It had been a dreadfully long and cold night; steeped in darkness and frost, carting icy breaths from her lungs, forcing her toes to curl in her boots. It urged Elle to burrow closely at her sister's side for warmth and comfort, but any time she thought to inch nearer to Esme she felt the heavy, watchful eyes of her captors.

Terror was an acidic taste at the back of her raw throat, a slew of disarming thoughts and feelings battering her wounded mind.

They'd been given small rations of dried meat and gritty water to stave off the hunger in their bellies, but Elle hungered for something else – something far more precious ... their freedom.

What little sustenance they'd been given threatened to resurface with every passing hour that cemented their undecided fate, and she was beginning to lose hope that rescue was forthcoming. As time dragged on, she started to question whether or not anyone was actually looking for them.

The sickening sensation whirling in her belly intensified. It had been hours since they'd been taken, surely someone had noticed their absence by now.

She crammed her frozen fingers in the nook of her frayed cloak, seeking warmth from the cold, frigid air; yearning for the familiar crutch of wood that always grounded her, that had steered her through countless moments of fear, indecision, and uncomfortable plights. Always giving her some semblance of fortitude and solace. But she had dropped her staff when they'd been taken, and now she had nothing to rely on but a timid spine and fragile airs.

Whatever shred of optimism she had was quickly crumbling beneath the weight of their definitive doom. It would be a welcoming respite to close her eyes and ease into a gentle slumber, oh how she longed to sleep, but the dull pain and the constant tension worming its way through her anxious body made it virtually impossible.

As she glanced between Esme and Abby, she was surprised to find them both slumped forward in a similar fashion, fast asleep, having succumbed to their own fatigue.

Her eyes drooped heavily in response but she was quick to straighten, blinking away the lethargy that edged in.

Sleep provided a false sense of armor, tucking one safely away from the horrors that awaited them on the other side of wakefulness. With their abductors looming nearby, geared to strike at any given moment, she dared not rest lest something would happen.

Her airs may be rattled and her spine shaky at best, but they would not catch her unaware. Whatever the outcome, no matter the events the full moon may engender, she would endure it head-on. She had to believe that they would survive, that someone was coming for them.

When the early hours of dawn finally bloomed beyond the mouth of the cave, Elle watched with quiet fascination as sunlight trickled past the monochrome trees, bridging wide across solid terrain littered with all manner of forestry peelings, bathing the world in brightness once more.

Every time her eyes perceived the natural light, her heart filled with those feelings of wonder and appreciation, for it was no less breathtaking than when she first espied it. Despite their grave circumstances, she could still commemorate the blinding world on all sides of her. Could even passably admire the rock, hollow chambers that presently housed them. In fact, she was certain her face would always bear a perpetual expression of awe and gratitude for what was visibly bestowed to her.

Nonetheless, it did not minimize her terror or the gravity of their situation.

A disgruntled groan drew her attention to a far corner of the cave. There, braced against a large boulder, Solomon tempered his aggression with the contents of a leather satchel, his heavy-hooded eyes sweeping frequently in her direction.

Every time Elle felt the heady force of his stare, she shrank deeper into the stiff cowl of her cloak, willing herself to disappear. Longing to be anywhere but in the direct path of that leering focus. His gaze was nothing like the sheen of others, on the contrary, they elicited unpleasant sensations as they snaked across her skin, fraught with all the disgusting things he wanted to do to her. They appeared ... colorless, lacking animation, triggering thoughts of death and a soul bereft of warmth.

He was a large and imposing man with brute strength behind rough, grimy hands. She knew those hands and the terrible pain they could inflict.

Suddenly, Elle was tunneling, whisked back to that terrifying moment in Don's chambers. A breath faltered in her lungs and her chest tightened as panic welled. It brought with it, that nauseating influx of sweat and ale, a strangling sensation around her throat, tightening ... squeezing ... stealing sweet, sweet oxygen.

