Chapter Text
ANGELIQUE
To the last hour of my life, you cannot choose but remain part of my character, part of the little good in me, part of the evil.
I could see the fear in her eyes through the reflection in the windshield. I could practically taste it.
She tried to keep her voice even, but I knew.
The sky cracked open, and heavy rain began pelting down on the hearse.
"You."
"Me."
"Nice to finally meet you, Angelique," Lena Duchannes said wryly.
I laughed. "Please, call me Gigi. That's what my friends call me."
I felt something, like a prick in my heart. For a brief moment, I remembered a sweet voice, and then, the sound of a snapping neck.
"If I had any left..."
It got hotter in the car. I tightened my grip on the leather seat, trying to hold it back in.
It was no time to be crying over what was.
What mattered now was what would be. And what wouldn't be, if I didn't focus and get over myself.
"We're friends?" Lena asked, stifling a laugh.
"We're so much more than friends." I hissed in her ear. "We share the same power. The power to reshape the world as we see fit. Power from Sarafine. We are sisters now."
"We are not," she spat. "My power isn't Sarafine's. I was born with it, and it belongs to me." She took one look in the rearview mirror. "Nice dress, by the way."
I glared at her. She knew whose dress I was wearing. It was a dark red number, with sheer lace sleeves, too tight in a few places, and too loose in others.
Kind of like the biker boots I was wearing—a size too big.
"You know, it's dangerous to be driving alone this late," I whispered coldly, still looking her in the eyes through the mirror.
She tried to hide it, but she shivered.
I bent down to her seat, looking down at the real Lena.
"You haven't had enough sleep, and you're distracted."
The rain was pouring down the windshield, like a waterfall.
"Can't see anything in this weather."
Thunder roared right above us. Lena tensed in her seat.
"What if the car slipped on the mud, and fell down the hill?"
As if on cue, the tires of the car got stuck in the mud. They spun uselessly for a moment, until finding some friction.
"What if a tree fell over and pierced you right through the windshield?"
Lightning split through the air behind us, striking a massive willow. It crashed near inches from Lena's hearse.
She stepped on the gas, and the car sped through the muddy road, sliding around when it lost traction.
"That's how your boyfriend's mommy died. Did you know that?"
"Why are you doing this?" she snapped, losing her temper.
"Because I need you to understand who's in charge here, little sister." I played with the hair at the back of her neck. "I can end this all with just a snap of my fingers."
Lena tore her neck away from me, and scoffed. Actually, it sounded more like a growl.
"Yeah, right!"
I felt anger welling up inside me. The air around us grew even hotter.
"Excuse me?!"
Her hair curled in the nonexistent breeze. So did mine.
"What's with the hiding? The whole cat and mouse game? If you're so powerful why not just come out and fight?"
I narrowed my eyes. "I'm gathering intel."
"For what? What is it you want so badly?"
"Surprise."
She laughed, but it sounded forced. "You're not fooling anybody."
"Is that so?"
"Back at the cemetery, you ran away when I confronted you. In Massachusetts, you took us by surprise, and immediately retreated." She gritted her teeth, trying to hide the tremble in her voice. "I mean, if you were really that confident in your abilities, you would've made a move already. Instead, you're circling us like a vulture waiting for the sickly old cow to drop dead. Or, like a fly around a horse's ass, as Link would've said."
She turned her head to look at me, turning away from the road. Now there was no glass separating us from each other. Her eyes looked even brighter up close.
"Except I'm not giving you the opportunity to swoop. This cow's got horns."
"Is that a threat?" I snapped back, feeling my fingers twitch. The fire within me was dying to get out.
"I see through you. I see through this little game. I know what you're really doing."
She took a deep breath, and for a moment she stopped shivering. Her eyes were like pure steel.
"You're scared of me, aren't you?"
Silence.
Like the words have punched the air out of my lungs.
For a second I thought I could see something in her eyes. A shadow.
I grit my teeth and grabbed for her throat.
"I'm not the one shaking, Lena!" I spat. I could see the whites of her manic eyes, looking like a prey animal's in the vice grip of a predator.
"Look at the road."
She breathed through her teeth sharply, and did as she was told.
"Now, you are going to listen," I whispered into her ear.
"I've watched you, Lena Duchannes. I've seen all your loses and your victories. I am a Palimpsest after all. You don't scare me. You are weak. You've had these powers far longer than I had, and you've barely even scratched the surface of what you can do. Didn't your uncle teach you anything?"
I smiled.
"Odd, isn't it? Almost like he didn't trust you with this knowledge."
I could feel every muscle in her body tense.
"Don't you dare speak of my uncle."
Oh, yes. I could tell I've struck a nerve. I've watched her grow up. I've watched her uncle bend and struggle under the weight of his responsibility. Here he was, forced to take care of a god, a god he knew he could never control once she reached her full potential. He was terrified of her.
