"Everybody stop!" Bertha screamed, and we froze.

I remembered the way she'd been arguing with Minx, and, being acquainted with her personality myself, I wasn't expecting any kind of mercy.

Aurora had done the right thing. I didn't much care about the words she had to say to get out of here: she simply valued her independence over staying on Atticus' side, and she would be treated as the innocent she was. She trusted Roman and I to be able to prepare a similar escape for ourselves.

For the first time in my life, my nerves felt on fire and my will was crumbling under the pressure of the events. I thought my journey to the Other Side had made me stronger, and it certainly did, but it also made me less optmistic. It didn't matter that Roman and I had battled every foe we met: it reminded me of what I already knew but never wanted to think about --- that I could fail, and inevitably, one day, I would.

In the meantime, Tori had returned and found a way to force-feed Atticus the Skill-blocking pills. It was a rather innovative method that involved Chae-Won pinning Atticus' hands behind his back. For once, I didn't judge the Court for their actions. If they'd asked me I would have helped them myself.

Which was when I had an idea.

Nobody spoke for a while after Bertha's words, but I imagined what was really going on, inside our heads, was thinking about Minx' words. Not only the man insisted being a blood drinker was a great step forward, but Atticus had drank the blood and it made Watchers addicted to it.

I knelt closer to Roman. "I believe I can find us a way out of this. Give me some time. I am well acquainted with each member of the Court and if push came to shove I'm sure I could find a way to press on their weaknesses or flatter some of them..."

Roman looked really tired. "I suspect flattery would not get us far. But then again I cannot think of many things that will."

Minx cleared his throat and was the first to speak after Bertha's command. "I was just saying," he put a foot on a chair in a theatrical way. "That a Watchers who drinks blood once then becomes addicted..."

"We heard you the first time!" Roman reminded him.

"Yes, but didn't you wonder why it happens?" Minx insisted. "I do not know the reply to this myself, but I am sure it is proof that Watchers can evolve forward and drink human blood. Think about it, if a human was to drink from one of his peers, they would not develop an addiction, would they?"

"Just because it happens doesn't mean it's right!" Mira retorted. "Have you heard of those legends where angels who stop performing their heavenly duties are sent to the Chaos Realm? While those are just stories, there's no way to tell if Watchers can change... and become something dark that defies the will of the Endless One."

"Mira is right," I said, giving the Court a knowing smile. "And please, take a minute to think about their wise words. A woman who speaks like that --- how could she have been on the side of her former fiance until hours ago? You think we changed our minds out of fear, but if we were on Minx' side, we would have his same devotion."

"Former?" Minx wondered, rather offended.

"Not everyone shows their devotion the same way," Bertha regarded me with cold eyes. While she'd never known I wanted to dismantle the Market, I had reason to suspect she knew there was more to me than met the eye. "For example, some people appear shallow or fickle if you don't know them very well, only to have an eye for details and an obsession for their plans second to none. How would we know if a person like that was all smiles in front of us and then would stab us, or a fellow citizen, in the back?"

"Do not speak to Jonathan like that," Roman interceded. "He would never harm the civilians!"

"Not evern for the greater good?"

"Define greater good," Roman's voice was a little weaker now. Bertha's question had us all puzzled. She seemed to speak sincerely.

"I want to try," she said after a while. "This is why I told you all to stop where you were. Before we sent Minx and his sidekicks to a trial, I want to try the blood for myself and see what the fuss is about."

Chae-Won opened her dark eyes in surprise, mixed as disgust. "And then become addicted to it? Simply to test it out?"

"No, you fool," Bertha snapped. In that moment, it hit me how old she looked --- older than other women in their sixties. It was clear her lifestyle and the continuous use of her powers made her appear frail and tired. I heard that Bertha was never trained as some Watchers were, by their families, and turned when she was already grown. For some reason she wasn't interested in cultivating immortality, and so her body seemed to take the blow of patrol harder than others.

"I would drink it to become better than I ever was," Bertha added, looking at Minx defiantly. "Better than all of you. There is no way this red-headed dunce can evolve further and I, a member of the Court, cannot. I heard the way you spoke to me before, in the meeting room," this time, her eyes scrutinized the fellow members of the Court. "As if I was old and useless, as if being advanced in years gave me paranoia and weakness instead of wisdom. It is also clear you do not share the same ambitions as me in the way our evolution could move forward and that you would rather oppose me in public than trust me when it comes to the decision of the wards."

"You're the one who's been acting weak and paranoid!" User shouted. "You didn't even want to close the seals!"

"I had good reason for that, but as usual, you wouldn't listen," Bertha walked closer to the body on the table. I almost felt relieved she wasn't thinking about drinking from the King. "Too bad Atticus Sibian almost drained this one," she commented wistfully.

