Snatching the locket from Mariette's neck, Kirsten was wild with fury.

'You would choose her? Choose her, after all we had together?'

She stabbed a finger at the woman on the floor who was scrambling backwards like a spider, tripping on the white fabric of her robe. Bede's eyes were wide, wordless. He could not escape the golden chains snaking along his arms, embracing his neck, strangling him. Bede said nothing. But she saw his eyes slide towards Mariette, saw his fingers twitch and begin to stretch towards the woman—

Cold hands wrung her heart.

So be it.

Kirsten let her sister shuffle a little more away. Let her think that she had a chance of escape. She schooled her face into a calm she did not feel, and held up the locket that she stole, simply because she fancied it. Kirsten tasted spite on her tongue.

'This will be a fine addition to my collection!' She called out to Mariette, ignoring her gasps at the hallway threshold and twisted the locket in the dim light. Kirsten opened it.

Only to find Bede's painted eyes smiling up at her.

With a sneer, Kirsten looked the real Bede in the eye. Cold rage was slithering through her veins. Her eyes hardened.

'Why, Mariette! It seems you two are meant to be.' A laugh laced with malice. 'I will ensure you stay together!'

The chandelier and candelabras were struggling to pierce the shadows of the room, which were growing deeper at the emerald wall edges, the corners, the high ceiling.

But none were like the bubbling depths below Kirsten's feet.

Her shadow seemed to eddy and sigh, seemed to ache for freedom, seemed to rage against its tether. Kirsten's shadow boiled with the rage of a storm-tossed ocean and began to reach—to reach out and off the floor.

Like snakes hunting in the night, tendrils hissed out of the dark and struck towards the screaming woman. Mariette's eyes were wide when they wrapped around her ankle, her wrist, her waist. They whispered haunting promises as they dragged her into their embrace, cutting off her shrieks as she sank into the shadows—as if they were quicksand.

Her screams seemed to echo around the chamber long after she disappeared.

The chink of chains was drowned out by Bede's terrified roar of outrage, but Kirsten merely smiled. Smiled, as she held the open locket at arm's length, and the shadows receded back beneath her feet. A single tendril coiled upon itself, seemed to raise a head, as if in offering. It slithered upwards to tap the blank golden surface beside Bede's portrait, then dripped to the floor—like it was water—when it was done.

Not a golden hair was out of place on Kirsten's head. Such effortless magic. She sneered down at Mariette, mock serenity painted across her terror. Kirsten snapped the locket closed, imprisoning her.

'So, my songbird,' Kirsten carolled, stroking the curves of the locket as if in reminder, 'you are now free to write me songs day in and day out.'