Netta could not shake off the will that had possessed her. She looked down, could see her dominant hand grasping the knife, her feet moving. She had begun to walk towards the shivering mass of the two bound Witches on the ground.

Netta could hear their cries, their muffled pleas.

Then the yelling was overpowered by a soothing, authoritative voice. "Neith, bend down and with that knife, make an incision on first the girl's arm and then cut that traitor's throat."

Amidst their screaming and thrashing, Netta bent down and made an incision on Ophelia's arm. Her screaming rang in Netta's hollowed mind. Then she watched as her hands forced Winnie's head back, wielding a blade that had a small smear of the girl's blood still on the edge of it.

"Daughter, stop."

The sound of her mother's voice made Netta freeze in place. She was holding the hyperventilating Witch's hair in her hand, was about to press the woman's neck to the blade.

"Drop her."

Netta did as she was told, the solid sound of Winnie's head smacking against the ground ringing, for a moment stifling Winnie's cries.

"Walk back to the table and sit."

Netta did it and as soon as she sat, she felt as though a fog that had been clouding her mind had lifted. She gasped and dropped the knife onto the table. "Goddess, no, oh, no -"

Sia said then, "Is this really a reason for dramatics? It would have been patently obvious to anyone with the ability to keep a coherent thought in her mind that you were born to obey Mother."

"What? What does that mean?" Netta's trembling increased as she ran her hands up and down her pants, trying to rub off an evil influence as though she had touched something rotten.

"Now, Saorise," Hera said, smiling gently at her eldest daughter almost indulgently, but with her eyes dark. "was it your place to broach that subject?"

Sia looked down at her plate. "I apologize, Mother."

The sound of the two on the floor crying into each other, with the girl's cries muffled against Winnie's neck in an armless attempt at comfort, almost drove Netta mad.

Netta turned back to her Mother, wishing for sanity, for hope. When she looked in her mother's face, Netta found that Hera was smiling in a way that did not quite reach her eyes, an almost indulgent smile on her lips.

Hera raised her hands up to her head, despair for a moment written on her face. "I had invested much in your birth, then watched as all of your potential seemed to wither in front of me." Slowly, Hera regained her smile. "But now I see that out of all of the stimulation we subjected you to, we failed to give you something to care about, or any pride to draw from. Look at you now!" She laughed, a warmth in her eyes then almost motherly in its pride, its hint at unconditional love. "You're all I ever wanted in a daughter - powerful, unusual - broken to my will."

"I am not broken."

"What was that?"

Netta clenched her teeth together. "I am not broken."

"Ah, that's sweet." Hera tut-tutted. "Dear, pick up that knife and go cut the throat of the one that you care the most for."

"NO!" Netta shouted it, even as she felt her hands scrabbling for the knife.

"No? That sounds like the little girl that I used to watch cry as her Sisters pulled her hair out. I want to hear the Witch who knows her place - beneath her mother."

Netta bit back a cry as her hand closed around the blade's edge, tightened her hand as she tried to control herself. The pain of the blade cutting into her lower palm was wretched and worked as an anchoring point for her mind.

"Please." She sobbed.

"Please what?"

"Please - don't make me kill."

"My dear, it's too late for that. If you want to stop having to kill, then I would appreciate it if you would crawl over here and kiss my feet."

Netta dropped the knife and crawled quickly underneath the table, moving on all fours. The pain of her wounded hand felt like there was a searing, hot piece of metal being jammed into it. She did not care. She crept to her mother and, unhesitating, Netta took her mother's high-heeled foot in her uninjured hand. She recognized the overwhelming scent of rosewater and it gagged her. She raised the foot to her lips and kissed it, then waited.

"Now, mongrel, crawl out from under the table and let me pet you."

Netta did as she told her and felt her mother's hand on her head, wincing at the awful weight of it.

Out of the corner of her eyes, she could see the two on the floor watching her with wide, wet eyes. Netta closed her eyes, tried to imagine Ash's face, to find strength in recalling rough edges and warmth -

"That's a good girl. I never told you that, did I? Well, I'm telling you now." Hera thrust her hand into Netta's hair, her nails scraping roughly. She had begun to dig rivets that made Netta have to bite her bottom lip to keep from crying out. "Tell me that you love me."

Netta's throat constricted and she had to bite the words out. "I love you."

