Circe had taken the small mirror from her pocket and broken it. No one noticed in the confusion and mayhem. Her mothers were ranting, and Jacob was trying in vain to calm his daughters, but their madness had overcome them, and they could no longer hear their father’s words. Hazel and Primrose had run down to the odd sisters’ house in the courtyard to see if Snow White had been injured by the falling stones when the harpies came to life, leaving Jacob and Circe alone with the odd sisters.

Circe looked down at the broken mirror. She could see Snow’s face reflected in the broken pieces. She is safe. Primrose and Hazel will take care of her, she thought. At least Snow will be safe.

Then she wiped the broken pieces of mirror so she didn’t have to see her cousin’s face in the long sharp piece she grasped in her hand.

She was so afraid. But she didn’t have a choice. It was the only way to make her mothers whole again. It was the only way to bring back their sanity.

She took the long, jagged piece of glass and plunged it into her heart. She felt herself choking on blood as she began to lose her vision. The last thing she saw before she closed her eyes was her mothers’ horrified faces. She heard them screaming as her world went black.

Snow White, Primrose, and Hazel returned to a nightmare. Primrose and Hazel stood, stunned, while Snow gathered Circe in her arms. She looked as if she was drowning in sorrow. Too grief-stricken to cry, she sat there wondering how this could have happened.

Primrose reached out and touched Snow on the shoulder tenderly, trying to comfort her. Jacob closed his eyes, willing away his tears, not wanting to see Circe’s lifeless face. He tended to his daughters, who were lying on the floor, motionless but still breathing.

“This isn’t how it was supposed to end!” said Snow, looking up at Primrose, her cheek covered in Circe’s blood. As Primrose’s heart broke for the woman, she thought this was probably the only way it could have ended, but she had hoped with all her heart it wouldn’t have to.

Hazel joined Jacob and sat down next to the odd sisters. “There is nothing of the madness left within them. Circe has saved them from their madness by giving them back the best parts of themselves, I can feel it. I wonder why they won’t wake.”

“I don’t think they wish to live in a world without their daughter.” Jacob stood up to look out the windows at the broken landscape. The ground was covered in rubble from the night creatures that had fallen to the ground the moment Circe took her own life. “She’s saved us all, you realize. The Fairylands, everyone in the many kingdoms, all with her sacrifice.”

Snow White stood up quite suddenly. Her face was ghastly pale, but she was almost elated. “The flowers! We can take her to the flowers!” Jacob and the witches said nothing. They just looked at Snow sadly. “Come on! We have to take her to Gothel’s old house! The flowers are there. We can bring her back to life!” Snow didn’t understand why no one was saying anything. Why no one saw this was the solution.

Primrose leaned down and put her arm around Snow. “We can’t, my darling. If we do, then Lucinda and her sisters will return to bedlam.” Snow White stood up, noticing the blood on her dress for the first time. She didn’t know which was Circe’s and which was her own, or what she found more revolting: being covered in the blood of her dearest friend or the idea that the odd sisters would live and Circe would not. She couldn’t let this be the end. She couldn’t lose Circe. Not now. She suddenly understood how the odd sisters had felt when they lost Circe years before. The sense of desperation to get her back was overwhelming. They had just found each other. They had just become friends.

“Then we kill the odd sisters!” Snow said, surprising herself.

“You are a witch’s daughter,” said Hazel. “But Circe has made her choice. She could have killed her mothers—she had the power to do so even if she didn’t know it herself—but she chose to sacrifice herself so they could live. She knew that taking her own life would restore their greatest virtues.”

“But it’s not fair! I can’t lose her, I can’t!”

Hazel smiled at Snow and said, “Everything you loved about Circe is now within her mothers. She was special because her mothers made her that way.”

Snow White was angrier than she’d ever been. “It shouldn’t have to be like this! I refuse to accept it! There has to be another way!”

Primrose took Snow by the hand. “You have to, my dear. Circe wanted this. She felt it was her fault that her mothers fell into delirium. This was Circe’s choice to make, and it was foreseen by the ancestors. We have to honor that.”

Snow White shook her head. “Curse the ancestors! I can’t believe you’re okay with this! I thought you wanted to help Circe! I thought she had finally found a home and a family in you and in this place! I know that is how you felt as well! I could see it when you looked at her! Tell me you are okay with her choice, tell me you didn’t wish for things to be different, and I will drop this.”

Hazel sighed and joined them, putting her arm around Snow. “Of course we hoped things would go differently. We love Circe. We loved her long before we laid eyes on her, from the moment we first heard her voice in the place between. And yes, we wanted her to live here with us, to live out her life with us in the dead woods, and that was a path she could have taken. A path the ancestors hoped she would take. But that meant killing her mothers. And only Circe could make that choice. We couldn’t force that upon her.”

Snow White couldn’t help feeling there was another way. “I know in my heart this isn’t how it’s supposed to end. I know it! Why can’t any of you see that?”

The room became infused with light as a new voice echoed in the room. Calm and serene, it was the voice of the ancestors.

Snow White is right. This is not how it has to end.

“Gothel?” Primrose looked around the room, trying to find the source of the voice.

Gothel is with us, Primrose, and we speak as one, as the ancestors of the dead woods have always done.

The light in the room intensified.

Circe should not have to die for our mistakes. And neither should her mothers. The choice will be theirs to make together.

Snow felt strange talking to an invisible being, to this otherworldly voice, but she found her courage and asked, “But how? How will they make the choice?”

We will speak to them, Snow White. They will be given a choice. A choice only they can make. They will decide what to do, and we will honor it and use our powers to enforce their will. We promise you.

“I don’t understand! How will they know they have the choice? How will we know what they want?”

They are in the place between, and they are listening.