CHAPTER 369: YOU’VE BEEN PLAYED-I

It was tragedy that gave Alice what she wanted.

A cruel, merciless kind of tragedy.

Her family, the ones she had cherished so dearly, were slaughtered in their own home, the murderer leaving nothing behind but ash and silence. No footprints, no witnesses, not even the faintest trace of their work. Only the ruin remained.

And the ruin did not stop with her.

In the days that followed, more houses burned. More families were torn apart. Screams filled the nights, but the world remained blind to the killer’s identity, powerless to defend itself.

Alice wept until her voice was raw. She clung to her grief in the funeral hall, her hands trembling over the coffins as rain drummed against the roof. Circe was there too, arriving quietly despite the bitter rift that had grown between them. She had not come to speak, only to watch. She stood in the doorway as Alice, hollow eyed and broken, demanded justice from the authorities who had gathered. But the men could only bow their heads. They had no answers, no leads, no strength to give her.

Alice’s cry tore through the air, sharp and furious, her vow echoing beneath the rafters of the hall. "I will find the one who did this," she swore, her voice hoarse, yet cutting like steel. "I will tear their life away with my own hands."

Circe felt her chest tighten. There was nothing she could say, nothing she could give. All she could do was waver.

The very next day, Alice appeared at her door.

Rain drenched her hair, her clothes, her pale face. She stood unmoving on the threshold, a fragile figure carved from storm and grief. Circe had expected her, dreaded her, even, but the sight still broke her heart. Because she knew what was about to be asked.

"I need the power," Alice said.

Her voice did not tremble. Her green eyes, the same green Circe carried, no longer looked soft, no longer shone with innocence. They had deepened, hardened, an emerald fire carved from fury and resolve.

"You told me once that I had no reason to seek it. That power was for those burdened by war and chaos. But do you see now? Even in peace, we are never safe. Even in peace, we are helpless. We need strength, strength to protect, or we lose everything."

Circe’s lips parted, but no words came. She stood frozen, torn between dread and sorrow. For the first time, she truly feared the answer she might give.

But she knew as a friend, telling Alice to just stand by and endure the loss was wrong and how she wouldn’t want to simply wait while the person behind her family’s death disappeared without facing the consequence.

"There are consequences of this power," Circe hope that her last warning could waver Alice but in return, she had held her hands tight and firmly gazed back at her.

"I don’t care."

Then Circe allowed Alice to receive the power, forming the contract with a demon. She didn’t know what Alice had lost in exchange for the power but Circe was aware that ever since she had the power, Alice became different, utterly different as if her entire self that she had shown to her all this time was just an act that could easily slip.

Although she was bothered by it, Alice had never killed anyone innocent for Circe to go against her and they simply parted ways since then. What she knew was Alice who had gone crazy trying to find a way to become stronger, to gain a power that could take on everything on her own.

Circe only excuses all her reason as she had just lost her family and it had drove her crazy to be powerless... that was the only reason Circe could keep giving, keep excusing.

Then as she became busy protecting Atlas and they go on separate ways, Circe had never seen her again until...

Until the day Rafael demanded she prove her loyalty.

Before the gathered nobility of Versailles, he ordered Circe to summon witches to be executed—witches who had never once craved human blood, who had lived quietly, harmlessly. Yet, before the eyes of the court, she was commanded to play executioner, to stain her own hands in order to prove she was not one of them. A "good witch," as Rafael called it, one who would slaughter her kin without hesitation.

Alice was there.

Not because Circe had called her, she never would have risked her friend’s life in such a charade. Circe’s heart nearly stopped when she saw her face among the crowd, realizing too late that Alice hadn’t come as a victim or even as a witness. Her purpose was something else entirely.

After the spectacle, Alice went directly to Rafael. She smiled as though she had just stepped into the role fate had reserved for her.

"You’ve helped me," Rafael said smoothly, lifting an envelope between two fingers. He believed Circe had been absent from the castle and thus blind to everything that transpired within its walls.

But he had forgotten her gift.

Forgotten that Circe’s eyes lived in the mirrors, stretched through the gilded halls and the shadowed corridors. She had not meant to pry, not at first. But since Atlas’s illness, trust had rotted away in her heart, leaving only vigilance, anger, and suspicion. She had turned every pane of glass into her spies, unwilling to be caught unguarded again.

And now, through those unblinking mirrors, she watched her friend smiling at the man who had just forced her to play the butcher and a friend in a form of a snake.

"Don’t mention it," Alice said with a chuckle, "As I have said, we both are here to exchange help, a partner who would help one another to fulfill their wishes. You have helped me numerous time, especially the one in the past by masking the death of my family on someone else."

"Due to that you have gained this incredible power," Rafael hummed while looking at her with a grin, "Until now, Circe still isn’t aware that you were the real killer of your own family?"

Circe’s heart dropped but her eyes, as cool as ever maintained her fury.

"Of course she didn’t. Foolish as she is, she doesn’t know the poison that was fed to her beloved was concocted by me either."