"Now, call me mommy."

"I love you, Mother." In her mind, Netta tried to remember a warmth that filled her until it hurt.

Hera chuckled good naturedly and began to return to petting her. "Ah, now now - I told you to call me mommy. If you have difficulty listening to direction, then I can make it easier for you to obey me..."

"Mommy." She realized, as she felt the wetness covering her face, that she had been silently crying.

"Open your eyes. Look at me." Netta gazed up at her, and tried to find a way to love those eyes that held her eternity like a fist coiled tight. "Do you miss you mother's cooking?"

"Yes, mommy."

"Eat, my dear." Netta waited, then saw a welcoming spark in her mother's eyes.

Forgive me, she begged Ash.

"Good, Neith, good. Get to your feet and sit next to me. You've earned the right to sit at the table tonight -"

It was Sia who spoke up, her voice angry. "Mother, why does she get to sit closer to you, I want to be by your side -"

"Silence!" Hera shouted and the house almost shook to its foundations. Everyone was silent. "You have provided me with little in the way of what my middle child has, now. I realize now that I should have raised you all as subhuman creatures. I will work to rectify that problem with you two. For now, Neith will sit and eat."

Netta did as she was told, as the plate in Calliope's empty seat was replaced with her previous one. Feeling no hunger - quite the opposite, actually - Netta nevertheless began to eat, voraciously.

Beryl laughed at her. "Look at that bitch, eating like a starving mutt -"

"What did I just say, Beryl?" Hera's voice was deceivingly calm, but the sound of it was like her nails jamming into Netta's scalp. "I will not take either of you speaking in that way towards my servant. Neith was created with purpose, born from the sacrificial deaths of many Witches that I had strangled with my bare hands."

"How?"

Hera smiled indulgently at Netta, reaching over to scratch her lacquered red nails against Netta's cheek.

"Hush, child. In you sleeps enough death to provide more than enough to tear back the caul that blinds - Him. Your magic sung with each of those deaths, and now It's keening in Its cry, needing a Queen's touch to take It over from Its surrogate..."

Somewhere, Netta could make sick sense of what her mother was telling her, but she struggled to understand what she was being told. She, a surrogate of some dark power - what did it mean? Was it all just some manifestation of her Mother's madness? Even thinking that she could make sense of it was enough to make her stomach feel as though it was about to turn inside out.

"Deaths? The others - they were meant to die?" Her Sisters - all of Gardenia - almost all of Oleander -

"Why else would I have deigned to fatten such useless bovine as the cast-off remains of Human's sex? They were fine harvests, imbued with hatred and a misplaced sense of trust."

Netta shut her eyes, wished then that she could keep them closed forever.

"Open your eyes." When Netta did not automatically obey, Hera snapped, "Open your eyes or kill one of your pets."

Netta snapped her eyes opened and gazed at her mother.

"Good. You shall make a fine sacrifice to the Once King, and with your death you shall break your bond to It."

Netta blinked, fear striking her. "What are you talking about?"

Beryl giggled.

Hera gave her a soothing, pitying look. She said, "In due time it will be as though the both of you will be strangers. You did well, and for that I thank you, carrying the King to me like a parasite, allowing him to stay strong as It feasted on your flesh and blood."

Netta had to turn her head away, fighting to not retch at what Hera was insinuating. "No, you don't have the power to make me forget about him." Netta's gaze rose, fell for a moment on Ash's frozen features before she had to look away.

It felt as though she were submerged into a nightmare.

"Neith, look at your mother." Netta obeyed her. Hera smiled at her, reaching forward to run her graceful, long fingers along the shape of her daughter's face. "Everything I have done has been for the good of our kind. We have lived beneath the weight of Humanity's ignorant, callous cruelty since the Goddess thought that she could control magic to make it go into hiding. However - there was a built-in failsafe for the way things have gone. Some call it the end of our world, but it is only the beginning, for those of us who have magic still in our blood. Under my authority, I will order the Monsters' King to raze the overgrowth of weeds, and in its place Its kind will grow once more."

Hera ran her fingers down to Netta's chin. "Witches needn't ever fear discovery, to be treated with the indignity of the inheritor of some foul, rare genetic disorder. And there will be Monsters, enough for all Witches, and they will obey the will of their King as they have always been compelled to." Her voice dropped, becoming flat, insidious. "And their King will obey me."

