Pearl Faces

She stands with the teachers, smiling and nodding her head politely.

It is a mask.

She is a monster, a cruel beast, and she will one day die.

I wait by the tree she has held me against so many times before until the teachers walk away, and she turns to face me with a wolf-like smile.

“Hello, Lamia,” she says sweetly to me. Her eyes still glint as she waits for her chance to prey. Professor Blackthorne is near, but when he leaves I can – No, she can do something awful to me, just as she has been planning to.

The bell rings, signalling the end of lunch. “Meet me later.” she mutters. “Stormriders.” She doesn’t need to say the next words - or else. I know her well enough to know what she means.

Knew her. I don’t any longer, not after what she did.

I can feel the ripples of laughter emanating from where she stood as she exploited all my secrets, as she mocked me loud enough for all to hear just because she could.

And when she saw me, with tears rimming my eyes, she laughed at me. “I’m... So... Sorry!” she spluttered. “But it’s true, isn’t it? You know it as well as I do.”

They all knew.

They all knew, but the school wouldn’t do anything. They don’t see; She pulled the wool over their eyes long ago, and they kept it there. They could have taken it off, but they didn’t, because things are easier for them this way.

I hate them all.

The rest of the world should too.

My classes - Ethical History, Illusionary Crafting, even Divination– all finished too quickly.

When I arrive at the Teleportation class and enter, she is already waiting.

“What do you want?” I ask timidly.

“What do I want?” Zuri asks me, chuckling “Lamia, what do you think I want?”

“I-I don’t know...”

She circles closer, an ever-hungry vulture.

“I. Want. To. Tell. You. That. --” she pauses.

This is my chance. I take it.

“What?” I ask her, looking hurt and upset. “That... You need more fuel to feed your army? More of my secrets? So you can betray me again?”

“Lamia. Stop.” she demands. That wolfish smile falters.

I don’t. She doesn’t deserve me to. “That... that you want to turn Camila on me too?”

She gasps. Like she is offended. As if.

“That... you want to make me your latest work?”

She knew what I was talking about. The statues of stone she created, the ones of the crying children, the screaming and the begging bodies as they become stone.

Will I join them today? I wonder. Maybe.

If I do, she won’t change me back.

I shudder.

A second passes. Then she snaps.

A snarl as her eyes begin to glow red. Feral. “Lamia,”

Good – very good.

“How DARE you.”

I stammer about how sorry I am. She ignores me.

Moments later, her hands are around my throat and my feet don’t reach the ground.

My struggle for air isn’t fake. Some part of me still wants to survive.

That part is useless. Its wishes will end today.

I kick at her anyway, hard. Only when I make contact does Zuri let me go, blinking.

“Oh, Lamia.” she sighs.

Anger resides in her eyes. More than before, but distant. The time has come.

“Lamia, I’m-” And then she pauses. Because that glowing, feral rage from her reflects from my eyes.

Only I don’t plan to use it as she does.

I need to rile her up again before it happens, though. So that it’s obvious to the teachers who did it.

I think that Illusionary Crafting is going to be very, very helpful now. If I do my job right, that is.

I project the image of her statues, as they were just before she turned them to stone.

And beside it a picture of all the teachers that she’s tricked into believing the easiest option. I project the image of their faces as they find out who she truly is. The people in their last moments, crying and screaming as they recognise their future.

Talitha is the most obvious of them all. She almost glows, but not so much that Zuri will notice. Because Talitha – Talitha was the closest thing to family Zuri had. Until she made Zuri angry. Then, Talitha was nothing but stone.

I guarantee that Talitha is the furthest back from the door within the bunker that hides the bodies. So, when the door opens to add another ornament to the collection, she doesn’t have to see Talitha’s final moments, the ones with only pure terror.

Her face whitens. I have succeeded.

I freeze her. She has no choice but to watch my end, and when it ends, she’ll forget. I’ll still be remembered, in her subconsciousness, but nothing else.

The Hexguard might look, but even they won’t find the truth. And when they can’t, they’ll assume. Her reputation will dissolve before her eyes.

As it should.

I use her magic as my own, starting on my feet first. I contort my features into terror. That part that tells me to survive pipes up again, but I push it back down.

As the stone reaches my neck, I scream.

When it stops, I’m frozen.

Death claims me soon after.

There is a choice to leave, to escape this world of arrows, and red, white and black overlaps.

But I wish to stay, for now.

Zuri collapses to the ground. “--So sorry for everything I’ve done to you. Everything.” she finishes. Then she sees my remains and begins to sob on the floor.

Blackthorne enters. I see his eyes as they flick between my pile of stone and Zuri’s sobbing body. As he sees what happened inside. Minutes later, Hexguard officials come through the door. They don’t even check her mind before dragging her away.

My work here is done.

I can depart.

To this new, foreign place.

And I do, smiling broadly as I fade away.