Shallow breaths scraped from her lungs, every rapid inhale hardly enough to keep her afloat of the hysteria clawing its way to the surface; her hands scrambling to find purchase in the darkness that crept in.

Breathe, little one. His voice crooned softly.

Elle drew in a slow, stuttered breath.

Listen to my heart. Hear how it beats for you.

Her palm flattened against her breast, beseeching her heartbeat to slow ... and it did, mollified by the ghost of a rich timbre pushing the shadows from her frenzied mind.

There were no crushing fingers around her throat. No immediate threat. For the moment, she was safe and unharmed.

Her breaths exhaled easier.

In the dim-lit cavern, Elle's eyes fastened on the source of her distress.

She thought of those tangible moments when her fingers had grazed Don's chest, discovering a lattice of angry scars and sculpted muscle. The mere thought of touching Solomon or her unwanted betrothed in like manner had her stomach churning with revulsion. She could never bring herself to voluntarily touch them the same way.

As she looked at Solomon askance, studying him furtively from beneath her lashes, she took stock of his physical injuries.

Dried blood caked his bristly, soiled face, patches of heavy bruising lining the creases beneath his swollen eyes. The bridge of his nose curved gruesomely, suggesting that the nasal bone was broken.

Elle may have not had much insight visually, but it was fairly easy to compare and discern that some facial bones were not aligned in the right places, and she couldn't help but think that his brutalized exterior now paired fittingly with the ugly that resided within.

Solomon's damaged, misshapen face was the result of another man's violence. The same man who had kissed her ... touched her so gently. It should have frightened her, repelled her to know that Don was capable of such brutality, but ... she couldn't find it within herself to be afraid.

The ruffian sitting across the shadowy way, nursing his pride and his wounds with spirits, was far more monstrous than the one dubbed the Rossetti Beast.

As Elle continued to survey Solomon's face, she was surprised to discover that his beaten visage bore her mark, as much as Don's.

Running diagonally across his left cheek were three distinct, vicious lines.

She had done that. Scratching him when he had initially attacked her.

It was nothing he did not deserve, Elle thought, vowing to do it again, but secretly hoping it wouldn't come to that.

When those unnerving eyes coasted in her direction, their gazes locking, she stiffened, hastily averting her stare, and recoiling from the blazing anger seething there.

"Ye can look all ye like, little bird," Solomon sneered, exhaling a ragged breath of pain as he shoved away from the boulder and lumbered to his feet. "Soon enough I'll clip yer pretty wings."

"Be quiet," admonished the woman seated below him before the waning fire, "I cannot focus with your drunken blather hot on my nape."

"I'm not foxed yet, witch," Solomon grumbled at Seraphine's black, flicking a heated glare at Elle before storming outside to join his fellow companions.

It wasn't until he disappeared beyond the edges of the cave that she heaved a sigh of relief, her shoulders sagging.

Just beyond the opening of the cave, their horses nickered, grazing in the open air, and Elle wondered fleetingly at just how close in proximity they were. Maybe there was a chance of getting to them and escaping.

The mere thought had adrenaline firing through her veins, and her heart thrashing against her chest.

But the men were not far from that opening. Throughout the night, she had caught glimpses of the other three. For the most part, they had remained posted at the entrance, rarely venturing into the heart of the cavern. When they did, it was simply to warm their bones by the fire or gnaw on some dried meat from a separate satchel.

Elle knew they were the same unruly men Don had grudgingly entertained in his hall a few days prior. Had Seraphine been with them then?

A few times they snickered and leered, but they never hazard a touch. It was clear to her that their alliance with the witch was a tentative one, forged solely for personal gain and greed, but it was obvious by their sneaking glances and hushed murmurs that they feared Seraphine, and that neither trusted the other.

Were they working with the witch ... or for the witch?

What was it that Solomon had said earlier ...?

Ye've been slithering around in my head for days. Compelling me and my men, forcing us to do your petty biddings.

Elle swallowed hard.

