Two witches, divergent in age and in schools of magic, though with very similar hearts and sensibilities, stood on the windy cliffs near Morningstar Castle. The sea bubbled with putrid black foam, and the sky was filled with a thick, deep purple smoke that obscured the daylight and enshrouded Morningstar Kingdom in a veil of darkness.

Everywhere Circe looked, she saw manifestations of Ursula that had exploded onto their surroundings. It was sickening to behold. The destruction blackened the shores and saddened the witches’ hearts. Circe would have to use her magic to bring life and growth back to the kingdom, but she couldn’t bring herself to face the task—not just yet. She knew that in doing so, she would be obliterating what remained of her old friend Ursula.

“An old friend who ripped your soul from your body, turning it into a husk. Yours and countless other souls,” Nanny reminded her, reading her thoughts.

Circe just smiled weakly, knowing Nanny was right. But she saw that Ursula, the one who had betrayed her, as someone quite different from the one she had known as a girl. Ursula had been a wild and charismatic character. She had been Circe’s sisters’ dearest friend and like an aunt to Circe—a great witch who had brought Circe bobbles and had told her stories of the sea. This creature, the thing she’d become, wasn’t the Ursula Circe loved. Ursula had become someone else, someone consumed by grief, anger, and the desire for power. A woman who had been driven to the depths of despair by a brother who loathed her. Circe remembered going to Ursula that day; she remembered thinking someone else—no, something else—was looking at her from behind Ursula’s eyes. It was chilling to remember.

Circe had felt like running from her that day, but she had told herself it was all her imagination. She’d reminded herself that she’d always trusted Ursula. She had never imagined Ursula would harm her. But if Circe was really honest with herself, there was no way she could have denied that the creature inhabiting her old friend that day had meant to hurt her. Circe just hadn’t wanted to see it then. She had denied her fear, pushed it aside, and willed herself to see the woman she loved. And that was how she had allowed herself to be captured by the dreaded sea witch. How Ursula had been able to use her as a pawn to manipulate her sisters.

The woman she loved had betrayed her.

No, Ursula betrayed herself. And now she was dead, rendered to nothing more than smoke, sludge, and ash. She was beyond Circe’s help now. Still, Circe tortured herself with questions. Why hadn’t Ursula come to her in honesty? Why hadn’t she told Circe the whole story—the story she had told Circe’s sisters? Circe would have helped Ursula destroy Triton without the need to involve his youngest daughter. None of it made any sense. Ursula must have known that Circe had the power to destroy Triton, but she also knew Circe would never endanger the life of Ariel.

Damn Triton for the damage he did to his sister! Damn him to Hades for his complicity! Damn him for making Ursula hide who she truly was. Damn him for turning her into a loathsome creature by his own design!

It was taking everything she had not to cast curses at King Triton. She wanted to tell him that when she’d touched Ursula’s necklace, she’d seen everything Ursula had ever experienced—the causes of all her rage, sorrow, and pain. Circe had heard every foul word and witnessed every hateful deed Ursula had endured from Triton. It had ripped at Circe’s heart, as it surely must have done to Ursula’s. Maybe one day Circe would throw Triton’s words back at him. But she wouldn’t do it now. Not while her hate for him was still strong in her heart. The pain was too fresh.

And then something quite sad occurred to Circe: family was capable of causing more harm than anyone. Family was true heartbreak. They could rip out your heart like no one else. They could destroy your spirit and leave you alone in the tangled depths of despair. Family could ruin you, more than a lover might, and surely more than even the dearest of friends could. Family could hold its power over you.

Circe knew all too well what it was like to have her heart broken by family. She had her own troublesome sisters—the odd sisters. They could scream a house down with their rage and tantrums. But her sisters loved her ferociously—far too well. She never worried on that account. She knew she had their love and always would no matter what befell them. Now her sisters were trapped in a sleeping death, all because she’d left them and had allowed herself to be tricked by the sea witch. All because she had been angry with them for loving her too much. They loved her so much that they would’ve destroyed anyone or done anything to protect her. And how had she repaid them?

She’d condemned them for haunting the Beast. She’d screamed at them for putting Tulip’s life in danger. They’d been responsible for many deaths and many transgressions. Circe was sure she didn’t even know about all of them. But none of those things seemed to matter now. Not while her sisters lay broken, as if dead, under the glass dome of the Morningstar solarium. Their eyes were wide open. As hard as Circe had tried, she could not close them. Did her sisters know what had happened to them? Did they remember battling Ursula’s spell to save their little sister? Did they remember fighting their own spell, so embedded with hatred that it took all their strength to break? They looked haunted to Circe as they stared into nothingness. No magic would give her sisters the appearance of peacefulness. It seemed even in their sleep they were being punished, paying for every act of wickedness they had ever committed and for their part in Ursula’s demise. Circe wondered if her sisters could see what remained of Ursula staining the glass dome and billowing overhead, thick, black, and putrid. Did they feel Ursula’s hate emanating from every surface of the kingdom? Was Circe prolonging her sisters’ torture by not cleansing Morningstar? It was time to move on—to rid the castle of Ursula’s remains. But how? Where would Circe’s magic send them? What was the protocol when a witch of Ursula’s caliber died? What were the words? Circe’s head spun with the questions.

How do you honor a witch who betrayed you?

“We put her to rest,” Nanny said gently, wrapping her arm around Circe’s shoulders. “And we cleanse the land. Come, my sweet one, I will help you.”