DAVINIA STILL FELT Gillian's warm, muscular arms around her as she sobbed. She didn't cry. Never. No one deserved her tears, but no matter how hard she tried, she couldn't stop the teardrops covering her face and dripping down on Gillian's shirt.

She didn't think she'd have comfort like that, but she had. And...it felt nice. Although she should've been the one comforting him.

If the rumours were true—and they always were—the wolves would be sacrificed for extra power, and there was nothing the pack could do about it. The curse didn't let them. They could've tried to run, but it wouldn't work.

Before he left, he kissed her. But not like the other kisses—the ones they gave each other to distract them from everything that happened. This kiss went deeper, and she still tasted his emotions on her lips.

Gillian trusted her with his life. Figuratively and literally, and now she had to live up to it.

She trudged through the forest with two big bags—mostly stuffed with books, notes, vials, crystals, candles, and everything else she needed for magic. One hung on her back and the other around her shoulder as she held a small brown bunny in her arms. The warm animal pressed against her chest. With her thumb, she petted the soft fur.

It would be a matter of time before the Atropa witches noticed she was gone. Hopefully, she broke the ancestors' bond before they did.

Her stomach twisted. In the back of her mind, she wasn't able to let her mum go. Even though her mum would tell Davinia it was okay if she was still here.

But she wasn't.

The only thing that remained was the link to her through the ancestors and the memories. So, at least not all was lost.

Davinia shook the bubbling mixed emotions away. There was no time to think about matters like loss and other silly things. She needed to focus on her revenge as she always dreamed about.

The bunny wiggled against her chest. It took her a few months to work out this specific spell. Hopefully, it worked. There weren't a lot of opportunities to test it. Or any of the schemes her plan consisted of.

"I'm sorry, little bunny. I wish you all the luck," Davinia whispered.

She knelt on the ground mixed with twigs, pine needles, rocks, and sand. While making sure the bunny didn't escape—she didn't have a backup—she made a slight cut in the soft flesh of her palm; the mount of Venus. Carefully, she drew the sigil on the bunnies' back with her blood as she whispered the words of her created spell. Something she wasn't supposed to be able to do. Creating spells, that was. Which led her to doubt her plan even more, but confidence was key. Right?

The colour of the bunnies' eyes changed to the same green irises as hers. "Don't be disturbed by their location spell. Just run as far and fast as you can," Davinia said and nudged the bunny to go oppositely.

She didn't want to think of the bunny's fate when the Atropa witches found it.

With a sigh, she stood back up and continued deeper into the forest. The trail became rockier, and the unique crevices in the rocks led her through the harsh wilderness. Her old runes and sigils were hardly visible on the stone, but she felt them.

She ducked under a fallen tree and shuffled through a gap in the rock formation to enter a cave. Her cave. Candles were spread throughout the space, the wax covering the stone floor. Everywhere you looked, there were runes, sigils, and symbols—layers of protection and magic enchantments Davinia built over the past years. In a corner stood a small, plain altar with a few dried herbs and flowers. A couple of notebooks lay beside it, all filled with her handwriting. She pulled a bunch of notebooks out of her bag and surrounded herself with her notes, books, and more. She double-checked every spell, sigil, and rune she intended to use. There was no room for mistakes.

Whispers of doubt and fear of screwing up plagued her mind. What if the Atropa witches searched her room sooner, or they tried to locate her and the diversion with the bunny didn't work? What if she misinterpreted the visions, or the fire lied to her during the scrying? There were so many ways she could've made a mistake. Even the tiniest slip-up meant her death.

Davinia closed her eyes and focused on her breathing. She could do this; she was a powerful and brilliant witch. "I can do this," she said as she opened her eyes. Taking the black coal, she mixes it with her blood. Gods and goddesses. She was going to spill a lot of it today, wasn't she?

With raised her hands, she mumbled a few words. One by one, the candles lit up, casting a soft glow and shadows around the cave. Using the entire surface, she drew a pentagram on the cave's floor. At the points of the star, she painted the sigils like the ones she saw in the visions. As she made the last one in the middle of the pentagram, the symbols shone and burned into the stone. Smouldering embers rose, casting an orange glow in the cave's darkness.

