Her lips were slightly parted, her expression eerily peaceful, as if she had been freed in the same moment she had been lost. Henry’s breath caught in his throat, a horrible, suffocating weight crashing down onto his chest.

  “No.”

  His fingers curled into her shoulders, his grip tightening as if refusing to let go would somehow change the reality in front of him. "No, no, no—Sarah, wake up—" His voice broke, cracking under the sheer helplessness curling in his gut. His sister was dead.

  He wasn’t even aware of how fast his breath had turned ragged, or how his shoulders had begun to shake. The world felt wrong, distant, his mind trying to reject the truth, trying to piece together a different reality where she was still alive. Elara’s voice hovered somewhere above him, hesitant for the first time since this nightmare began. "Henry…"

  His head snapped up, his expression raw, broken, furious. His breath was unsteady, his chest tightening as the weight of loss crushed him from the inside. "Elara." His voice was hoarse, barely above a whisper, but beneath it burned a fire of betrayal and desperation. His fingers clenched into the fabric of Sarah’s robes, knuckles white, as if holding onto her body could somehow pull her back. He stared at Elara, pleading, demanding, unable to accept what was in front of him.

  "What… what do I do?" His voice cracked. "You—you promised we would save her." His breath came in shallow, panicked gasps, each inhale sharp and jagged, like his lungs didn’t know how to work without her. He looked at Elara like she was the only thing left tethering him to reality. "You promised."

  The silence pressed down on them, thick and unbearable, wrapping itself around Henry’s ribs like iron bands. His mind spiraled through the impossible reality before him, trying to grasp something—anything—that could explain what had just happened. Then, from nowhere, a small, trembling voice broke the silence.

  The air around him thickened, pressing down like a storm just before it broke. Henry could hear her—Sarah—her voice laced with confusion and fear. But it wasn’t coming from the body in front of him. It was coming from somewhere else. His pulse pounded in his ears, his breath shallow as his fingers curled against the lifeless form beneath him. Every instinct screamed at him to understand what he was seeing, but his mind recoiled from it.

  His gaze flicked to Elara, desperate for an answer, for anything—but for once, she was silent. The chaotic energy that always surrounded her like an electric storm had vanished, leaving only tense uncertainty. Her wings, usually a blur of constant motion, hovered still, and even the Wand, which had never met a moment it couldn’t ruin with sarcasm, remained ominously quiet. Henry forced himself to look down at Sarah’s body, or what he had thought was Sarah’s body. She was still, cold, empty. The golden glow that had burned behind her eyes was gone, leaving only a pale, unmoving shell. But something about it felt wrong. The shape was correct, the features familiar, but the presence—whatever made Sarah, Sarah—was missing. A growing sickness twisted in his gut, gnawing at his ribs as if his body already knew something his mind refused to accept.

  Then, across the room, Sarah spoke.

  “Henry?”

  The voice was soft, trembling, barely above a whisper, but it was her. Henry’s breath caught as his head snapped toward the sound, his chest locking up so tight it hurt. His gaze landed on the Red-Robed figure standing unsteadily to his right, and for a brief, hopeful moment, his brain tried to tell him she had somehow broken free, that she was alive, that the ritual had failed.

  But the moment he truly looked at her, something inside him cracked. Sarah was standing there—but the body was wrong. Her arms, her frame, her face—they weren’t hers. Her wide, terrified eyes stared back at him from their mother’s face. Henry’s stomach plummeted.

  Sarah’s fingers twitched as she raised them to her own face, her movements hesitant and shaking like she was afraid to confirm what she already knew. She touched her cheek, then her mouth, feeling the unfamiliar contours of her new form. Her hands slid up to her throat, pressing against it as if she could force it to sound different, to sound right. But her voice, when she finally spoke again, remained foreign.

  "Henry—" she choked, the name barely leaving her lips. "What’s happening? Why do I—why do I feel so—" She cut herself off as her eyes drifted past him, landing on the body beneath his hands. Every ounce of color drained from her borrowed face as her breath hitched violently in her throat.

