Her - Its - body had gone through a dramatic transformation, losing any vestige of humanity, keeping only the doll-like features in Its face, broken and increasingly cracked though they were. The rest of it seemed to have lengthened, its limbs increasing, multiplying, so that it looked like a millipede.

Netta screamed, jerked with her back to the vanity.

Horror overcame her, almost destroyed Netta. She had never imagined, in the worst nightmares in all of her life, that this was something that a Witch could transform into.

Netta was not certain whose voice it was that spoke in her mind. And they call our kind Monsters.

It stopped moving, Its rapid, writhing movements that Its thin, scythe-ended limbs made, stopping. The creature - what was once Beryl and the doll that she had most coveted - stopped, almost in the center of the path.

It would only take ten seconds, Netta realized, before the creature would be bearing down on her.

Netta swallowed, tried to will courage - sense - back into her mind. She heard herself speaking, could hear the panic cutting at the edge of her voice.

"Please don't - no -"

The wretched thing seemed to cock its head to the side, as though examining her. When it giggled, Netta realized, It sounded like a distorted, heavier version of the sound that Beryl so often made.

"GONNA CRY NOW? WANNA CRY, CRY BABY? YOU PUT ME IN THIS SITUATION. MOTHER ALWAYS FOCUSED ON YOU, THE REST OF US WERE JUST MEANS TO SOME END. NOW, IT'S JUST YOU AND ME ON EVEN PLAYING GROUND." It began to move, scuttling in a horribly smooth, wave-like motion as it approached Netta.

Netta looked to her left, then her right. There was nowhere to run, and she was surely in the dead center of this endless labyrinth. She was lost, she was alone, she was - was -

The Thing was only a few feet from her, rapidly closing in.

As she gazed up at Its horrible, tortured face, Netta felt an anger begin to blossom in her. It was the only thing that made her, as though through base instinct, raise her hand, shaking, up, as though she meant to stop the Thing.

But there was no stopping the wretched thing that approached Netta, a broken amalgamation of pure willpower and twisted obsession. There was no stopping the movement of the Thing. Finally it lurched over her, springing down to claim Its prey -

It had been five hours since the two sisters had been locked in the storage room. There was a long, heavy silence that seemed to have descended in the neverending room, only to be broken by the sound of soft foot steps.

As Netta crossed into the open space before the entrance of the room, she looked up. She was unsurprised to find that she was not alone, to find the two robed women.

Hera smiled, a maternal expression that instantly made Netta feel like a shadow had fallen over her. She fought the urge to back up, to find safety in the labyrinth that she had managed to escape.

Hera, softly, said, "You're magnificent. There's never been anything like you." She extended her hand, overturning it, her fingers parting. Welcoming her daughter.

Netta's fear began to tear away, exposing the anger that had been burning inside of her. "I just killed your fucking youngest daughter." She watched the faces of the two women, watched as Sia flinched. Netta saw how Hera's lips seemed to twitch upwards, as though she wanted to smile broader.

Netta continued, saying, "She transformed into a terrible, wretched creature. She wouldn't have been able to return to her old body, not after what she had become."

Sia hung her head low. For the briefest moment, Netta felt pity for her older sister.

When Hera spoke, her voice sounded as though she was barely suppressing laughter. "So she became a Monster, did she?"

Netta shook her head. "No. Not one of my kind."

They were walking down a long hallway on the first floor that had not ever been in the house, in Netta's memory.

Netta walked behind her mother and her sister, her hands clasped behind her. She didn't want to look at them, envision the terrible power that must burn through them. She couldn't look at the walls she passed, either, at the old photos of dead women, their unsmiling, youthful faces. Still it hurt her too much, more than she could ever admit to, to look at them.

It was shameful to think about how she seemed, still, to not have the stomach to look at what she had done, to not flinch.

Ash's voice spoke softly in her mind. You're different from the rest. It's why I -

Hera's voice called out ahead of Netta. "Come, we'll get this over with. I believe that we've all earned a moment of peace, after the events of the last few months. Outside, it's a new year, that is what the Humans are celebrating. Tonight will mark the dawning of a new age for us."

