Fear crowded Vanessa's mind, speeding up her frantic movements as she and Warren packed their suitcases to leave Living Mirage. Her body screamed DANGER! as clear as a midnight thunderstorm, and she struggled to breathe around the pit in her lungs. Vanessa shook her head. "Everyone made that vote too quick. He's duping all of you."

"Vanessa, what can he do? He can't open the prison without killing himself." Warren shrugged. His suitcase spilled over the floor as he tossed articles indiscriminately into the compartments. "That's about as airtight as you can get—considering his objection to anyone but himself doing so."

"You've given him an eternity to figure it out. He'll get close, as close as possible, and armed with the future, he'll find a way. One does not simply give up millennia of single-mindedness. This is a road bump for him, not a finale." More words sat on her tongue, but they were all just synonyms of what she had already said. She couldn't understand why no one believed her, why no one else saw the clear and present danger in letting the Sphinx survive, and she couldn't figure out a way to contort her words to make them see it. Frustration curled around her throat like a snake and she sat back from her suitcase, onto her knees, blowing her hair out of her face.

"Well, we know everything with a beginning has to have an end anyway. Let's just hope it takes another couple millennia."

Vanessa glared at Warren's flippant attitude. "The goal of fighting and winning an impossible war wasn't to set up another one."

"Even Agad said he believed it would be a good move."

"Agad isn't infallible. And he's wrong."

Warren raised his eyebrows at that but stayed silent.

Anger boiled underneath her taut tongue, and she stood. "Do you trust me?"

Warren didn't look at her, rummaging in his clothes. "Come on, Vanessa."

Vanessa pursed her lips. So, no. "No one alive knows him like I do. Everyone is a fool to trust that this punishment will hold."

"Maybe you're right, Vanessa."

She bit her tongue at his blatant dismissal under the guise of agreement. Shaking her head, she turned to leave the room. "You just don't understand."

The door banged behind her, and she sped-walked through the twisting hallways, a goal in mind. She paused when she heard voices or movement or rustling, and slipped into the spy that had sustained her all these years. With the grace and rush of doing something one had trained their entire life for, Vanessa successfully slipped into the dungeon unseen.

She already knew where the Sphinx was, where he had to be, and not even the sight of his body behind bars brought joy to her. On her final stretch to his cell, she purposefully stopped her whisper tread, allowing her boots to clack against the floor. He had to know she was here.

She knew when he noticed, his body straightening from his seat on his cot and a smile growing at the corner of his mouth. He didn't look at her, just tilted his head in her direction. "Vanessa. Did you wear that perfume just for me?"

"Fuck you," Vanessa snarled as he rose from his cot. "How does it feel to be in a cage?"

The Sphinx turned to face her, and nothing about his countenance would have betrayed the situation he was in. Just like she had thought. He knew this wasn't the end. "You would know, I'm sure. So, did your tantrum work out for you? Do you have a new organization to sell your loyalty to? I'm sure they really do appreciate you this time."

She pursed her lips, his words wriggling under her skin, unearthing long-buried reservations. "I should've killed you when I had the chance."

"What chance had that been?" The Sphinx said. When she said nothing, he laughed. "Come on, Vanessa."

She wanted him to finally know, truly and fully, how well she knew him. "When you were sleeping soundly next to me. In those run-down houses with the paint peeling and a muddy entryway. When you asked me to stay until the morning—that's when I could've done it. I could've killed you."

Understanding dawned in his eyes, shock dropping his mouth, the shock of what Vanessa had done to figure it all out. God, she loved it. He finally understood how good she was. How valuable, how useful, how efficient, how good. But, it was too late now.

"A bullet, a knife, a garrote. I could've killed you," Vanessa spat. She could imagine it too. So clearly. Her hands turning red; the joy, the safety, the warmth the action would produce. Oh, how sweet her imagination tasted. "I could kill you right now, even."

For the first time, Vanessa saw nervousness creep into his eyes. "That had been you. You had occupied her—your vessel."

She grinned at his uncertainty. During those few months, she had been the person to see the most vulnerable part of the Sphinx, besides perhaps Mr. Lich. But, while Mr. Lich had betrayed the Sphinx, the Sphinx had been the one to betray Vanessa first.

If he had never done that, she would still be by his side and the prison would've been open by now. He had to know that. He had to regret tossing her aside.

She had cared about him so much. As the Lodestar, as the Sphinx. She had wanted to make the Society proud (him). She had wanted to impress the Knights (him). She still remembered how he had held her and his sweet words as she had weaseled his secret out. The oxytocin didn't leave, but it intensified the betrayal. The hatred. The vengeance.

He had taken her for granted—tossed her aside the first time she had failed. He had left her in Fablehaven as he attempted to burn it to the ground, until she became useful again. He had never cared about her or the blixes. He had ruined her life. He had seen a 17-year-old runaway, authorized Clara to torment her until she crumbled, and taken an already loyal girl and destroyed everything else until the Society became her only anything.

Now, Vanessa wasn't one to run from her own culpability, but if she ever had to place the blame on someone else—she knew where to start.

