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“Guilty it is, then,” Joy said, and horror bloomed on the Queen’s face as Joy raised her arm to slash the Air.

The blade of wind severed the Queen’s neck in a single, precise slice.

Queen Edelin’s head tumbled from her body, bringing an end to her reign. Bringing an end to the Witches’ rule over the Eternal City.

Chapter 62

There were screams from the onlookers as Queen Edelin’s head fell from her body, but Fey barely paid any attention to them. The stone that held her in place crumbled, falling away and freeing her.

Her eyes still on the Queen’s limp form, Joy fell forward to her knees and threw her head back to scream.

The sound was like nothing Fey had ever heard before. It was full of rage and fury. Full of pain and loss. Full of love, and hate, and everything in between. Every emotion that had been crushing Joy, that had been drowning her. Fey thought they might all break from it, break under the weight of Joy’s pain.

Then Alice was there, running down the dais and dropping to kneel at Joy’s side. Wrapping her arms around Joy, she held her tight against her chest.

“I’m here,” she whispered to Joy. “You’re okay, now, love. It’s all over, and I’m here and I love you. I love you, Joy.”

Joy sobbed in Alice’s arms, rocking back and forth as Alice whispered and soothed her.

Fey got shakily to her feet, clutching the wound at her side.

“Go to the Temples and get the High Priestesses,” Fey said to the guards who were still standing frozen in the doorway. A few looked up to blink at her, stunned. They were in shock, she realized, too rattled to move.

“Get the fucking Priestesses!” Fey snarled at them, moving as though to draw her blades. That did it. Fear replaced shock on their faces, and several guards took off running down the hall. A few servants took off after them, and Fey wondered if they were on their way to the temples as well. Or, if they were just running, as far and as fast as they could to get away.

The remaining nobles and servants were in a very poor state. Someone had been sick, and the throne room was filled with the sour stench of it. A few of them were openly crying.

A noble woman Fey didn’t recognize was looking at her.

“What did she mean?” the woman asked her, her face ashen. “About poisoning us? What did the Queen mean by that?”

But Fey only shook her head and didn’t answer. She didn’t have the strength to go through it again. She was done. She’d given enough tonight.

Sana was the first of the High Priestesses to arrive, flanked by guards, and she paled visibly as she looked around at the carnage in the throne room.

“The Queen,” Sana whispered in shock, her eyes locked on Edelin’s decapitated head.

“The Queen was found guilty of treason,” Fey announced, loud enough for the crowd of people gathered to hear. She was tired. She was so, so tired. And though she was fairly sure she wasn’t bleeding to death it would be a very good idea for her to have someone stitch up her side as soon as possible. Just in case.

Sana said nothing. Just stared. Finally, she unfastened the shawl that draped over her shoulders, the crisp blue of the Water Coven, and used it to cover the Queen’s fallen form.

It felt too much like reverence, like an act of respect, and Fey heard the snarl escape her lips before she even registered the anger that roared to life inside of her. Sana glanced at her but didn’t flinch away or shrink back from her.

“They don’t need to see this, Fey,” Sana explained, motioning to the hallway. More were coming now, the other High Priestesses but also members of their coven. Others from the palace, too, and the hallway was beginning to fill with faces. Faces full of fear, faces unused to the violence, the horror that this night had brought. “They don’t need to see her body.”

Fey reined in her anger as best she could and nodded.

The other High Priestesses approached. Someone swore when they saw the body—Leandra, Fey thought.

“What do we do now?” Sana asked, looking at Fey.

Fey laughed, but there was no humor in it. They were looking to her, all four High Priestesses, for guidance.

“That’s your problem, now. Not mine. Not anymore,” Fey said. Blood was still seeping from her wound and through her fingers, but not as much. That, at least, felt like a good sign. “The city is yours, Sana. Just leave me and my family the fuck out of it.”

She turned her back on them. Her sisters needed her, and nothing was going to keep her from their side.

The next few hours were a flurry of activity.