Now Claudia ruled. And every morning, she summoned Lilia to her chamber.
The stepmother did not bleed. She screamed—a sound like breaking ice—and then she began to crack. Her beautiful skin fissured. Her black hair turned to ash. Her body collapsed inward, folding like paper, until all that remained on the throne was a pile of dust, a silver needle, and the bone brush.
Three days later, Lilia walked back to the manor. She did not sneak. She walked up the front drive, through the main door, and into the great hall where Claudia sat upon her father’s throne, the obsidian mirror in her lap.
“We’ve been dying for twenty years,” he said. “The question is, what are you willing to become so that we don’t die for nothing?”