But as a 28-year-old woman, he could no longer control her like he could when she had been a teenager. She held the power now.

No weapons warmed her hands, but she didn't need one. Vanessa was stronger than most mortals. She could beat the Sphinx to death if she wanted to.

In fact, she was the only one in Living Mirage who had the strength to do it and the wherewithal to do it against everyone's wishes. Because of course, she was a traitor through and through. A traitor to her family, to the Knights, to the Society, and now to the magical world as it was left.

She rolled her shoulders, cracking her neck, preparing to become an angel of death. "I'm going to make up for missing that chance."

The Sphinx held up his hand. "Agad told me the council agreed to make me an Eternal."

"I dissented," Vanessa said.

The Sphinx rolled his words around in his mouth, tasting them before he spit them out. "They'll hate you." He shook his head. "You can't do this. You can't afford to do this. All you ever wanted was a family, right, Vanessa? Are you going to throw that all away?"

Goddammit, she knew all of that! She knew it would mean forsaking her entire world. She knew it would mean a death sentence for her.

She knew it would mean another betrayal. It would mean being a traitor, forever. Proving that she could never truly change. The weight of the decision settled on her frame.

"You're not going to do anything to me, Vanessa," the Sphinx said. "I know you. I remember you. Loyalty is in your bones."

He gambled with her fragile, newborn moral convictions. Loyalty, of course, was ancient to her. She was loyal to her family, loyal to the Society, and now loyal to the Knights.

But what if she simply was loyal to herself this time? Her own convictions?

"I was loyal to you once, too," she said. "Things change."

She watched his mind turn, his eyes calculate, his metaphorical fingers probe for another opening. She saw him find it, sit back on his haunches, and the beginnings of a smile appear. "Vanessa, it was all a misunderstanding. I really didn't mean to leave you in the Quiet Box. Why would I do that? That would make no sense, really. I made you what you are—sculpted you. I gave you everything. All for this moment."

Vanessa shook her head. Sometimes, she imagined how life would be without the influence of the Sphinx. If she would've stayed a mechanic, maybe would've eventually opened her own shop. Her hands would have been clean, dirty from only grease and exhaust, not blood. She would've met a nice person in a normal way without her dysfunctional intimacy problems. She would probably have even been happy.

"I gave you everything, and then you turned on me. You bit the hand that fed you," he said. "But I'm willing to overlook that. Vanessa," he hesitated, his voice catching. A performance of vulnerability. "We could be something real. Something new."

She scoffed at his words. He was lying, obviously.

"I know you think you're the smartest person in every room." Vanessa straightened. "But you're not. I brought you down. I did that. I figured out your master plan, I exposed you, and I fed the Sorensons the information they needed to win. You fell for my tricks, and it cost you everything. I ruined you."

Vanessa stared down at him, her heeled boots giving her the advantage. His thinner frame, his ragged clothes. She stared at him through prison bars, but this time he was the one on the wrong side.

She had already won.

She wasn't going to kill him.

Because he was right—it would be another betrayal. And she didn't have that in her. She couldn't survive the fallout. What would her friends, her new family, her new allegiances—really, what would Warren think?

No, she couldn't do it. She didn't want to lose all that she had gained. She wanted to be selfish for once. Choose in her interest, and not in the interest of the world or of the Society or of anyone.

"I won't allow you to dirty my hands again," Vanessa said, stepping up against the bars. "Enjoy your life—long as it may be. I trust these people now and respect them even when they're being fucking stupid by letting you live. But, understand this. If you ever, ever interfere in my life again—if I hear your name, see your face—I will kill you. I'll draw screams out of your throat until it fills with blood. I'll do everything you taught me to do. I'll find phoenix feathers, mythical swords, dragons, anything to kill you."

The Sphinx stared her down. "I'm not sorry for what I had to do, Vanessa."

She shrugged. "Me neither."

Like lightning, she reached a hand between the bars, fisted his shirt, and slammed him forward into the bars. She let go and he fell to the floor, clutching his bleeding nose. It wouldn't be fatal. But his crooked nose would remain a reminder.

Vanessa walked away, her heels clicking with each step. The damp air of the dark dungeon cooled her hot skin as she ventured up. The long walk let her mind spin in circles. She thought about what he had said, about making her what she was. She thought about the masks she had stretched over her skin for the past decade. A little girl from the suburbs to a scrappy runaway, to a bright-eyed, fresh society angel, to a double agent within the Knights, to a traitor, to a prisoner, to a lost woman, to a rising phoenix. In the fire of the last few days, they had all crumbled into nothing.

She didn't know yet what was to come. She didn't know how her self would come to be in the absence of strife.

What she did know, however?

When the Sphinx inevitably caused mischief again, she would get to have the biggest I told you so ever to Warren to the Fairy Queen to Agad to fucking Bracken.

No one would listen to her now. But, that was okay.

Because Vanessa Santoro had turned the tide of the war. She had broken the Society's advantage, single-handedly.

And when the time came—when they were ready to listen—she would do it all again.