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There she was. Lips pressed together, chin high, red coat buttoned almost up to her chin. Hair bound up tight (soft hair, smooth as embroidery silk, Hecate remembered the feel of it when she grasped the strands in her fingers and pulled them out at the root). She thought she could approach the master like this, covered up and contained, confident in the power of her own will, the only sign of distress the redness around her eyes.
Arrogant bitch. Hecate remembered mother’s breathy voice drawing out the sound of her name, the purr of the v to start, lips drawing back at the n, the long sibilant exhale of the final syllable. Did Vanessa know how desired she was, how sought-after, how wanted? Surely she must. “Object of an eternal satanic quest,” she had called herself, with disdain in her voice. As if it were nothing to be what she was, as if it were an inconvenience to have power surging in her bones, the verbis diablo at her lips without study, the master seducing her like a bridegroom. As if it were nothing to occupy the entire attention of Evelyn Poole, greatest witch of her century, who could kill with a flick of her finger and seduce any man or woman she chose with an oil on her wrist, but who for her, for Vanessa, laid a trail and baited a trap ever so slowly, ever so lovingly.
Hecate would never have been allowed to approach the master as Vanessa now did, not even she was a child. So many signs were required, signs of abnegation and abandon, and mother had schooled her well in all of them. She had been an offering, dedicated from before her birth, and she had to make herself a worthy one. She had to beg for power with her pain and thank Lucifer nicely for it after. She remembered her limbs trembling in the cold as she waited for the touch of his claws. But Vanessa’s skin was smooth as satin, the line of back marred only with the single brand. Hecate imagined digging her nails into that skin, watching Vanessa’s spine arch as she must when the master possessed her. Those thin limbs beneath her own, mouth open in abandon.
If Vanessa lost this battle, she would be as scarred as Hecate soon. But Hecate did not want her to lose.
Mother only rarely let her witches wear modern clothes. She said the straight line of their medieval dresses was more elegant; honored the master more; demonstrated their devotion to the coven. Nevermind that she herself rarely showed herself without a corset. But Hecate had watched how Vanessa dressed, how she did her hair. When mother did allow her to buy clothing to wear among outside of the coven, she imagined to herself what Vanessa might buy. Looking at her, Hecate thought about the things she had ready, if this night went as she hoped that it would. She pictured herself, walking out the door of the castle for the last time, scarred body buttoned away, curls hidden beneath her hat, chin lifted with as much surety as Vanessa’s was.
Could she ever have that confidence? She would have to. It wasn’t that she was unskilled, or untested, or weak. She had endured the pain of the claws, even as a girl, and the master had accepted her offering. She remembered mother drawing her a bath after, perfuming the water with lilac, telling Hecate how proud she was. But no one had ever wanted her as Vanessa Ives had been wanted. She thought of Ethan, whose soul she might win, who might join her in her task, but who she knew would never feel desperate for in the way that her did for Vanessa.
She hadn’t looked at her. Did she even remember her? Or was she just a scarred monster among the rest of them, an adversary to be disposed of, a lost soul to be dismissed? When she had fainted in the ballroom, had she not cared to notice whose power it was making the ceiling rain blood? Anger and longing flared within Hecate, like a spark to oil. Make her pay attention. Make her look. For one moment, even, before her mother unfolded the final act. There. Lips against her lips. Tongue flicking out like a serpent, tasting her. Let her notice. Let her remember.