You Broke Us 

Mildred left the servants’ quarters and went straight to the upper floors, two thoughts looping through her mind as she walked off the worst of her fury. To arrive at Evelyn’s office out of control and fuzzy-minded would cripple her chances of surviving what would certainly be a ghastly confrontation.

Despite her best attempts at calming, she stormed into Evelyn’s office with unusual fury, barreling through the door without a thought of knocking. May looked up from her desk in the corner but didn’t move, quill frozen mid-stroke. Evelyn, who sat at her desk surrounded by countless envelopes, glanced up with calm indifference.

“Merry meet, Mildred.”

“I knew you believed some Elitist doctrine, but this makes me sick,” Mildred cried, throwing the newsscroll onto Evelyn’s desk. “You’re closing the common schools?”

Evelyn flicked the newsscroll away with an annoyed motion of her finger. “Yes, I am, and I don’t appreciate your rude entrance to my private office. If you have something to discuss with me in a civilized manner, you can make an appointment with May and return at a later time. I’m busy.”

“Evelyn, what are you thinking? You can’t end education for the poor. It’s . . . it’s the move of a tyrant.”

Evelyn’s eyes narrowed on her with the focused intensity of a coiled snake. “Don’t forget your place, Council Member. I am the High Priestess and your superior in every single way.”

“Superior?” Mildred spat. “In what? Degenerate ideology? We’re supposed to be friends!”

“There’s no room for friendship in politics. I’m conducting business, and you’re taking it personally.”

“You’re going to destroy the Network.”

Evelyn slammed her hands on her desk. “You will address me according to my title, or I’ll have you thrown in the dungeons for the night to remind you of your place.”

“What are you doing? Why have you closed the common schools?”

“The funding is needed elsewhere.”

“Where?”

Evelyn’s eyes flashed with indignation. She stood, seeming to tower over Mildred from a new, powerful height. “I don’t owe an explanation to a Council Member that only has her job because I gave it to her. You’re speaking against the Elitist agenda? That agenda put you in power.”

“You owe me an explanation because I am a member of the Central Network over which you preside.”

“Really, Mildred. Are you that blind?” Evelyn asked with cool hauteur. “Or do you just want to avoid reality forever?”

“You’re not just one of the Elitists. You’re their leader, aren’t you? And you have been this whole time.”

“Yes, of course. Are you just realizing it?”

A pain deep in Mildred’s chest pounded with every beat. “Perhaps I believed my best friend would do the right thing in the end, no matter what wave of political nonsense had caught her up.”

“This is the right thing!” The fire ballooned, enveloping Mildred in a wave of heat. “You just refuse to see it! The poor want to be led. Nay, they need to be led.”

The rampant poverty, the hooded gazes, and distrustful stares of the witches in her Covens created a seedling of doubt in Mildred’s mind. Hadn’t she been surprised at how closed off the witches had been to change? Evelyn smiled triumphantly.

“You’ve seen it too,” she said. “You know what I’m talking about.”

“Does Donovan know about this, or are you doing it behind his back?”

Evelyn rolled her eyes. “What Donovan doesn’t know about, he doesn’t care about. He’s holed up in his mansion eating and drinking to his heart’s delight while the Network moves on. He won’t even know until it’s all done, and by then it won’t matter, will it? Because he’ll see the wisdom behind it once he sees that nothing changed.”

“You’re wrong,” Mildred said. “You’re going to fail. Cease this madness. Elitism won’t work. Not only will it collapse in on itself—it’s economically inconsistent—but the poor will rise up against you. You may have more education, but the upper class will never beat them in numbers.”

Evelyn’s eyes shone with deadly calm. “Then we’ll just have to keep them under a tight magical hand, won’t we? I shall rule with an iron fist in ways Donovan never had the courage to.”

“And what if some Covens pay for common schools from Coven funds?”

Evelyn’s laugh held a discernible edge of challenge. “I’d love to see you try.”

“You’d better believe I’ll do it.”

“You think you can resist my order?” Evelyn asked, leaning over her desk. Another wave of heat overcame Mildred, burning the backs of her arms.

She’s starting to lose control, she thought. Evelyn had always been emotional but never so dangerously volatile. Mildred’s eyes fell to the bracelet on Evelyn’s arm. And never so endowed with power.