Her heart pounded in her chest as she admired her work and magic. "It works," she whispered under her breath. However, she shouldn't celebrate just yet. This was only the beginning of a long night.

Crossed-legged, she sat in the centre of her pentagram. The embers still rose along the lines of her drawing, radiating heat but not burning her. Closing her eyes, she started with a meditation, singing the ancient words of the ancestors. The magic burned through her body, scorching a path along her veins.

"I call out to the gods and goddesses of my blood. I pray to the Goddess of the earth, for I am her child. Please lend me your strength." She placed the charged vials before her, except for the one with the root, which she kept safely tucked away in her backpack. "I also call out to the Goddess of the Moon, for I've loved and lived with her children and let the light of the moon shine in my heart." The symbols of earth and the moon she drew so many years ago lit up in the cave as if the Goddess came here with her—and she wanted to believe it with all her heart.

The song once more danced off her tongue in an ancient language long forgotten.

"I pray to my mother and my ancestors. Come to me as I've come to you so many times before. Show yourself so I may ask for your guidance."

The fire of the candle rose higher than she'd ever seen. She focused on the flame before her, shutting out everything else as she called out to the ancestral world. Pulled into the inferno, she saw the tree growing; the roots reaching out to her. Her mind drifted her through their woods, and she screamed for the ancestors to come. Shadows of faces she had seen before and some she didn't recognise danced around in her thoughts. The air became thin. Every breath she inhaled burned into her lungs, but she called for more. The magic brought a haze to her mind, and her concentration wavered.

She tried to sing again; the words fighting their way out of her mouth, not a hint of the beautiful melody remaining. Her fingers closed around the dagger laid out before her. The blade cut through her palm, and her blood fed the bond—just as she intended.

She dipped her fingers in the blood and dragged them across her face; wearing it as war paint for what was about to come. Her heart seemed to stop for a second. A sharp, blinding pain shot through her head. Agatha walked towards her, speaking in an unusual way as the ancestors' wood appeared around her. But Davinia refused to fear her. She greeted the witch with a wicked smile.

Her own spell slipped from her lips. Hatred pierced through the words with intent. The veins in her arms started to glow a reddish-orange as the tips of her fingers burned. Her stomach twisted. She fought the bile coming up as she doubled over. The glow turned ashen as her eyes darkened, and black liquid dripped from her nose onto the ground. The words were hardly audible. Nevertheless, she didn't stop.

The spell's power rushed through her body as she continued the ritual. She moved her fingertips over the skin of her arm. A scream ripped from her throat. The tip of the blade left burn marks mirroring the symbols on the floor, as her skin colours red with blood.

Agatha lunged at her, but a fire erupted between them, separating the two.

It was working.

Her whole body trembled with pain. She drew the pentagram with the sigils over and over in the same place on her arm. It felt like dark tendrils squeezed her heart. Her mum appeared before her, her face as clear as the last day Davinia saw her. Black tears rolled hotly down her cheeks.

Davinia couldn't even stop the spell to tell her mum she was sorry, that she loved her, and if there was any other way, she would've done it. Her mum gave her a reassuring smile. The image of her mum and the ancestors' world flickered in and out of existence.

A cry forced itself past her lips. Her hair clung to her tear and sweat-stained face. A hollow pit grew inside of her soul, consuming her. Air pushed out of her lungs with brutal force. Her back arched, and her head fell backwards. Wave after wave of pain pulsed through her body, blurring her vision. The flames of the candles burned higher and higher. Embers flared from the pentagram, and the sigils ached in her lungs.

The blade cut again and again, blackness oozing out of Davinia's arms, the remnants of her mum's bloodline leaving her. An all-consuming agony burst through her veins, and her ears rang. Gasping for air, she fell to the ground. Darkness consumed her vision, and everything screeched to a stop.

✩ ⋆ ✩ ⋆ ✩

Poor Bunny. 

This was a magic filled chapter, but has it worked? 

Will Davinia's sacrifice be worth it?