It was dark, so dark that Nicole couldn't tell whether she was awake or asleep. She walked forward, but something attached to her wrist prevented her from going further than a few footsteps. Her fingers trail over a shackle and a few chains. She sincerely hoped that she was dreaming because she certainly wasn't stupid enough to get locked up again.

First a basement and now this? Is this the torture Ileana was talking about?

She hears a match strike, chasing the darkness away. This was no dream. There were no butterflies or arguing dimensional Mothers. Just her and whoever was sent here to torture her. Or was that what Ileana wanted her to think? For all she knew, the goddesses were fighting in her head now, tangling her thoughts and putting her on edge.

“Hello, Nicole,” Alice said, appearing from the darkness. The candlelight illuminated her face, the contrast of her pale skin and hair against the darkness making her look like a ghoul summoned from hell.

"Alice," she said. She stands as close to the girl as she could, blocked by a row of iron bars, her chains rattling with every step. "Fancy seeing you outside of my brain."

"I go wherever the Mother needs me," the red-eyed girl said.

"And I bet you do whatever she says too. Doesn't that get boring, being the bitch of some old goddess?"

Alice smiles. "It's a small price to pay for the gifts she's bestowed upon my Family. And if I remember correctly, you were doing the same thing when you served the old Mother. I wonder what she's given you for your service."

Nicole instinctively reaches for her bracelet. Maybe there was a way she could use it to escape this place, wherever she was.

"Did Lillian give you nothing? What a shame," Alice said, walking through the bars of Nicole's cell. "Maybe I can give you the little gift she gave me."

She grabs Nicole's face and presses her dark lips to her mouth, blowing in smoke. Nicole coughs, pulling her face away, but it's too late. She feels Lillian sinking the dagger into her back, the force of the blow and the blood trickling down her back hitting her all at once. The memory plays in her head over and over again. She's stabbed a hundred times, forced to be in that hot greenhouse to relive the pain until the knife feels like a part of her body and the stabbing becomes meaningless.

The cold, dark cell feels almost soothing when the memory finally stops. Alice’s beady red eyes watch her, searching for a reaction. She smiles, refusing to give her the satisfaction of seeing her in pain.

"Cool magic trick," she said. "Do you kiss everyone you torture or am I just special?"

Alice's memory hits her at full force, the pain from the stabbing becoming fresh again. Nicole winces, unable to hide her reaction.

"That was just a small taste of Ileana's gifts," Alice said, smiling triumphantly.

"Did Cedric get any of those gifts?"

Alice kicks her in the shins. "You don't have the right to mention my brother's name. You're just Lillian's servant."

Nicole throws a punch, but her fist goes through Alice’s form, causing the image of the girl to ripple.

“Nice try, but you’re the one being tortured,” she said, delivering another kick to her shins.

“Why can’t I hit you?”

“I see how poorly Lillian prepared you to deal with the forces of the Charis Realm,” she said, ignoring Nicole’s question. “Just consider it another perk of the gifts Ileana gave me, her Chosen One.”

“Why don’t you torture me without your gifts, coward? Afraid my punches will actually hurt you? I’m starting to see why Cedric left you,” she said.

“Be careful what you wish for,” Alice said. “I can torture you perfectly fine with or without magic.”

“Bring it -”

Nicole was cut off by a roundhouse kick delivered to her jaw. She hits the ground, her mouth full of blood. She tries to get up, but she finds herself restrained, bound to a wooden chair with shackles.

“I said no magic. You’re cheating,” Nicole said, spitting out a tooth.

“The cell you were in before was an illusion I conjured up. We’re in a mental hospital that a lord has so graciously lent to the Family for our experiments,” she said. “Consider it to be a privilege to be tortured by the best tormentor there is.”

“How do I know this hospital isn’t an illusion?”

“Hit me,” Alice said, standing in front of her. Nicole hesitates before giving Alice a feeble kick, her toes connecting with Alice’s hand. She immediately grabs Nicole’s foot, slicing off her pinky toe.

“Fuck! Why did you have to do that?” Blood was gushing from her foot, staining Alice’s smock.

Alice slices off another toe, looking Nicole dead in the eye. “Every time you speak, I will cut off a toe until you become a toeless rat. Then, I’ll move on to your fingers and arms, taking off small sections to feed to the Nefastus. Or would you prefer they ravage you instead? I could arrange for that but it wouldn’t be any fun for me.”

Nicole glares at her, not wanting to lose another toe.

“So she finally shuts up,” Alice said. “But I don’t like that look on her face. She still thinks she deserves to be treated like a person.”

“I am a person,” she said, indignant. Alice quickly cuts all the toes off Nicole’s left foot without hesitation. Nicole lets out a blood-curdling scream, tears springing to her eyes.

“What did I say about speaking? Besides, you aren’t a person. You aren’t even human. You’re just the last creation of a Fallen Mother, not even worth a breath of Charis air,” she hissed. For good measure, she chucks one of Nicole's bloody toes at her face.

"You must be fun at parties," she said. "What makes you any more worthy than me? We're both pawns of goddesses who can't do their own sorry work."

Alice's head whips around. She grabs her bloody dagger and gets closer to Nicole, so close that her hot breath tickles her nose.