  Henry followed her gaze, his heart pounding in his skull, making everything feel distant, surreal. The body in his arms wasn’t Sarah’s. It was their mother’s.

  His fingers curled tighter into the fabric, unwilling—unable—to believe it. She lay motionless, lips slightly parted, expression eerily calm, as if whatever bound her to this world had finally snapped. There was no mist, no glow, no pulse of energy. The magic that had once kept her clinging to life had vanished, leaving nothing but an empty shell.

  Sarah stumbled back a step, one hand still clutching at her throat, her breath coming in uneven gasps. Her chest rose and fell in shallow, terrified rhythms, her entire body shivering as her mind struggled to piece together what had just happened. "Henry—" she whispered again, but this time the word fractured. Her shoulders tensed, her voice breaking under the weight of realization. "Oh god, is that—" Her breath caught, choking on the last syllable, her voice quivering with horror. "Is that me?"

  Henry didn’t answer. He couldn’t. His body remained frozen, his mind splintering under the sheer impossibility of the moment. The corpse in his hands was Sarah’s body, but not Sarah. The girl standing in front of him was Sarah, but not in her own skin. His sister had been forcibly torn from herself, ripped out, stolen. She was trapped in the Red-Robed Woman’s body. And their mother lay dead in hers.

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  The weight in the air thickened, pressing down on them like a vice. The silence stretched, suffocating and wrong, vibrating with something unseen, something waiting. Then, with an eerie, almost mechanical slowness, the corpse in Henry’s arms twitched. He barely had time to register the movement before the body jerked violently, its limbs snapping into unnatural angles as it suddenly floated into the air. Henry reeled back, gaping like a fish, his breath caught somewhere between a scream and a curse.

  Sarah—**no, their mother—**hovered, her arms hanging limply at her sides, her head lolling backward at an unnatural angle. And then, as if some invisible force had yanked her upright, she snapped into place, her head rolling forward, her mouth gaping open as a soundless scream twisted her face into something grotesque. A color Henry had never seen before—a violent, electric hue, like an angry eel made of liquid lightning—began to seep from the floating corpse. It slithered from the corners of her eyes, from her mouth, from the pores in her skin, crackling and writhing with a hunger that didn’t belong in the world of the living. It pulsed, growing larger, denser, surrounding her like a cocoon as her entire form began to shift.

  Then came the scream—long, shrill, inhuman. It wasn’t a cry of pain, nor rage, nor fear. It was a howl of something ancient, something that had lived far too long, something that had feasted on the life of others to extend its miserable, wretched existence. It rattled through the cavern, shaking the very walls, splitting through Henry’s skull like a hammer against glass. When the light show was done, Sarah’s small, frail twelve-year-old frame was gone.

  What floated before him now was something else entirely. Her form had swelled, grotesquely engorged on mist. Her limbs were stretched too long, her fingers curling into razor-sharp claws that flexed with sickening pops. Her body looked distorted, swollen, as if something was inflating her from the inside, her skin pulled too tight over bulging veins that pulsed with unnatural energy. She was a balloon animal twisted into something human-shaped, but barely. Her head turned toward Henry with a slow, deliberate tilt, her golden, mist-filled eyes burning with triumphant malice.

  “You thought that would be enough to stop me?” Her voice no longer held any of the warmth it once had. It wasn’t even pretending. It was a mockery of what she used to be, layered with something deep, guttural, almost serpentine. Henry clenched his jaw, his hands curling into fists, but his body refused to move. This wasn’t his mother anymore. This was something worse.

  The thing that had once been his mother stretched its grotesque fingers, flexing its stolen limbs with something close to amusement. “Henry, you can’t fight this.” She spread her arms, as if welcoming the inevitable. “The power I have gained… the mist I have absorbed… it’s beyond anything you could comprehend.” The air crackled around her, tiny arcs of energy snapping off her bloated limbs like static searching for something to burn.