I felt Roman tense beside me.

"Still, I suppose there's something left that I can taste," she took out her athame, her sacred weapon. "It probably tastes like animal blood anyway. And the effects... they could be beyond imagining."

I tried to think about the Bertha I knew best, the arrogant one before the madness took over. "The King will find out what you've done and he will execute you," I pleaded. "Do not do that."

"I've thought of everything," Bertha sliced the man's wrist. She was right --- there was almost no blood left to take. "You see, my Skill is the same as young Atticus. I, too, have Charm and I will make everyone in this room, except for Minx, forget that I drank the blood. I would really like to see one of the fellow members of the Court try to make me swallow those pills! Unless, of course, one of you joins us... And then I will continue to do it behind everyone's back."

"You turn my project into something selfish!" Minx shrieked. "I want everyone to know of the effects of blood drinking! And then, of course, only the worthy will join me. It's always been so, during the centuries --- only the great became legends. Besides I don't even have to make a selection, nature does it, you see, there's a side effect I haven't mentioned yet."

Bertha stopped. 

"Only the best, the soundest minds can take in the blood," Minx added, somewhat delighted. "It is another thing in which our biology differs from humans. You see, I told you drinking make you become addicted and a little crazy. What I never had time to say was that if your mind is weak in any way, or corrupted, the blood will simply never change you. It will kill you on the spot."

Many people would have backed down from such a challenge. Bertha, instead, put a finger near the man's wrist, as if she was taking his pulse, and the tip of her index came out stained in blood.

"Minx must be wrong," Roman finally said. "Otherwise, how come Atticus wasn't killed? He's the less strong-willed person I know. He's always been indecisive and followed others' counsel when it came to paving his path in life."

"Given everything we know about him, now," I told him. "We really should consider there must be more to his understanding of right and wrong than you previously thought."

My words basically meant that Atticus, the brother who changed Roman's thoughts and emotions and always kept him controlled, was even more of a bad person than he originally thought. They were welcomed with an unhappy frown, but to tell the truth the Prophet was not surprised by anything anymore --- not after he'd seen Atticus drinking from the man.

Bertha considered her index finger for some time. "One more reason to taste this," she finally said. "And I trust that none of you will move while I take the one step that changes my, and everyone else's lives."

Her voice seemed thick with Charm. I tried to move, but I couldn't lift my sword arm. I suspected everyone else in the audience was feeling the same way.

"You see," she added. "I don't need confirmation. I know my mind is as sane and firm as it is required. I've fancied myself leader of the Court for years. The others... Naftali is too caught up in his studies, User is too vain and shallow and Tori too brave and reckless. Chae-Won always gave me a certain competition in what concerned our political prowess, but she prefers to plan in the shadows..."

"Speaking of planning," User spoke out. "Have you planned this? Have you been on Minx's side all along?"

"His disgust at the way I turned around his little project was sincere. He and I have never seen eye to eye, except for this time. I couldn't have guessed his plan would be to my liking. I was convinced up until the last sentences to execute him. You know I've always wanted to be the leader of the Court --- I would have shown King Abraham my skills by capturing Minx. But now that he's told us everything... your little minds cannot comprehend the challenge. He said that only the best minds are capable of processing the blood, and here I am, proving to everyone who spited me, Jonathan and Roman as well, that I was, instead the sanest person here."

"What you're proving here is literally the opposite of that," I reminded her. "Besides, Roman was right. I cannot believe people like you and Minx are cut out for this. It seems to me the only thing you have in common is a penchant for evil and boring long monologues."

Bertha laughed at that. "So typical of you to turn it into a joke when things are going bad! If you could move, you might have decided to strike me, but alas, you can't..."

That said, she licked the blood off her index finger. She was still laughing as she did that.

"I might have forgot to mention something," Minx scratched his head. "I was about to say it, but then everyone else started speaking... the reason why the blood didn't kill Atticus was that I trained him beforehand. I prepared him by making him taste little by little. Not even he knew what I was doing, I would spill him in his drink, but I knew he would have agreed to whatever I did, and I was indeed right. I bet on Atticus, and I prepared him the way I prepared myself. But as for you... nobody prepared you."

As he was speaking, Bertha had begun to drink more blood, apparently careless to the words she was hearing. At some point, she stopped and she started making a rather revolting gagging sound.

"I cannot believe this," Mira's face was disgusted. "I cannot believe there are people who would do this..."

I felt the charm lifting off and unsheathed my sword. Not only I wanted to do what was right, I was afraid my beloved weapon would snap in two if I didn't. I'd never felt pressured by that kind of sword, if anything, it was me who asked for it, at the forgery. I wanted something to remind me to be on the side of good every time. Sometimes the sides got mixed up, but that time I was sure what it was I needed to do.