Were they ... under some kind of compulsion? To all intents and purposes, they appeared in complete control of their faculties but were their minds at her disposal?

The men unnerved her, and Solomon frightened her, but she was largely terrified of the menacing figure sitting opposite of her, with a peculiar gleam in her shrewd eyes. The nearly extinguished fire invited the darkness to lag across the sharpened bones of her thinning face, exposing the imposer within.

She was a daunting specter to behold, a physical manifestation of evil that instilled immediate terror within Elle's heart, but even the sorceress that had robbed Prudence of her life – and her body, had a glaring vulnerability.

Her hair was no longer the shiny color it was prior to their capture. It now appeared ... stringy and dull. Bones jutted beneath loose, transparent skin and hard lines furrowed her exhausted face, making her features emerge harsher beneath the gloomy light, losing their youthfulness.

She was dying. 

Throughout the duration of the night, the witch neither slept nor ate, but remained in her seated position, legs folded beneath her, eyes firmly shut and her mouth working furiously, whispering mystifying words beneath short, labored breaths.

Whatever she was doing, physically it caused her great duress. She was pale, and despite the wintry air, perspiration dotted her forehead and upper lip.

The words she chanted were strange and much like the ones Elle heard just before that terrible burning had blazed a trail across her eyes, pitching her into unconsciousness.

She gasped. Had it been her voice inside her head, followed by that violent gust of wind that had unsaddled her? Was Seraphine responsible for her functioning sight?

But why? It didn't make any sense. Was it because she intended to steal her body as she had done Prudence's?

"You are right to be curious." Seraphine's raspy voice snapped Elle to attention, her body going rigid as her eyes panned sharply to find the witch's intense gaze rapt upon her. "You wonder at the words I weave."

For a horrifying moment, she shuddered to think that the woman could actually hear her every waking thought. She wasn't familiar with preternatural forces and what all it entailed, and before all of this, before everything that had transpired in the last twenty-four hours, she would have given a half-hearted laugh and dismissed the existence of body-snatching witches and active curses. But there was no denying the restless energy behind that transcendent stare, and the oncoming pain it promised.

Although Sera's mien was an array of gnarled bones and weariness, the eyes – Prudence's eyes – remained sharp and full of fervor. They burned through her. Full of secrets. Full of unimaginable things that defied the realm of possibility. Full of plans to end her life.

Nausea stirred in the pit of her stomach as the witch peeled a devious grin, "I will tell you." She gestured to the entrance of the cave, "I am shaping a spell that creates the illusion of emptiness. If someone were to stumble upon our little enclosure, they would hear and see nothing but a dark, empty cavity." Her grin slipped, some of that exhaustion rearing in the hardening of her features. "But it is an arduous spell, one that requires an anchored amount of magic in order to stay erect."

All at once, Elle felt an overwhelming sense of dread.

Her family could be looking for them ... Abby's family ... Don, but no one would find them, not whilst Sera wrought a spell to disguise their whereabouts.

She swallowed around a large knot in her throat, the blood leeching from her face, as another panic attack threatened to reemerge.

Sera sniggered, "Did you think that you could be saved?" her mouth inched higher, stretching cruelly. "Even if he were to find you, it will be too late ... and I will take immense pleasure in making him watch as I expel your soul from your body."

"Why?" Elle quaked, fighting back tears.

"Because the Rossetti Beast is mine." Her eyes flashed dangerously, "I created what he is. I corrupted his soul. The darkness in him compliments mine, and it cannot be restrained, it should not be restrained. I intend to unleash that fury, to unshackle the monster that he truly is." Her face bunched with disgust, "You are merely an obsession, a shapely body to warm his bed. He cannot love you, an ordinary, unassuming slip of a girl."

"If I am so ordinary," Elle challenged, "Then why am I pertinent to your plans?"

Sera's eyes narrowed to perilous slits, "Careful, human, I could have your tongue as easily as I would pluck your soul."