  "I will devour your soul to fuel my youth." She sighed, as if this was all some terrible inconvenience, her voice smooth, almost bored. "And then, when I’m through, I can always have another set of children." Her lips curled into something cruel, vicious—a mockery of maternal warmth twisted into something rotten. "Obedient ones."

  Henry barely had time to register the words before she reared back and slammed her monstrous fist into his head.

  Pain exploded behind his eyes. His skull rang like a shattered bell, vision flickering in and out as he was hurled backward, his body skidding across the stone floor. His limbs refused to move, every nerve ablaze from the sheer force of the impact. For a moment, everything spun, the world twisting in a mess of colors and static, his thoughts sluggish as if submerged underwater.

  And then, just as the monstrous thing that had stolen his sister’s body loomed over him, preparing to strike again, a high-pitched, furious screech ripped through the air.

  "I AM THE ONLY ONE ALLOWED TO HURT AND HARASS HENRY, YOU BITCH!"

  Henry barely had time to blink before a blazing comet of chaos came hurtling into view, wings crackling with raw energy, her tiny hands gripping Edward like an avenging spear. Elara dove straight for his sister-mother’s face, a blur of erratic motion, her body pulsing with raw, unfiltered magic. The second she made contact, a shockwave of white-hot energy erupted from the impact point, rippling through the cavern with a deafening crack.

  And then—something incredible happened.

  The entire floor reacted. From the stone beneath them, binding chains erupted, twisting out of the ground like serpents seeking prey. They snaked up the creature’s bloated limbs, wrapping around her grotesque form in thick, iron coils, yanking her back with unnatural force. She shrieked, her mist-infused body thrashing wildly, golden vapor spewing from her mouth as the spell latched onto her, dragging her toward the cavern floor like an executioner’s pull.

  Elara, still clutching Edward, hovered above her, panting, her wings fraying at the edges from the sheer force of the magic. Henry, still reeling from the impact, forced himself up onto his elbows, his head pounding, his vision swimming, but his breath caught as he watched the spell take hold. The chains weren’t just holding the thing that had been their mother. They were draining her.

  The mist-infused monstrosity writhed, her form bulging and deflating, her limbs twitching unnaturally as the magic worked against her, forcing the stolen energy out of her grotesquely twisted frame. Henry swallowed hard, his heartbeat thudding painfully in his chest.

  Elara turned her head toward him, eyes wild, gleaming with triumph and something bordering on manic glee. "Oh my god, Henry." She let out a breathless, hysterical giggle, still gripping Edward with both hands. "Did you see that?! I did a thing! A good thing! I am a GOD!"

  Henry groaned, half in pain, half in exasperation. "Don’t let it go to your head."

  Elara spun midair, still giddy, her grin bright and unhinged. "Oh, too late! This is my villain origin story! I must abuse this power immediately!" Henry shook his head, shoving himself to his feet as his body screamed in protest. He didn’t know how long the spell would hold, but he knew one thing for certain—

  And then she stumbled midair as she flickered.

  Henry's breath caught as realization struck. He reached out, bringing the Wand close to her, hoping to stabilize her form, but he had used up all of its power. Elara collapsed to the floor, blinking in confusion, and then, without warning, she simply vanished.

  Panic surged through him as he staggered forward, hands reaching for where she had been. "Elara?" His voice cracked as his heart pounded. "Oh god—oh no, no, no—" But he didn’t have time to focus on her disappearance. The mist explosion was reaching its peak, the fount surging upward, thickening, filling the chamber like a storm about to break.

  Henry turned the dead Wand toward the mist and did the only thing he could. He used Consume.

  The power hit him like a tidal wave. Energy rushed through his body like a sieve trying to stop a fire hose, the sheer force of it slamming into his nerves like a thousand volts of raw magic. The mist surged toward him, battering against his body as he stood firm against the avalanche. The Wand screamed incoherently, a high-pitched, inhuman wail that split through his skull—

  And then everything went dark.