"Do you think he really loves you? I've seen the way he talks about you when you aren't there..."
"You're lying!"
But she wanted to listen. I could tell. I found the sticking out piece of thread in her fabric. A wound that has never scarred over.
I spun my fingers, and the road ahead of us shifted into a swampy creek.
"How are you doing that? That's not the past tied to this place."
I smiled. "I'm not an ordinairy Palimpsest.
A man and a woman are huddled on a porch of a house by the water. Macon Ravenwood and his Seer.
He's yelling at her.
"We don't have time for this! What good is a Seer if you can't see anything? We have less than five months before she turns sixteen. Is she Turns, she will damn us all, Mortals and Casters alike—"
We drove through the vision, and it fizzled out. Lena's fingers were wrapped so tight around the steering wheel her knuckles turned white. Her voice was shaking.
"N—no. That's not real."
"Why would I lie to you, when the truth can hurt you so much more?"
"He loves me."
"You were a burden to him. He took you in just to save the rest of the family."
"That's not true!"
"Watch!"
I flip through another moment.
A field nestled between overgrown lemon trees is burning into ashes. The storm is raging above our heads. A woman is shouting through the wind, talking to a teenage girl who looked so much like her.
"If you choose to go Light, all the Dark Casters and Lilum in our family will die.”
She turns to look at a man dressed in a fancy suit. “And I do mean, all. Your uncle, the man who has been like a father to you, will cease to exist. You will destroy him.”
The man disappears, and when he rematerializes, he's shaking the teenage girl by the shoulders.
"Lena, listen to me. I am willing to make the sacrifice. That's why I didn't tell you..."
"He wanted to protect me!" Lena speed through the vision, tearing it into pieces.
"He was afraid of his own Darkness! Of your Darkness! You were the sacrifice. All so he could save the ones he really cared about. All so he could kill your mother!"
"She wanted to kill me!"
"You think he's the only one holding you back?"
I push through the veil, for one more vision. One more moment preserved in time.
A woman is comforting her son at a cemetery. There are tears in his eyes, and she is barely there. Translucent. Floating through the air like through water.
"The Claiming Moon has been called. If Darkness prevails, the Seventeenth Moon will be the last." The Sheer says mournfully, as she slowly fades out of existence. "Hurry, Ethan. You don't have much time, but you can do this. I have faith."
The boy looks up at her, unsure. Terrified.
"What if I'm too late?"
The car skidded on the mud, the breaks not making any difference. We plowed through the image, dissolving the boy and his mother into nothing. Lena's eyes were frozen, looking ahead, where he used to be.
Finally the car stopped.
"They're all afraid of you. As they should be." I hissed into her ear. "Silas taught me how to use these powers. He gave me all of Sarafine's research, her whole collection of spell books! Everything she knew, I know. I can teach you. I can teach you everything. But for that, you're gonna have to suffer."
She straightened up in her seat, her hands letting go off the steering wheel.
"Great Expectations," she said out of nowhere.
"What?"
"'Suffering has been stronger than all other teaching, and has taught me to understand what your heart used to be.' Great Expectations. So you did read it."
I hesitated. That blasted book. Was I really so stupid as to let it slip?
"I don't know what you're talking about," I lied.
Her reflection in the windshield smiled.
"Why are you reading my mother's old book? There's no Dark Casts in there. All the notes were written when she was fighting her Darkness."
I let go of her throat, burrying myself in the seat. I couldn't risk her seeing my face.
"What are you fighting, Angelique?"
"You," I whispered.
She laughed—actually laughed this time. "Me? Why me?"
"It's always been you."
"Why? I don't even know you. I wasn't there when Silas took you. I wasn't the one who killed him."
"You don't get it, do you? It's destiny. We couldn't be more different, and yet somehow we found each other. You grew up in a mansion, while I bounced from foster home to foster home. You found friends, while I lost mine. You burned down the Ravenwood family tree, and just left, like it was all over, but it wasn't over for us! It was just the beginning!"
"I didn't know—"
"You don't get to say that! We were tortured, experimented on! All so he could build his army. All for Silas Ravenwood's revenge. We didn't matter, it was all to kill you. I was created to destroy you."
Another bolt of lightning hit a tree on a nearby hill.
"I look at you, and I see everything I ever wanted. Everything I could never compare to. Not special. Not until now. You may have had this power handed to you, but I earned it through blood and pain. Anyone else would've died of it, or gone insane, but I survived. Just like she did. I am her real legacy."
She shook her head, her voice cracking a little, her eyes burning with anger. "I never wanted Sarafine's damn legacy."
"Don't worry. I'll happily take it. I will take it all, baby. That pretty mansion, that loving family, those adorable friends of yours. Bit by bit, I will destroy everything you hold dear, until you know what it's like to have nothing." I laughed, looking at my sister. "Until you come crawling to me."
I snapped my fingers, and I was gone, consumed by the Darkness.