophelia had done to Orion clicked into terrible place, and my rage that I had spent many careful years honing into a razor thin needle to be wielded erupted in nuclear inferno. And I knew what to do. I had to save Orion, the same way he had saved what little pieces of me over the years could be salvaged. It wasn’t about that he had earned it, for his kindness, for his good deeds, but about the fact that I loved him for these things, more than me he deserved to live.

And what was my life, my anima, heavy and bloated and fractured with malia a thousand times over, worth? Probably not much. But it was all I had to give in exchange for Orion. Orion who had no one but me really who cared about him. Who now after this would probably have no one. But it was all I could do. All I could hope to give, my bloody tarnished malia-stained life in exchange for his, in exchange for the dark density at the pit of his soul.

For Orion, I would turn against all my ideologies, after all what are words and concepts fluttering self righteously in the ether compared to flesh that I could touch? Flesh that I could devour? Something--someone-- that I loved that loved me back? What was the point of all these arguments of sand and salt that cascaded down into nothing at the barest change of situation to something real and solid, undeniable regardless of belief? For Orion, who loved me, malia and all, who loved both the dark empress of destruction and the crying girl slumbering beneath, I would shatter myself into a thousand screaming pieces just to give him a chance at something better than the lot we had been given. He deserved it, he had only ever wanted to save people. Surely a life full of malia could be exchanged for an opportunity of redemption, a sick but sufficient trade to please the laws of magic. Surely all I had to do was believe it was enough, and it would be that; all magic ever required other than fuel was the conviction. With our one-way power sharer to funnel all of Orion’s mana directly to me on one wrist and the New York pool on the other, and all the life and movement in the cavern from which to wring malia like water from a cloth, fuel and conviction were all I had in spades.

So I caught the mana and malia in the air, redirecting it with the density of my magic, the Golden Sutras, floating out of its specialty book brace and hovering before me in the air, glowing with a bloody vermillion light.

There’s one thing about spells that require strict-mana only wizards: they usually backfire if anyone else does it. My anima had split in a million places from my malia use, but I was still a tertiary being in terms of power. And I wasn’t using the spell to build a lovely little malia free golden enclave I was using it to destroy a life, to rend a maw mouth from its seat. My affinity for killing would smooth the way, I figured I could ram my way through the spell and deal with the consequences later. If there even was a later.

Ophelia tried to stop me of course, once she realized what I was doing. I could feel the hard bite of her nails sinking into my shoulders as she tried to shake me from behind. Resorting to physicality no doubt once she realized that my body was simply serving as a magical conduit for the working; no doubt any spell sent my way was simply being absorbed. But my magic simply grabbed her too, sucking in her malia and trapping her with me within the working.

Black webs of malia fragmented their way, fingers of darkness, across the golden cover. The book had the audacity to try and close as I approached the final incantations. Though it was in vain, I had them memorized. I could see my face in the polished cover. Ophelia’s too as she was forced by the compulsion of my magic to mouth the incantation alongside me. My skin was flaking and withering under the strain of the spell, my future flashed before me. I could see myself crumbling into ashes like any maleficer whose debts have finally come to pay. I stared into my own frightened eyes-- I hadn’t known I could still fear after years as the magical world’s greatest apex predator. Then my hair began to fall out in raven clumps, falling limply to the floor like a carcass. Like falling rain. The skin over my skull became suctioned and tight, and my face frighteningly gaunt, aging centuries in minutes. Then the skin was shedding off in sheets around my hands, black blood dripping everywhere. But I had known it was coming, and the fear began to ebb, replaced by the burning single minded determination of the darkest witch to curse this miserable world.

I met Orion’s gaze one last time. His eyebrows were furrowed and he was shouting something I couldn’t hear, probably the most emotion outside of our intimate moments I’d seen my favorite piece of living artifice display. But after this he’d be a real boy if there was any mercy in the world. I tore my eyes away, afraid that I'd lose my nerve if I waited any longer. My vanity stinging, I hope he’d remember me as the beautiful demoness I was and not this disgusting husk.

As the incantation came to a close and I stared at my withered face in the burnished reflection and Ophelia’s behind it, the both of us a matching set of walking corpses. And I knew with a terrible final certainty what had to come next to yield even the smallest hope of setting Orion free.

It was simple from there. The simplest thing I’d ever done and the most right one too. Funny, it had only taken my whole life to get something right. And so I looked at myself and Ophelia and told our reflections what had been true since I had killed that first indie kid or perhaps ever since I had been whisked away from my real mother. The words to the spell slipped out as easy as breathing: “You are already dead.”