CHAPTER 440: TO MAKE A DOLL-I

Arabella’s frown deepened. It was impossible to guess where Morpheus was hiding. She reached out with her magic, feeling for the usual ripple of invisibility spells— but there was nothing. No cloaking magic, no glamour. This was something else entirely, something darker, and the realization put them instantly on edge.

"I should have pulled you into the castle instead of Ariel, no matter the cost," Morpheus’s voice slithered through the air, cold and deliberate. The words were aimed like knives, meant to demean Ariel, and Arabella’s frown tightened further at the obvious cruelty.

"You’ll never succeed," Arabella replied at last, her lips curling into a cool, deliberate grin. She forced herself to stand tall, to feign ease, as though his presence hadn’t unsettled her at all.

Cassius had taught her one thing by example: in a fight, it all came down to nerves. The one who held their nerve would win; the one who lost it would unravel, their mind splintering into mistakes that would cost them everything.

"I won’t succeed in bringing you?" Morpheus chuckled, the sound soft but edged like a blade. "You’re wrong. You were such an innocent, naïve lamb back then. If I had found you first— before that vampire corrupted you— you would have been obedient to me."

"What a fool you are," Arabella answered, her chuckle echoing his but sharper, steadier. "That will never happen. After all, Ariel didn’t stay with you in that castle. She left the moment she saw her chance, didn’t she?"

"No," Morpheus’s voice dropped, colder now, "If it wasn’t for Alice, she would have remained in my castle—"

"Of course not," Arabella cut him off, her tone slicing through his words. "She was waiting for that chance. Did you truly think Ariel followed you like a foolish lamb? That she stayed out of love, or devotion, or whatever fantasy you built around yourself? Because she’s a naïve lamb, as you call her?" Her eyes narrowed, her voice steady as steel. "You’re wrong, Morpheus. My sister walked willingly into your castle for my sake— not yours, mine. She wanted to find what she could do to help me. She pitied you. A monster she pitied— that’s all you are."

As though her words had struck a nerve, Morpheus went silent. Not the silence of someone who had run out of words, but the kind that followed shock— the disbelief that anyone had dared to speak to him that way.

In the castle, Morpheus had always been the mightiest. None dared oppose him, not even when a body was found lifeless in the corridors. No one questioned, no one resisted. They followed him blindly, as if obedience had been carved into their bones.

Was that where his arrogance came from? His belief that he could command anyone, bend them with a word?

What a fool.

It wasn’t influence that kept those sorcerers silent— it was fear, and a hollow reverence for Circe’s legacy. They followed her shadow, not his. Without that shadow, would any of them have stayed loyal to him at all?

She doubted it. Perhaps one or two madmen would— but not all those bound to that cursed castle.

As she expected, her words had shaken him.

The ground trembled violently; the entire room seemed to quake beneath them. The furniture rattled, glass cracked, and a heavy pressure filled the air, like the breath of something ancient and furious. Then, suddenly— a thunderous slam echoed from the door beside them.

The wooden door shuddered, splintering under a powerful kick. But what truly alarmed her was who it was— Cassius.

To him, a door that thin should have been nothing. He should have been able to break it with ease. Yet even he struggled, his power meeting invisible resistance.

That could only mean one thing.

A magic barrier— one powerful enough to seal even Cassius out— covered the entire room.

"I don’t understand you!" Morpheus’s voice thundered, his fury echoing through every corner of the room. "Why would you choose that vampire? What could he possibly give you that I cannot? I share your bloodline— it was fated for you to become mine! Together we could have ruled the sorcerers, governed Versailles as our own! That was how it was meant to be— but you—" his voice cracked with anger, "you foolishly destroyed

the future that was supposed to be ours!"

Arabella’s eyes narrowed. "It’s not about what he could do that you cannot, Morpheus," she said, her tone steady as steel. "It’s about who he is—and who you are. A heart cannot be forced. You treat people like possessions, like playthings, and then wonder why no one chooses you. Tell me, do you truly think anyone would ever wish to be with you?"

"..."

Ariel felt it first— a sudden shift in the air. The warmth fled from the room, replaced by a biting chill that crawled over her skin. Her breath caught, her body trembling as if the air itself had turned hostile. She glanced toward Lastor— his eyes wide, alert— and then toward Arabella, who had frozen mid-step, sensing the same unnatural cold.

Then, in the next instant, Arabella’s green eyes snapped toward her.

"Ariel!"

Before Ariel could even react, Arabella’s hand shot forward, reaching for her.

And then— she felt it. Fingers, cold and inhuman, clamped around her arms, dragging her backward into the shadows.

"Ariel!" Arabella screamed again, lunging forward.

At that exact moment, the door to the study exploded open with a deafening crack. Cassius burst through the splintered wood, his crimson eyes taking in the scene at once—the sisters, the phantom hands, the swirling darkness that had coiled around Ariel like serpents.

In one swift movement, he snapped his fingers.

From beneath his feet, shadows surged to life— black tendrils that roared across the floor like liquid night, slamming into the demonic hands that held Ariel. The impact scattered them in a burst of smoke and shrieks, freeing her as Arabella grabbed hold and pulled her away with all her strength.

But that wasn’t the end as the hands that had held Ariel had now instead grabbed to her hand. From that thin air, Morpheus’s face appeared, his silver hair glimmered under the candlelights and a smile spread across his lips like a grin.