Imagining the things she loved helped ease the pain from the unyielding training. Alice had taken to lying on her bed with Grace, the two of them dreaming aloud about the rusty orange beauty of autumn, or the crisp crunch of winter. It wasn’t the training that was helping Alice grow stronger. It was Grace.

The priestess had noticed that Alice and Grace had developed a connection, though the girls suspected she wasn’t aware quite how deeply that connection ran, and so they were allocated as each other’s training partners. From dawn until dusk, the two of them trained ceaselessly, and after a few days of this new routine, they knew each other’s strengths and weaknesses intimately.

One morning, they were both roused by a summons. Alice and Grace met in one of the serpentine corridors that snaked through the coven’s lair and their hands came together, as if magnetised. They marched with their chins raised and shoulders back, an air of confidence and power ebbing from them like sparking electricity. They moved as one entity and had learned to interpret each other’s movements, expressions, thoughts, and feelings simply by glancing.

The other witches in the Shadow Sect whispered about them, for even amongst the magical community, their connection was rare and unnerving. They were isolated from everyone else, and whispering and gossip followed them everywhere. They both made a concerted effort to downplay their relationship so that people wouldn’t guess they were bonded, but their energy was impossible to hide.

Alice pushed open the huge door into the great hall and she and Grace walked without hesitation towards the priestess who sat casually on the altar table, just as she had when Alice had first arrived.

‘Ah, my precious girls. Welcome, welcome. How are you both this morning?’

This politeness was strange and Alice and Grace glanced at one another, a barely visible but identical frown appearing on their foreheads. They smiled and nodded, waiting with bated breath for the priestess to reveal the real reason she had summoned them.

‘Now, I do believe that the two of you have a bond quite unlike anything I’ve witnessed in all my years leading this coven. You are both fierce and powerful. We know, from experience, that Alice’s magic is strongest when she is under some form of’—she paused, licking her lips—‘stress. Today, I’m going to test just how much power we can extract from you. Which is where you’—she pointed at Grace with a carved fingernail—‘become useful. Guards!’ She gestured to the hooded women who lined the walls in a defensive stance. ‘Put Rafferty in chains.’

‘WHAT?’ Grace yelled, hands clasped into fists, ready to fight.

‘NO!’

Alice rushed towards Grace in a futile attempt to protect her.

The guards were too great in number for either girl to have a chance. Grace put up an admirable fight, but was very quickly overpowered. The guards surrounded her and battled her to the floor, where she was pinned until she stopped squirming. When the guards retreated, Alice knew that Grace was already suffering, but the pain was so subtle, almost invisible, that to the priestess she just looked defiant, fierce, ready to breathe fire. She was slumped onto her knees, hands weighed down by cast-iron manacles attached to chains that ran along the stone floor which were in turn attached to the walls on either side of the great hall. She didn’t beg or plead; she didn’t cry or whimper. She refused to show any sign of weakness.