“I dare you to oppose me. I already have eyes on every one of your Covens. The moment the schools open back up, I’ll set them on fire and nail you with misuse of Coven currency. You’ll spend the rest of your two-year trial in the dungeons, and the Middle Covens will fall into pandemonium. Most prisoners are dying of disease these days, so you may not even live long enough for me to remove you from the Council.”

“You would oppress anyone who holds an opinion contrary to yours?”

“I’m the High Priestess,” Evelyn cried. “I know the law far better than you could ever hope to know it. I will make a firm impression. If you oppose me, I’ll make an example of you. Don’t press me to prove it!”

Mildred’s nostrils flared. “You send out your spies, Evelyn,” she muttered. “That doesn’t frighten me into apathy, like it has everyone else. We were friends once, do you remember? I know you’re capable of better.”

“You’ll never understand.”

“No,” Mildred said. “I will never understand what happened to you. I’ll never understand how you’ve been blinded by your own lust for power. You aren’t the Evelyn I bound myself to for a lifetime of friendship when I was six.”

Evelyn’s face hardened into rigid lines. “I hardly give credit to anything said by a witch from the slums that couldn’t even do magic.”

“You were from the streets as well! Or have you forgotten? Your father hit you, too. Both of us lived in poverty until the High Priestess took you in when your parents died. Nell ruined you by giving you everything you wanted.”

“I was not poor!” Evelyn said in a shrill scream. Her face flushed a beet red, and the fire sizzled. “My father was a Guardian, and we lived in a comfortable house. I’ve never been part of the lower class. Never! They’re desperate, murderous fiends that kill innocent witches when they don’t get what they want. They must be stopped!”

“And your mother was a maid,” Mildred snapped. “You were just as poor as I was, only you’ve let yourself believe that you weren’t. You’re the biggest hypocrite that I’ve ever met in my life. Do the Elitists know that you come from the very people you’re trying to stand on?”

A hot rush of magic slammed into Mildred’s chest, carrying her across the room and throwing her into the wall. Her right shoulder collided with a wall sconce and burned with pain. She countered the magic by instinct, sending the first spell that came to mind. Evelyn toppled to the floor like a rag doll. A paralyzing incantation. Evelyn shot back to her feet, having overpowered the spell in a matter of seconds, and pinned Mildred to the wall. May shrank behind a bookshelf, only one side of her face visible as she peered out.

“Is this what it’s come to?” Mildred asked, her voice low and tremulous. “We’re fighting with each other now?”

Evelyn glanced away. “I had it all worked out, all planned out, for you, me, and Stella. Now you’ve ruined it. Get out of my sight. You’ve made it very clear that you’ll never support me. You’ve ruined everything, Mildred,” she whispered, her jaw tight.

The magic released Mildred from the wall, and she caught herself before she fell. She swallowed and squared her shoulders.

“So have you,” Mildred answered, transporting away before Evelyn could really hurt her.

Evelyn’s shoulders heaved with rage the moment Mildred left. She threw a book off her desk. It flew across the room and exploded in the fireplace. She grabbed a vial of ink, hurling it against the wall. It shattered in a spray of black that dripped down the stones.

“Damn you, Mildred! You broke us!”

A sob threatened to tear out of her throat, but she kept it locked inside with the rest of her anger. She’d destroy Mildred to save the Network. She’d give up everything, and no one would even appreciate it.

May stepped away from her hiding spot along the wall, her lips pinched and head held high. Evelyn didn’t want to face her. Didn’t want to admit that May had been right about Mildred all along.

I was wrong. I’ve lost everyone. I’m not strong enough to do this. This is too much. May’s asking too much.

“Are you all right, High Priestess?”

“Leave me.”

“Evelyn, I—”

“Leave me!” Evelyn screamed, and the fire bloomed out of the fireplace in a ball of flame and heat. A globe caught fire, crackling into an acrid black smoke. May recoiled with wide, frightened eyes.

“Yes, High Priestess,” she said, and slipped out the door without another word. Evelyn waited until the door closed to cover her face with her hands, sink to the floor, and release the sobs pent up in her hot, hot chest.

Mildred found herself standing in the Forgotten Gardens, fists clenched, breathing fast and heavy.

“It’s a betrayal, Stella. Evelyn is turning her back on everyone that isn’t wealthy, including you and me. Only she turned her back on us a long time ago, didn’t she? I shouldn’t even be surprised that she would lead such a horrid movement.”

