Later that night, Genevieve chose to move the party into the old guest house—an abandoned wing near the edge of the estate where the shadow magic felt thickest, like velvet wrapped around bone. The air there always seemed to hum, and she liked the way her skin tingled when she passed through the threshold. It was, in her mind, the perfect place to finish her ceremony of self-indulgence.
It lasted until morning.
The magic didn't flicker out—it deepened. The mirrors there didn't fog from breath. They shimmered with her name. And when dawn finally split the sky, Genevieve was still awake, still radiant, still feeding something ancient and starved inside her.
But it wasn't the shadow magic she believed it to be. Something else had gathered in the room—older, hungrier, masquerading in familiar shivers. She thought she'd been feeding on power, but in truth, it was feeding on her. And it was still watching, even as the sun rose.
The room pulsed with residual heat. Veins of glowing magic clung to the walls like melted silver, every mirror fogged with breath and spell-burn. Genevieve sat upright now, her body still flushed from climax, hair clinging to her throat. Her wings twitched as power traced along her back, pulsing with residual energy.
She was glowing—literally. Faint violet lines ran under her skin, alive with runes, the high of too many shifts crashing over her like ocean tides. And she didn't care.
"Another," she said, her voice hoarse but firm.
A third servant entered. Young. Delicate. Possibly summoned from the far end of the estate. For a fleeting moment, Genevieve hesitated. There was something in the servant's eyes—something quiet and watchful—that reminded her of Ayoka. The shape of the mouth. The stillness. The stubborn dignity. It irritated her. No one should look like that and still kneel. She didn't ask his name. She just smiled—a cruel, beautiful smile. "On your knees."
The servant obeyed.
The air shimmered again as Genevieve's fingers fluttered along her own skin, reshaping, redefining. This time, she transformed into something stranger—something androgynous and divine. A swirl of every lover she had ever wanted to become—or consume.
She spread her legs.
She was ready.
But just as the air thickened, something shifted. A presence older than mirrors brushed through the room like the crack of thunder inside a dream.
Then the door opened.
Sabine stood there, arms crossed, her silhouette framed in shadow and dust. She didn't look surprised. Because she had felt it too.
For hours, something had stirred deep in her bones, like a warning echoing through old hunting grounds. Sabine had walked the halls of this estate long before Genevieve smeared her scent across it. She knew when old powers stirred. She could feel the wrong kind of hunger coil in the corners.
And now, here it was, unveiled before her.
"I should've known," she said. "You weren't done."
Genevieve raised her chin, unbothered. "You can knock next time," she said, her voice syrupy with disdain. "Or did your little spider senses tingle, mutt? What's the phrase for your kind—half ward, half web?" She smirked, folding her wings slightly as she looked Sabine up and down. "Tell me, does your mixed blood hum louder when you're offended, or just when you play at being useful?"
"I did. You just don't hear people when you're building your kingdom of mirrors."
Genevieve waved a glowing hand toward the mirror behind her. "Am I not lovely, though?"
Sabine took another step in, her voice cool and slicing. "Oh, you're shiny all right—but even maggots can glisten in sunlight. Don't confuse sparkle with worth." Her tone hardened. "I may be half web, half ward, but at least I don't need to rip holes in reality to feel seen. This isn't your court, Genevieve. And I don't answer to you. I'm bound under contract to Viktor, not some deluded princess who mistakes hunger for power. Whatever madness you're brewing in here, I won't feed it."
Sabine stepped into the room. "You're dangerous. And not because of the magic. You've forgotten what you are without it."
Genevieve tilted her head. "I've never been anything but this."
Genevieve's smile faded, just for a second—then she inhaled deeply, and with a slow, almost theatrical exhale, released a shimmer of sparkling dust into the air. The substance hung like mist, iridescent and wrong. A rustling followed—the faint, unmistakable sound of spindly legs scuttling across polished floorboards. A widow spider, too large to be natural, crawled down from the ceiling corner, its belly pulsing with faint light. Others followed, sleek and silent, forming a broken circle around her like summoned heralds.
The servant, still kneeling, dipped his head and pressed his tongue to the floor, licking the glowing dust without hesitation. His pupils blew wide, and his breath quickened like he'd tasted ecstasy.
Sabine's eyes flared—not with fear, but with fury. "You're summoning things you don't understand."
"You talk like a healer," Genevieve retorted, her voice curling with sarcasm. "But I don't want to be healed."
"You will," Sabine said softly. "When it's too late."
As they traded words, the floor beneath them began to shift—small, methodical tremors clicking against the baseboards.
From behind Sabine, soft scuttling answered the chaos Genevieve had conjured. Black-bodied spiders with glistening eyes poured in, not from the ceiling but from the earth itself. They moved in deliberate lines, brushing past Sabine's heels and marching toward the glowing dust.
But instead of joining the frenzy, they began to clean. These were Sabine's spiders—warded, disciplined, and precise. Webs spun wide and thick, collecting the shimmering powder. Some bound the unnatural widows Genevieve had summoned, spinning silk around their legs, dragging them back toward the corners like misbehaving guests.
Genevieve pouted, wings flicking with irritation. "You always ruin the fun."
Sabine's expression didn't change."You forget whose hunting grounds these were," she said coolly. "You're not the only one who commands what crawls."
"Strip," Genevieve said to the servant, her voice low again. "I'm still hungry."
Sabine stepped back. Her shoulders dropped—not in surrender, but in sharp disgust.
"You think you're dancing with evil, Genevieve?" she said, her voice cold. "I've seen real evil. I've stitched the aftermath into my own hands. What you're doing? It's not wickedness—it's entitlement wrapped in perfume. Just another white woman thinking she's conjuring storms while playing dress-up in someone else's pain."
She took another step forward, her own shadows curling underfoot.
"I've seen women like you before. Hollow-eyed ladies in southern parlors who drank laudanum between sermons and secrets. Who used bodies without knowing names, who summoned the devil with one hand and claimed innocence with the other."
Sabine's voice sharpened. "You're not evil. You're predictable. A child with matches. And I do not feel sorry for you."
As the final words fell from her lips, Sabine's form dissolved into a sweeping flurry of spiders—thousands of tiny legs carrying her essence across the floor and into the cracks of the room. Her spiders swept through the space like a cleansing tide, webbing down the last remnants of Genevieve's indulgence. The air cleared, and the mirrors dimmed. The power that had once crackled now fizzled beneath the careful rhythm of warded legs. And just like that, Sabine was gone—leaving behind only silence, silk, and a lingering sense of judgment.
Genevieve didn't look back.
Instead, she let out a piercing scream—raw, guttural, and laced with frustration. The sound rattled the mirrors and sent the remaining widow spiders skittering back into the shadows. The kneeling servant clutched his ears in agony, doubled over on the floor as if the very tone of her fury had cracked through his bones. Her wings twitched violently behind her, a storm bottled in skin and bone, and still, no one answered her cry.