"Jonathan, stop," Roman put a hand on my arm.

I looked at Bertha. She looked sickly, gray in the face. She wasn't moving or speaking.

"What's happening to her?" Tori cried out.

Bertha opened her mouth, as if to reply, but then she became gray all over, as if she was made of stone, and then white. For a second, she reminded me of the statue that Edith inhabited. Then, she disintegrated as if she was made of salt.

"I do not understand," Minx looked down at the pile of salt that used to be Bertha. "This wasn't in my studies..."

"Of course," I exclaimed, with a certain pride. "Edith must have known the troubles we were having in this world, and she cursed the people who drank blood herself. She cannot kill those the blood wouldn't have consumed, but she jinxed those who would have died anyway."

"She was strong enough to live as a statue, because it took strength to look back at her people and wish to save them," Roman muttered. "But those whose willpower is weak and fragile, those who wish nothing but harm to other people, they crumble."

"That was perfectly put, you cocky gambler poet!" I patted Roman's back forcefully.

"Poet?" he raised an eyebrow, thinking of his demonic double. "Ow."

"Sorry, I'm just happy to have my muscular system back. I missed it. While there aren't a lot of muscles to go around, they're well-proportioned."

The look in Roman's light-blue eyes startled me, and I had the decency to blush.

"I do not want to interrupt your sweet nothings," Minx shrugged. "But I am still here, and I have the full intention to turn you into my blood drinking army. Mira has always been a caring partner for me, and she's smarter than most women, and as for the Prophet and the Watcher with Knowledge... It doesn't take a genius to understand why I want you, even though I also know a secret about each one of you that also makes me want you more!"

Roman and I exchanged puzzled looks. I still had my hand on my sword. We could take Minx, together. But then I realized, I might not have wanted to kill my former friend. Finding a way to bind him until his execution would have to be enough.

"Tori, User," I called out to the two members of the Court I preferred, the ones who were less friendly with Athanasios. "Bind Minx. I do not want to dirty my sword with his blood --- for his blood is also the blood he's spilled from his victims. Please, take him away from my sight."

"You do not give orders to us," Naftali replied. "You might have forgotten who you are, but the four of us know. However, you and the Prophet will be judged differently now that Bertha did what she did. There's no denying that if you are accused on being on Minx' side, we should also be accused on being her side. That said, seeing as you are heroes back from the Other Side, I will listen to your words."

He took out the ropes the Court occasionally used to bind the hands of criminals --- made of an unbreakable kind of metal that surpassed the capacity of every Skill including Force. I had the weirdest idea, just then, that it would have been satisfactory to see Athanasios in the future being bound by the only thing his hands couldn't break.

And then I felt a little sick despite myself. He had a wife. He was a man I'd lived with for years. He had a brother who was as close to him as a twin. I might have been part of their lives in the strangest way, but that didn't mean that I wasn't. Never before I thought of the abuse I went through in terms of revenge.

Naftali, Tori and User bound Minx' hands. I doubted our former friend would be capable to stay put and shut up, but I imagined the metal hurt his wrists because the bond seemed very tight. So, he didn't speak up for some time.

"Naftali's words are true," Chae-Won said sadly. "We cannot put you on trial if we do not wish to put on trial ourselves. And while I'd be more than happy to do it --- I have nothing to hide --- it would be very messy and I think we can all agree none of us would know how Bertha turned out. However, the very same can be said for the two of you and Mira. Just a heads up, however. I do not represent the thoughts of the whole community. Word of this needs to get out and I cannot vouch for how the four of you will be treated amongst Watchers from now on."

She spoke nothing but the truth. But her sentence chilled my bones, after the hard day we had. I knew about prejudices in my own house and within Athanasios' circle of friends, but I had tried very hard for years to build another reputation for myself. I wouldn't like to see it dismantled.

And I would be positively angry if anybody tried to accuse Roman, already not so well liked, of something like aiding Minx or having been on Atticus' side.

"There's the matter of Atticus, of course," User added as if he read my mind. It wasn't hard --- we'd all been thinking about Atticus since we first saw him drink. "Bertha is dead. Minx must be put to trial, before he's killed, because we need to evaluate how many crimes he's committed and we have to unmask all of his plans. But Atticus... we all saw him drink."

"So, what do you intend to do?" Roman asked. He was just as puzzled as the rest of them. He didn't want to have his brother back, after everything he'd done, but to see him treated as a criminal...

"Let's clean the floor from the blood, move the body and go to the trials room. I'm afraid, unless someone comes up with a better solution, that Atticus must die."