Page 87 of Summer of Sacrifice

It made her feel like a coward, but she was eternally grateful Winnie had only told them of the memory Chresedia gave her, rather than showing it to them. Now, it was Winnie’s to carry all on her own. She squeezed Sister Winter into an awkward tangle of a hug, still snuggled on her shoulder.

“Sorscha.” Seleste peeked over Winnie from her other side. “Mother knew what she was doing. She knew we might hate her, and she made her choices, anyway.”

“If she hadn’t done what she did,” Winnie said, her voice far off, wistful and reflective, “we may never have kept Chresedia back this long, even if it was by sheer ignorance.”

“Still,” Sorscha sniffed, “Aggie should know.”

Winnie looked down at Sorscha, her eyes full of so many things. Loss, sadness, hope. “I have a feeling Aggie already knows, deep down. And what she is facing right now in Achlys…”

Her words trailed off, but they all knew what she meant. Aggie and Grimm were facing unimaginable horrors and loss. Lifetime after lifetime of it.

“You know what makes me horribly angry?” Sorscha said after a few moments of silence.

“Hm?” Seleste hummed into the quiet.

“I have a few good memories with her.”

“Who?” Winnie looked down at her, confused.

“Chresedia.” Sorcha sat up, reclining against the headboard. “Sybil, as it were.”

Winnie sagged, and Seleste looked away.

“I do as well,” Winnie finally said quietly as Seleste nodded her agreement.

In those years before Aggie replaced Sybil as Sister Autumn, the three of them had enacted their Orders alongside her. Alongside the monster bent on destroying everything. In those years, she had been strict, crass, and sometimes even cruel, but Sybil had also held Sorscha’s hand one Solstice when she missed Aggie. She’d once brought her a rare flower seed from the location of one of her Orders. She’d even given her a necklace because it reminded her of Sorscha.

Knowing all that she did now, Sorscha recognised those moments as the last vestiges of Athania, the Goddess of War, who had lived alongside Aggie and Grimm.

It made it all so much worse.

“She was atrocious to Aggie.” Sorscha twisted a lock of her hair around her finger. “I hated her for it.”

“I used to dream of gutting her,” Winnie admitted darkly. “Of slitting her open from crown to arse and getting Aggie out of there.”

Seleste began to cry softly. They’d all at least considered it at one point in time or another.

“But if I had—” Sister Winter went on, “Well, I suppose I couldn’t have, even if I’d tried.” The last three hundred years were evident in the set of Winnie’s shoulders, and she shook her head. “What Chresedia said to Mother in that memory… What she said to Laurent. I haven’t made sense of it all yet, but?—”

“I have,” Seleste broke in.

Sorscha snorted. “Of course you have, Sister.”

AGATHA

“You need to eat.”

Agatha nearly snarled at Nyxia. “Food is the last thing on my mind.” Her attention drifted to Grimm where he sat staring into the dark depths of his porcelain coffee cup. “We need to get to the Meadow. Look at him.”

Nyxia nodded, letting out a rattling breath. “Yes. Right. Let us go, then.” She rose elegantly, moving toward the door of her breakfast room.

Agatha pushed back her chair, trying to rouse Grimm from his stupor. It took three attempts to gain his attention, but he finally stood with leaden legs and shuffled after her out into the corridor.

Nyxia flicked her wrist, a glittering black portal appearing in the wall. She nodded resolutely and led them through to the Netherrealm. Just as the ghouls flowed like plumes of smoke to greet Agatha and Grimm, Lady Death’s birds rushed her, pulling playfully at her hair. The sight sent a pang through Agatha, recalling how they had pulled at Winnie the night of her wedding to Grimm when she’d come to visit her through the Netherrealm—a dangerous spell for a mortal witch to cast.

Gods, she missed her Sisters dearly. What had they endured since she’d been gone?

“There are many ways for us to get to the Meadow,” Lady Death explained over her shoulder as they walked through the smog, her birds tittering. “However, there is someone Jasper has requested we bring with us.”

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