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“Yeah, so you said… But do you remember what you told me next?”

Fey shook her head.

“‘It tastes like garbage water,’” Alice quoted. “‘But it’s not half as bad as the shit they give you during your Awakening.’”

Alice stared at her, unblinking. “That stuck with me, Fey. Not just what you said, but the way you said it. It was such an offhand comment, like you were talking about some universal experience that everyone goes through. But they never gave me anything to drink at my Awakening, Fey. And I’d never heard any other Witch mention it before.

“So, I started asking around, just out of curiosity, at first. And everyone I spoke to had the same experience as me. They had never been made to drink anything. But then I mentioned it to Joy.”

Fey’s heart skipped a beat. No. Not Joy. They couldn’t…

“Joy drank the elixir at her Awakening, too, Fey. Said it was the worst thing she’d ever tasted.”

Joy. Joy who could command Air better than any Witch in history. Joy had her power taken from her. Reduced. Anger burned bright and hot in Fey’s stomach at the thought that someone could have done that to her sister, could have taken something so special that was meant to be hers.

“I asked more people, and over time I found more Witches. Witches who’d been given something to drink at their Awakening, or who’d known someone who had. No one knew what it was, though, and no one knew why it was only given to some of them.”

“I thought it was to unlock my primary,” Fey whispered.

“So did a lot of them,” Alice replied, her tone gentle. “I even went to the head of the Water Coven to ask her about it. I know, I know,” Alice laughed when Fey immediately made a face. “You don’t like her. And I don’t blame you, believe me. Sana can be an uptight twat, and no one is denying that. But I figured if anyone would know what the elixir these Witches were given was, it would be her, right?”

Fey agreed, but Alice shook her head back and forth. “Except she had no idea what I was even talking about. She said that the Awakening ceremonies were handled entirely by the White Priestesses, and she’d never made a single elixir for them over the years. Not one. And she couldn’t identify it for me based on my description, either.

“But… she said something as I was leaving. I don’t even think she thought about it, not really. But it was about the color. She said she’d never even heard of a silver elixir… So, I started to think… what if it’s not an elixir at all?

“And that’s what I found when I broke into a Temple and stole some.”

Fey choked. “You broke into a Temple of the Goddess?”

Alice shrugged the comment off as though it was nothing. “It wasn’t the last time, either. Not the one in the city, obviously. Too many people, too much risk. I went to one in the second octant, miles from here. And inside I found the ‘elixir’ they’d given to you. Given Joy. And I took a few bottles.”

Something clicked inside Fey. “And you gave them to a chemist… Someone who would recognize it if it wasn’t an elixir, someone who was an expert in poisons. You gave it to Phillip Danvers.”

Alice’s smile was genuine and a little proud. “Well done, babe. Yeah. That’s exactly what I did.”

“That’s what he told you, when you met him at the club, wasn’t it? He told you it wasn’t an elixir; it was a poison.”

Alice nodded. “A poison he already knew, could already identify just by sight—one they used to use to cut Witches off from their power when they were sentenced by the Crown. One that used to be used on Blood Witches.”

Fey felt like she might be sick.

“But they stopped that practice years ago, Fey. And do you want to know why?”

“Because someone made an antidote,” Fey answered, her voice sounding far away. Willow had told them that, hadn’t she? She’d read it in one of Lilith’s books on poisons.

“Yeah…because someone made an antidote,” Alice said. “A gold-colored antidote that cleared all the Allium from your system, almost instantly.”

“Phillip told you all of this?”

Alice nodded. “He did. And he even gave me instructions for making it. That’s what I’ve been doing here, Fey. That’s what all of this space is for. I’ve been trying to make enough antidote for every affected Witch in the realm, enough that Phillip says will guarantee they’ll all be cured.”

Fey swallowed, struggling with how to break the news. “He’s dead, Alice,” she said, softly. “Phillip Danvers was killed a few weeks ago.”

Alice swallowed. “I… I figured he might be. We lost contact with him, but we’d hoped…Was it you?”

Fey shook her head. “No. But it was one of us. Dameon gave the order.”

Alice nodded, understanding. “I don’t think Phillip understood the danger of what he was getting involved with. Of any of it. Neither did I, not really, until that night when he gave me his findings, and I realized what was happening. Realized what it meant.”