Netta shook her head, took her Mother's hand off of her chin. "This is - madness. What've you turned into?"

Hera sighed, the disappointment clear in her face. She shook her head. "It's no matter. You were not born to understand the reason for your existence. Perhaps it was only cruel folly to explain this to you. But - your sorrow will end shortly enough. The enchantment I have wound on our home will soon work its way into you, sap you of every vestige of memory of your time with the Traitor King, then with the breaking of your will, you will lose your tie to It."

Netta sat back in her chair, shrinking. "No, you can't..." Netta tried to stand up, struggled, only to hear her Mother's sharp voice.

"Neith Oleander, you sit back down this instant." Netta sat, felt her hands folding over her chest as though they were a puppet's.

Her Mother continued. "You ought to be honored, to be the final tool, my flaming sword, against the horde of smothering Humanity. Don't you recall, child, how your life was, before you came back into our world? My dear, I have never truly left you, I have always had one of your Sisters to keep an eye on you while you lived in those wretched cities. They told me such stories. Stories of how you suffered, how you were robbed, how you once withstood being molested by one of those Human men. Tell me, why do you pity them, those who would have us killed if they ever discovered our existence?"

Netta clenched her eyes shut, humiliated at being reminded of things that she thought only she knew of. She said, "They don't know any better, Mother. It's not - it isn't right to kill them, just because they would fear us. They're right to fear us." She dared to rise her head, turned to gaze at her older sister. "And it was not the first time I was molested."

The sound - of Hera slamming her fist down on the table - made Netta leap. For the first time that night, Netta saw the side of her Mother that she knew all too well. The zealous anger in her eyes that seemed to make the greens shine with the light of hell.

"Do not tell me what is right and wrong, when you don't know anything about true pain. Sacrifice. The Monsters' King is not the only one who became twisted by agony, torture. We need to subjugate Monster-kind to save them, then cleanse the Earth of the Humans who destroy It and Its magic. Only then can we begin to rebuild this world, return it to its former purity."

Netta gazed at her Mother, horrified by the manic joy she saw in her face. Netta turned, looked at her sisters. Their faces glowed with a similar joy as they reflected the zealous optimism that her Mother had spoken of.

Netta felt compelled by what Hera had said. As soon as she felt the doubt creep into her mind, all she had to remember was all of the deaths that she had witnessed thus far.

And all that would come, with these Witches' wish. Netta shook her head, pushing all thought of the validity of what they had told her out of her mind. "Think about what you've done, Mother, to get this far. What you're talking about doing. You've killed so many people, people that - that trusted you, just to get me here." Netta ran her hand through her hair, her heart pounding. Anger, sadness, despair - it all coursed through her blood, overpowering her fear. She shook with the overwhelming flood of it, her mind filled with thoughts of all of those who cared for - trusted her.

Hera's smile edged up one side of her perfect lips, reminding Netta of a sharp blade. "I am sorry to hear that you feel that way. Especially given the little pile of bodies you yourself have stacked up of your Sisters."

Netta felt a terrible, dark anger almost overpower her. She felt herself standing up and out of her chair, her hand reaching for the knife. She didn't care what the repercussions of it would be. She had to avenge, to kill the mad woman sitting next to her.

"Neith, drop the knife and sit at my feet."

Netta wanted to scream as she felt the knife drop out of her hand as her fingers grasped a hold of it. She fought the forced movement of her body fiercely. Still, she came to sit at her Mother's feet, crouching like a monkey. The feel of Hera's hand on her head sent a chill up her as the desire to wrench it off of her beat, relentlessly, against Netta.

She heard Beryl speaking, her high voice bubbling with good cheer. "Now, that's a good little doggie."

Hera spoke, leaning in close so that she was whispering into Netta's ear. "You poor, poor tormented, unique little creature. Accept your loss, give into despair and it'll be over all the sooner."

Netta's gaze focused, and she realized that she could see the two bound Witches. They gazed at her, wide, frightened eyes begging for her to realize something that Netta was powerless to understand.

Her Mother's voice seemed to ring off of the walls of Netta's mind. It was like the voice of the Goddess herself, telling her the truth.

"Don't think of your burial tonight as a punishment, as it once was for you. Rather, think of it as your chance to meditate on what you will one day mean to our women. Now, do me a favor and forget about your Husband."