Netta said nothing, only turning her head in time to look out of a window that they passed. It may as well have not existed. The only thing that Netta could see out of it was the rapidly falling snow that fell past the window, the pitch dark of night seeming to be engulfing. It was though they were in the belly of some great whale.

She looked ahead and was taken off guard when she saw the door in the distance. There had certainly not been one before, it was as though it had simply come into existence.

Hera's voice rang out ahead. "Ah, here we are, now."

The sound of the door closing behind them made Netta close her eyes, shuddering. When she opened her eyes, she discovered that the room they were in gave no question as to the intent that the room serviced.

An altar, made to look like an over large throne, sat in the center of the circular room. The walls, the floor, all made of a dark, shining stone. A brazier, reminding Netta, horribly, of a night of pleasure spent (a lifetime ago, it seemed) as a sort of mock offering, burned from where it hung from the ceiling, casting the room in a barbaric glow.

And then, bound so that they sat on either side of the altar, were the unwilling house guests.

Ophelia jerked, her youthful face breaking into a look of complete shock, her relief at seeing Netta so obvious that it hurt.

"You're alive! Please, stop this madness," Ophelia begged, trying once more to struggle, violently, against her binding. "They want to - to-"

Hera clicked her tongue against her teeth, striding over to the two crouched Witches, her robe trailing after her. She bent down, grasping hold of Ophelia's face in one of her hands. She squeezed the girl's cheeks, silencing her. "I don't know what sort of a home you came from, but if no matter how I punish you, you continue to disobey, then I'll see to it that your name will be erased, like the rest of your Coven Sisters."

Erwinnia, silent as she seemed to have been taken with sitting with her head down, shot her head up, gazing at Hera. With a voice that Netta could hardly recall ever hearing the woman speak in, she shouted, "Leave the girl alone! If you're going to threaten anybody now, threaten me. I'm the one who deserves it."

Hera, with her back still to Netta, sighed and dropped Ophelia's face before she turned to look at her ex-Coven Sister. "Yes," she said, the eerily sincere maternal tone of her voice dropping as she gazed at Erwinnia. "I suppose that you do deserve it. You deserve it, for abandoning our family, only because you thought I was dead."

Netta could not stop herself from speaking, even if she had wanted to. "Why would you pretend to be dead?"

Hera seemed to stare into Erwinnia's weakening features for a moment more before she sighed, standing back up. She turned to gaze at her middle daughter, a smile hitching, warm, on her face.

"I'm sorry I had to have you go through the ordeal, when you thought that I had died. You must understand - I had only learned a year prior to my disappearing act that the King had made an appearance, right under all of our noses. All of these years, and we thought you had befriended an Incubi, one that had left you when It had lead to your exile."

Hera smiled sweetly, tilting her head softly. "You were so quiet with your pathetic suffering, able to seemingly push It away, time and again, without any of the girls I sent to watch you discovering your state. Your father returned to me during one of my meditations, told me that I would need to draw you back. Seems as though he knew better than I did, how best to draw my cautious little lamb back to my side."

Netta felt a burst of anger - betrayal - and she lashed out. Father!

Thornleaf's voice seemed to light Netta's mind up with shame, remorse, as he spoke in a soft, whispered voice. I'm so sorry, child. I didn't think there was any other way to provoke Ashwood, to have him ascend, to free all of us.

As soon as she had lashed out at him, Netta regretted it. She was still not over how angry she was with him, but she knew that she would regret pushing her father away. She may not live much longer, but she did not want to die feeling spiteful about someone who was just as damaged as everyone else that she had grown to love in the last few months.

And hate.

"You look upset, child." Hera stepped forward, swept her hand over Netta's face to push back errant strands of hair. "Make no mistake: you were a difficult quarry to capture, one that took careful planning. Oh, but it was worth it, to discover that you had as much a taste for blood as your mother. I almost wish -" Hera paused, the flinch that rippled across Netta's face seemed to bother her.

