Page 14

Power pulsed in the room, and the metal debris shifted. Bits of jewelry clanked against the glass as they wiggled in the jar. They were like insects, batting their wings against the glass to get out.

“Good.” Lilith nodded, appreciatively. “Now, form them into a ball.”

Willow frowned, furrowing her brow in confusion.

“What do you mean?”

“Earth and Fire,” Lilith said simply, like she was speaking to a child. “You just showed me you can move the earth around the metal. You have command over Fire too, don’t you? So… burn it all and move them together to form a ball.”

A pause. And again, that pulse of power. Again, the metal shifted. But try as Willow might, the pieces in the jar remained just that—pieces. Bits of metal stubbornly separated into fractions. The metal moved and shifted, but didn’t melt together to form anything.

Fey could see Willow’s jaw clenching as she focused that power. But the metal remained in the jar, unchanged.

“I can’t,” Willow said, finally, a hint of a growl in her voice. “I can feel it, but… I’ve never drawn Earth and Fire together, they’re not…” She struggled with the words. “They’re so different. It’s like trying to breathe and swallow water at the same time. I can’t call on them both at once like that. I can only do one at a time.”

Lilith nodded, as though she had expected this. Leaning over the desk, she reached into a drawer to pull out a gold chain—the links pristine, untouched by time or rust.

“This is solid gold,” Lilith told Willow. She held the chain out for her, letting the metal flow out of her hand and into Willow’s palm. “Feel it. Get to know the metal. Gold is soft—soft enough you could scratch it with your fingernails if you tried.”

Willow held the chain, running it between her fingers. She scratched it. Smelled it. For a moment, Fey thought she might even put it to the tip of her tongue and taste it.

“Feel the metal, Willow. Get a sense of it. Now, melt the metal and form the chain into a ball.”

Willow frowned down at the gold in her hand, and there was no pulse of power this time. She sighed, shaking her head.

“I told you, I can’t,” she said, handing the chain back to Lilith. She hadn’t even tried.

Lilith smiled at her. Smiled as she took the chain, and smiled as she walked behind Willow.

Smiled, even as she wrapped the gold chain around Willow’s neck from behind and tightened it around her throat.

No one could interfere with the trials, but it wasn’t an easy thing to watch. The chain bit into Willow’s neck, straining against the skin, as Lilith lifted her from her chair with it. Willow fought her, of course, her hands coming to the chain at her neck, scratching at where it dug into her skin, scratching at Lilith’s hands, at her skin. She struggled to speak, to scream, but Lilith only pulled the chain tighter.

“You have a choice here, Willow,” Lilith said, voice strained as she fought to hold the struggling Witch still. “You can feel the metal. Feel it, feel every link in the chain, and command it to break. Or…” Lilith paused, tightening her grip for emphasis. “Or you could die. Choose fast. You only have a few minutes. Less, if your neck snaps.”

The chair fell as Willow thrashed. If she’d had breath, she would have snarled, would have spat like a cat.

No, Fey thought with a smile, not like a cat. Like a wolverine.

But she didn’t. She had no breath, no air to hiss with. Her fingernails scraped on her skin, fighting for purchase, fighting to get between her skin and the chain. But it was too tight. There was no give to allow her access.

Her face was turning red, her eyes bulging.

Such a waste, Fey thought sadly, watching Willow as her struggle began to slow. Hands now slapping ineffectually at Lilith’s. Dameon wouldn’t ever let her forget this, either, if the Witch they’d been so certain of couldn’t even make it through the first trial…

Willow’s hand slapped at Lilith’s one last time, softly, barely enough to make any noise, before going limp, her arm falling by her side.

The surge of power that fired through the room was enough to shake the books as the chain glowed white hot under Lilith’s grip. Glowed and snapped.

Lilith swore, dropping the metal to the ground and stepping away, her hands red and coming up in welts from where the molten metal had burned her. The gold hit the ground as a liquid, a thick stream of metal that almost immediately cooled and solidified on the carpet.

Willow was on her hands and knees, coughing and gasping for breath, one hand still clutching her neck where the metal had bitten in. She hadn’t been burnt, Fey noticed with an appreciation. The heat of the metal hadn’t left a single mark on her skin. But she’d have some impressive bruises around her neck from the chain.

“You would have killed me,” Willow gasped from where she knelt. Her voice was angry, shocked. She stared over her shoulder at Lilith, eyes blazing with fire. “You would have just killed me.”

“Yes,” agreed Joy, with a smile. “But she didn’t.”

“Fuck the Goddess, that hurts,” snarled Lilith, clasping her hands, ignoring Willow’s glare entirely. “Joy, where’s the damn elixir?”