"You want to know the difference between you and me? I was born into power, trained to be the best at my craft, and chosen by the Mother of this dimension to serve her, a privilege many would kill to have. And you? No one would trade places with a girl who sacrifices her life for a cat that won't live a long life. You have no courage. You couldn't even stab a demon. What makes you think-"

Nicole spits into her mouth, cutting her off mid-sentence. Alice froze, stunned by the vulgar nature of her act.

"There is no difference between you and me," she said firmly. "You're just more of a priss than I am."

Alice makes an inhuman noise. In a fit of rage, she sinks the dagger into Nicole's thigh and plunges the hospital into darkness.

"Back to using magic again?" Nicole says this through gritted teeth, attempting to put on a brave face. The dagger in her thigh burned and her feet ached from their lost toes, the combined pain almost enough for her to pass out. The only thing keeping her conscious was the possibility of escape. That, and Alice's rage, which both terrified and amused her.

"You're not scared of me," Alice said, her voice appearing from the void. "But you will learn to be. You will learn to tremble when I address you. You will learn to submit to me and avoid my gaze. With my teachings, you will learn to be afraid again."

A cold wind wraps around Nicole, making her shake in her restraints. It's winter inside out. She swears she can feel her innards freeze.

“All fears are born in the dark,” Alice said. “Consequently, everyone has learned to be afraid of the dark, even the Mothers. But I’m sure other things terrify you more, things you keep locked up in your pretty little head. Even a child knows how to rationalize the dark.”

The air grew colder, the darkness even thicker than before. It wraps itself around Nicole, eager to know her deepest fears. A chorus of screams erupted, a cacophony of misery and pain. If eternal suffering had a sound, those screams would be it.

“Enjoying the laments of my past victims? Nearly everyone I torture dies at some point. But their suffering is so thorough that they can’t even enter the afterlife.”

Nicole could feel the spirits of Alice’s victims wrap their icy fingers around her, trapping her in a chilly embrace. Saliva drips from their mouths, sizzling on her skin like drops of acid. She could feel their misery, the sorrow and anger of having spent the last moments of their lives in so much pain. As they tighten their grip on her, she could also feel their restlessness, their need to be alive again. She tries to shake them off, but it’s no use. They sink their sharp teeth into her, overwhelming her with memories of their individual tortures. Electrocution. Waterboarding. Iron spiders ripping chests apart. Being burned alive. Cigarettes put out on her skin. Nails pulled out of unwilling fingers. Eyeballs squished into jelly and fed to the Nefastus.

She felt all of their suffering at once. As if that weren’t enough, she saw Alice charging at her with a branding stick, with a red hot ‘A’ at the end, pressing the metal deep into her collarbone. She wanted to scream and cry, to release all of the sorrow, but she couldn’t. Alice wouldn’t let her.

Somehow that was the straw that broke the camel’s back. In that darkness, while being tortured by Alice, it was the inability to cry that finally got to her.

A lone blue butterfly flew into that darkness, just like the ones that carried her in her dream. She couldn’t tell if it was real or just another illusion conjured by Alice. It rests on her nose, wet with blood, providing an indescribable amount of comfort.

Are you ready to use your gift? Lillian’s voice rings in her head, clear as a bell.

You’re the reason I’m in this position, Nicole said, putting as much spite as she could to her mental voice. But yes, I’m ready.

The butterfly dissolves into her skin. She can feel her vision sharpen and her wounds heal, Alice’s ghosts leaving her body. A hundred butterflies erupt from her mouth, eating the darkness away and freeing her from any restraint. She shifts her bracelet into a sword, ready to skewer her tormentor. The issue was, which Alice was the real one?

Three of them stood there, holding bloody daggers. Nicole sends her army of butterflies to feast on them, watching the Alices disappear in a flurry of blue wings. None of the Alices remained, but neither did their daggers.

Something hard lodges into her back. Nicole turns around to face the real Alice, who had just stabbed her. She multiplies before Nicole could get to her, cloning herself several times over to capture her butterflies and rip their wings apart. The dagger in her back burns, refusing to let her wounds heal.

“Fight me, Chosen One,” she said, throwing her sword through the many Alices, hoping to stab the real one.

“It’s been fun torturing you,” the multiple Alices say. “But I have to leave. Tell my brother the Family no longer needs him.”

She vanishes, the room shifting once again. Nicole found herself chained to a hospital bed, the dagger still lodged in her back. She lies there, trying to decipher what was real and what was an illusion. Maybe Alice had put her in so much pain she hallucinated. Maybe the whole damn thing was a dream.

Someone opens the door to her room. Cedric rushes in, grabbing her. He holds her tenderly, careful not to make her wounds worse.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered. “It’s my fault she hurt you like this.” Something drips on the back of her shirt. The Lord was crying.

“It’s not your fault,” she said gently. Blood leaks from the corner of her mouth. Curse that stupid dagger.

“It is,” he said. “I didn’t give the Family an answer in time and they took you to make me pay for my actions. I’m sorry.”

“I’ll forgive you if you take that blade out of my back,” she said. “And if it makes you feel any better, Alice said the Family no longer needs you.”

“Are you being sarcastic, Miss Walker? You’re on your deathbed, for God’s sake. Let’s get you out of here,” he said, undoing her cuffs.

“Lighten up, Cedric,” she said before passing out.