Chuckling, Hera said, "Now, you don't have a problem with your mother touching your face, now, do you?"

"I would rather you fly back to whatever cave you were roosting upside down in, frankly." Netta moved, her every hope feeling as though it were itching up her arm, her fingers.

Hopes, fears, hatred that ran so black and deep that it had transformed Netta.

She clasped the side of her mother's hand, felt as though her hand was growing hot, burning hot, from all of her rage, her sorrow. It would burn her mother, as she had her younger sister. Burn until there was nothing left, even of something as monstrous as what these women had become.

Hera wailed and jerked away from Netta, clutching her arm. For a moment as she sat on her knees, Netta thought that her mother would collapse and disintegrate before her eyes.

After a moment had passed, Hera's wailing seemed to transform. At first Netta did not hear the pitch difference, but as her mother took once more to her feet, turning to gaze at Netta, it became clear to Netta that the woman was no longer wailing in apparent agony.

Hera's wide mouth seemed to be open, like a wound, as she laughed. As her laughter died down, Hera swept a trembling finger across her cheek, brushing away tears.

"Oh, dear, I would apologize, but the fact of the matter is - I was waiting for you to try to kill me. Such audacity, pride, for a little Monster. And a little Monster would do well to consider the fact that It cannot lash out at Its Master."

For a moment, all Netta could feel was as though her world had turned black. She staggered back, only coming to her senses when she felt the too familiar grasp of her older sister's hand as it wrapped over her lower arm.

When she tried to jerk away, Sia wrapped her other arm, tight over Netta's wind pipe.

Netta struggled, tried to knock her older sister away from her. All it got her was a tighter hold on her, for a moment rendering unable to do anything but gasp, desperate, for air.

Hera walked up to Netta, an eyebrow cocked at her that, for a moment, reminded Netta of a similar look she had once been able to give. Before she had taken some of Ash's features for her own.

"My darling, sweet daughter - you think that if you kill me that you can stop the great mechanism that was set in place so very, very long ago." Her voice dropped, as did her smile. "Your King knows well how long ago this has been in the making. Its anger, the dying Earth we are all forced to share -" she sighed. "ingredients that would invariably catch fire. You cannot demonize me simply for being opportunistic and resourceful enough to be the one who stands to benefit from the coming frost and the spring to come after."

Netta gasped for air, tried, desperately, to struggle free as her vision began to grow black. Her older sister was always much stronger than her, and now Netta could understand why. She slipped into unconsciousness with barely a whimper.

Hera made a disgusted sound in the back of her throat and, almost as an afterthought, said, "Go to sleep, little fool. When you awaken, it will be between the sharp teeth of your own King."

She was made to be strong, but not strong enough, ever, to hope to rebel. A thrall, a host body to a God -

Netta was not fully conscious as she flopped to the ground, once her sister's grasp had weakened on her. As she slumped to the ground, she felt, for a moment, the touches of sleep beginning.

No. No, not like - not like this -

Ash's voice was like a dragon's blast of fire, seeming to fill Netta with an almost alien will. RISE NEITH, RISE AND BECOME MY HERALD.

Netta heard it all around her, the screaming sounding like a nightmare chorus. She could not find the energy to stir, but felt herself rising from the ground. She managed to rouse her head in time to find that she did indeed seem to be rising -

Like Lazarus, a phoenix -

Or a long-dead King, come to take revenge on those who have challenged him.

Netta felt her arms extending. When she looked down, she discovered that the Witches, two bound and two standing, staring at her. Fear and fascination seemed to be etched into all of their features.

As though they're witnessing the mushroom cloud of a great explosion.

A creature that she knew intimately - enemy, friend, lover, mate, parasite, liege - used her vocal chords to speak. Its voice corroded hers, transforming hers into a rasping growl. "BOW YOUR HEADS TO ME AND I WILL NOT MAKE YOUR TORMENT LEGENDARY."