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As he spoke, he took her to the other side of this hallway to another set of stairs that led to the second floor of this small castle-like mansion.

“Comparing what is evil and what is good is such a deformed approach to moral ideologies. What is chaos to the fly is natural to the spider. I am merely going to make you the spider in this world of tiny bugs.”

“But if that means I will hurt others, then I do not want it.”

“You did when you were younger. You were rather curious about what you knew you were going to become.”

Once at the top of the stairs and on the second floor, he took her to a room that was overflowing with magical items. A wall to a second room had been knocked down to make it bigger so it could accommodate everything.

And it held much.

On one side there were more herbs, plants, and spices than she had ever seen – even more than in the Dragon’s lair. Crystals and vials of strange liquids littered benches, and their strange colours of clear blue, red, yellow, and even silver captured her eyes.

On the other side there were four benches. Three were against the walls with one in the middle by itself to create a square shape. She would’ve been able to walk on either side of the bench standing alone in the middle with ease if she tried.

Everything looked healthy and alive, except for the hundreds of jars she could see were filled with different creature parts. She looked at them in horror, able to make out a jar full of either pixie or fairy legs, while another was filled with wings.

There were jars of dead rats, bugs, eyeballs, and even random paws of different animals. She wanted to vomit when she thought she may have seen a human finger as her eyes finished scanning.

“Quite remarkable my collection is, is it not?” He said it with pride, placing his hands on his hips while he let his eyes sweep over the room.

“Remarkable is not how I would put it,” she answered honestly before swallowing thickly, hoping the acid she felt in her throat would go back down.

Horrifying, disgusting, sickening; these were words she found more appropriate to describe this place.

“This incessant behaviour is beginning to unravel me.”

He walked around to his benches to grab a jade green, marble mortar and pestle. Then he began to hastily move around the room, throwing different items into it, mainly herbs and spices.

Nothing that had once been a moving creature was added to the bowl.

Amalia watched him cautiously. She wanted to remember what was real. She no longer wanted to have false memories now that she knew she had them, but she worried about what she would see. She didn’t want it to change her.

He used a spell to light a burner, adding water and spice until it was yellow and then he added the crushed-up items he’d obtained.

Before long, what he was making was ready, and he poured it into a cup.

“Sit on the bench. Recovering your memories may cause you to become light-headed.”

She complied, seeing no other way out of this.

He didn’t give her the cup, instead he wanted to feed it to her himself. It smelt sickly sweet when the wafting steam entered her nostrils.

She couldn’t help noticing the length of his nails now that she was observing them up close. They almost appeared like short claws. She would imagine it would be easy to pry inside of things with them, like a piece of fruit... or the skin of something.

Once he drained the contents into her mouth by force, he nodded before cutting the palm of his hand open.

“This may be strange, but do not fight what you see. It is all real, it has all happened.” Then he looked up to the ceiling, bouncing side-to-side as if he was deciding on whether or not he wanted to tell her something. He looked at her when he decided. “It may also hurt.”

Before she could say anything, he slammed his blood covered hand against her forehead, and she felt like she was jerked back. Not by her body, but by her mind or soul.

She felt herself falling even though he was holding her up. The moment her eyes were closed, memories came flooding in. They flashed quickly, and she was barely able to hold onto them as they passed. Only a few held her focus.

She remembered being a little girl, no more than three, in a room while Witches moved about. It was a coven. She was playing on the floor, but her head lifted when she heard a screeching noise.

She turned to find her father who was standing at a bench with his hand out and waiting. He was given something crawling and squirming with fur. Three-year-old Amalia watched her father take a cleaver to its head and then drained its blood into a bubbling pot.

Someone came to add something else to the pot, a sprinkle of something, but she didn’t know what it was.My father was a Dark Witch.She didn’t see her mother.