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It wasn’t difficult. Alice was making no effort to hide her presence in the palace now, and some of the hallways were coated in blood almost deliberately, as though Alice were leaving a macabre trail of breadcrumbs in her wake. Fey had even stumbled upon a Lion Shifter, hunkered over a dead body, ripping chunks from the guard and crunching through bones as though they were nothing.

The Shifter turned as Fey approached, drawing blood-coated lips back in a snarl and baring her teeth.

“I’m a friend,” Fey told her, holding her hands up, away from her weapons. Goddess help me, I hope I’m a friend, she thought. “Alice sent me.”

The Lioness paused, cocking her head to the side, and sniffed the air between them. Then, as though satisfied by whatever she had scented there, she turned back to her meal.

“Thank you,” Fey told her. “Uh … enjoy your snack, I guess.”

Fey could have sworn she heard a chuckle from the giant cat behind her as she hurried down the hallway, but it could have just been her imagination.

The dead bodies became more frequent the deeper into the palace Fey ventured. The closer she got to the throne room.

She couldn’t find Joy anywhere, but she knew her sister would have felt Lilith’s death. And this time, Fey wouldn’t be able to tell her that she wasn’t at fault, wouldn’t be able to look in Joy’s trusting blue eyes and lie to her.

This time, she had taken Joy’s sister from her. Joy’s final, remaining sister. And now, she would be alone, truly alone. The last remaining Queen’s Blade.

Her heart twisted in her chest, but Fey couldn’t stop moving, couldn’t give up now. Joy might never forgive her for what happened tonight, but Alice would. Alice would understand that she’d done what needed to be done. And Fey was determined to do whatever she could to make sure her sister succeeded tonight.

It was time to finish what they’d started.

She heard the fighting before she could see it, but by the time Fey arrived it looked like it might already be over.

Ten bodies littered the throne room floor. Some had been burned, nothing but charcoal and bones remaining, and the blackened skulls looked like they were frozen in an endless scream. Others had fallen to Alice’s blade, their blood coating the floor, a vibrant red against the white marble.

Alice was fighting three guards when Fey arrived, whirling between them like a storm of blades and death. She wasn’t even bothering to draw on her power, not even when one of the guards sent a blast of Fire at her. She simply danced to the side, the burst of flames missing her entirely, and spun back to land a deadly thrust right through the Witch’s belly.

The remaining guards fell easily enough.

This was Alice’s specialty, after all. She had been the deadliest of them all with her Blades, relying more on her sword work and speed than her power over Fire.

When the final guard dropped, clutching her chest where Alice’s blade had dealt a fatal blow, Alice smiled.

Smiled, and raised her blood-coated blade to point at the Queen.

“There you are,” Alice said, her smile growing. “Didn’t you hear me calling your name?”

Queen Edelin did not run. She did not so much as flinch under Alice’s heavy stare. Standing beside her throne, back straight, and head held high, she didn’t even look frightened. And that, more than the dead guards at her feet, seemed to give Alice pause.

“Kill her,” the Queen commanded, and Dameon, who stood at his Queen’s side as her final defender, drew his sword and stepped forward, advancing down the dais.

“Gladly,” he said, as he approached, eyes on Alice.

“No,” Fey growled. Her throat burned at the words, damaged from her fight with Lilith. Dameon’s eyes flicked toward her, and she was glad she’d left her mask in the Blade’s quarters, glad for her uncovered hair. She wanted him to know exactly who she was when she killed him.

Fey drew both her blades, readying them at her side. “No, he’s mine, sister.”

Alice’s eyes burned with barely restrained fury, but she nodded, turning her gaze from Dameon to the Queen, now unguarded and alone.

“Let’s see what kind of Witch you really are, Edelin,” Alice said, striding up to face her Queen.

Whatever shock Dameon had felt when he saw Fey enter, alive and well, was gone in an instant, replaced instead with a hateful sneer.

“Do you know what your problem is, Fey?” he asked, letting her approach, his sword held tight in both hands, the tip angled toward the floor. “You never respected the chain of command. I was your superior, I was the one giving you orders, but you were incapable of acknowledging that… You always thought you were better than everyone else, even me.”

There was enough anger in his voice to confirm something Fey had always suspected—Dameon didn’t like her. Had never liked her. And knowing it brought a smile to her lips.

“Oh Dameon,” Fey laughed, circling him. “I am better than you. And I always have been.”