Stella drew in a deep breath as if she were about to speak, but looked away at the ragged appearance of the garden instead. Vines grew in haphazard disarray over broken trellises, winding through brick and over a sculpture of a woman carrying a bucket.

“You angered her,” Stella said with a sigh. “You backed her into a corner. Of course she reacted strongly. You know that Evelyn always fights her way out of everything.”

“I don’t regret what I said,” Mildred snapped. “I only regret that I didn’t stop her earlier.”

“I never said you were wrong,” Stella said. “Just that the circumstances built up to their inevitable conclusion.”

The crack of a stick halted their conversation, and they both looked up as Marten stepped into their secluded hideaway at the edge of the castle grounds.

“Mildred, are you all right?” he asked. “I just received your message on the silenda.”

Mildred tried to rally together, but failed. “Evelyn and I fought,” she said stiffly, folding her arms across her chest. Marten looked to Stella in question, but she shook her head.

“Do you want to tell me what happened?” he asked.

Mildred relayed the argument verbatim with little inflection and less energy. Marten listened without saying a word until she finished, then ran a hand over his freshly shaven head.

“Oh.”

“Evelyn and her Elitist party are making a move,” Mildred said. “That’s what this means. It doesn’t matter whether or not attendance in the common schools was low.”

“Do you think she’d actually do it?” Marten asked. “For the Elitists to truly take over, they’d have to destroy the Esmelda Scrolls and institute their own law.”

Mildred paused to think it over, recalling the feel of her back slamming into the wall, the rage in Evelyn’s eyes.

“Yes,” Stella said, taking them both by surprise. “Evelyn seems to believe that she’s doing the right thing. She hasn’t spoken to me since I returned to the castle two months ago, but I don’t really believe she’d do this unless she thought it was for the good of the Network.”

Mildred wasn’t so sure, but for Stella’s sake didn’t voice her thoughts aloud.

I’ve never been part of the lower class. Never! Evelyn’s voice roared through her mind. They’re desperate, murderous fiends that kill innocent witches when they don’t get what they want. They must be stopped!

“She’s blaming all poor people for the deaths of her parents. To make matters worse, her powers have grown.” Mildred rubbed her right shoulder with a grimace. “She’s more powerful and unpredictable than ever.”

“We can’t let her get away with it,” Marten said.

“No,” Mildred said. “And we won’t.”

Stella blanched. “She’s our friend, Milly. We can’t just get rid of her.”

“She was our friend.”

“The only way to stop her and save the Network is a Magia. Are you prepared to destroy her in a Magia?” Stella asked.

Mildred hesitated. If she killed Evelyn in a Magia—a dangerous and uncontrolled method of fighting without spells or defined magical intent—Evelyn’s power and position would transfer to her. In a Magia, raw magic went against raw magic, often destroying both witches using it. Harnessing magic in such a state was difficult enough; surviving it was even harder. Some witches died just from releasing their power, for once it was released, it could not be called back.

Could she do that to Evelyn?

“I don’t know,” Mildred said. “Maybe it won’t come to that.”

“If it does?” Stella demanded. “Are you going to kill her?”

“Yes.”

Stella’s nostrils flared. She pursed her lips together and turned away, arms folded protectively in front of her. Marten cast a look of question at Mildred, but she shook her head.

“You already have a plan,” Marten said.

“Of course I do!” Mildred snapped. “We need to fight back. I made a promise to my students that I would lead them if it ever came to this. Closing the common schools is only the first step. We need to press forward on the assumption that Evelyn will destroy the Esmelda Scrolls as soon as they appear to her after Donovan’s death. She’s only Highest Witch by proxy now, which means we have a little time to gather together and fight.”

“How will you fight?” he asked. “The Elitist party likely influences more witches than you think.”

“But they don’t influence the poor or the servants, and they’re not expecting us to resist. They’re more educated, but we have the advantage of surprise and numbers. Anyway, I’ll keep it simple. I’m going to teach them.”

“Them?”

“My students,” Mildred said, warming to the idea. “Between the servants in the castle and those taught in the Covens, we can muster nearly four hundred witches. I already sent Lavinia instructions to gather any students that want to fight back. We’ll meet tomorrow evening.”

Marten’s eyebrow rose, wrinkling his forehead. “Evelyn already threatened you. She’ll have you murdered if you’re caught teaching servants.”

“Yes, but Evelyn won’t find out, will she?”