In the chaos of the courtroom, no one anticipated what Iliza would do next.
No one expected that, in her desperation— despite not yet being sentenced— Iliza would reach into her robes and drink a potion that pulsed with a bright, unnatural purple glow.
The moment the light caught their eyes, dread swept across the room.
That color, so unnaturally vibrant, so violently luminescent, felt wrong. It wasn't deadly, it was as if they were watching a monster that was soon about to be unleashed.
Arabella shot to her feet, her face draining of color. Her thoughts scrambled in panic, trying to place what she had just seen.
That potion. She had seen it before.
Her heart pounded as her mind raced back to a passage from Circe's notes. In a worn, half-burnt grimoire, the witch had written of a potion she had only ever referred to as:
"The one that should never be created— under any purpose."