It was some time before Sera spoke again, "I am a natural-born witch, but what good are my gifts if I cannot use them to their fullest capacities, if I cannot possess the utmost power that can be had? I have the ability to pass from one body to the next, but it is a fleeting and unstable way of existing." She motioned to her deteriorating form, "The energy I harness is too powerful to be nestled in the brittle bones of just any mortal. I require a unique vessel forged by my ancestors who merged their powers to craft what is called the Elemental Host." Her eyes flitted to the low fire weakening between them, "With this vessel, I can channel all the power in the world without the culmination of death."

"You, who are indeed not so ordinary, are that rare and remarkable vessel. Your body was fashioned for one purpose, and that is to bolster unparalleled power, everlasting power. How do you think my sister's spell perpetuated for nearly two decades, unbeknownst to others, concealing you from me? Magic adheres to your body like a second skin, and it prevails."

"Spell? What spell? What are you talking about?"

"Veda, my sister, who suddenly seems stricken with a conscience," Sera hissed between gnashed teeth, "Has the gift of prophetic sight. She can see what lies ahead and can predict certain outcomes. You were revealed to her in a vision. She knew what you were and sought to conceal you with a cloaking spell, essentially masking the essence of ancestral power nested within your skin. It shielded what you really are. It blinded you, a minor side effect if you will, but it kept you perfectly hidden."

"I broke the spell, unwittingly, when I granted you sight. Much to my surprise and delight, it revealed who you are. My sister hasn't the strength nor the power that she used to, not since she hauled me from death's grasp." She gave a short, harsh laugh, "You can't compete with death and not forfeit something in return." Her eyes found Elle once more in the shadowed cavity of the room, "Veda lost a portion of her powers when she resurrected my soul, and as a result, her magic has weakened. Why else would she seek out the Rossetti Beast, the very man I weaponized to fell a village, her enemy as much as mine?"

Sera grinned, "Once I am permanently sealed to the skin that sheathes your little bones, I will not age. I will not wilt as I do now. I will prosper and conquer all that stands in my way, with ease. I will wield all the elements. I will raise forces beyond your wildest imagination and assemble armies in every corner of the world. And my former lover will become my second greatest weapon, next to my unmatched power, of course."

Elle watched in a mixture of disbelief and astonishment as Sera extended a shaky hand over the dying fire. With a flick of her wrist, smoldering embers raised from the bed of ash and were held suspended in the air, hovering between them like fine particles of glowing dust.

A breath snagged in her throat and her eyes widened as tiny flames flickered to life beneath the whirling force of Sera's fingertips.

"Did you know that I brandish fire." Sera turned her hand over and the flames dimmed as her palm curved inward, making a fist. "I stole the element from a peasant woman with fire for hair. She made it too easy."

Elle sat frozen, too stunned to speak. Any lingering doubts she had of the supernatural vanishing at the display of magic before her very eyes.

Solomon chose that moment to reappear, his unsightly face pleating with a deep frown, seemingly unaffected by the floating flames. "We can't stay here another day. We need to move."

Sera raised her chin and heaved a weary breath. "Aye, my power is fading, and I cannot hold the spell any longer."

The witch slowly gathered to her feet, swaying on her heels as she moved to stand over Elle, her eyes emitting an eerie light as her hand remained fisted.

"Veda possesses the element of water. Just as I have demonstrated with fire, my sister can manipulate the sea, and evoke the rain, something I intend to fully pilfer," she flashed a toothy grin, "Much like your body."

Elle balked, "I-I'm not who – what, you think I am. I can't be. There is no magic in my body."

Sera's grin broadened, "None that you can perceive, mortal, but I can sense what you truly are and there will be others like me seeking to steal what is mine." Her face twisted with disdain.

"We need to go." Solomon pressed.

The witch slid a glare at the man standing next to her, "Aye, but first, I grow tired of this skin." Her mouth peeled wide, slanting across her teeth as she turned to survey the women at her disposal. "Let me slip into something a little more comfortable."

Her palm released, dousing them in utter darkness.