Chapter 213 CHAPTER 213
The prison carried a heavier silence at night, the kind that settled deep into the stone walls and lingered in the narrow corridors. The torches burned low, their light flickering unevenly across the iron bars, stretching shadows that seemed to breathe with every movement. It was quiet enough that even footsteps felt louder than they should.
Liam Blackthorne walked through the corridor with steady, controlled steps, but his mind was far from calm. The note Miss Blackwood had given him rested inside his coat, its presence lingering at the back of his thoughts. He had not looked at it again since leaving the forest, not because he did not want to, but because there was something he needed to confirm first.
He stopped outside a familiar cell.
Inside, seated against the wall with his back resting lightly against the cold stone, was Sebastian. He looked up as soon as he sensed Liam’s presence, his expression guarded but no longer carrying the arrogance that once defined him. There was a quiet heaviness to him now, the kind that came from understanding too late.
“Commander,” Sebastian said, his voice calm but careful.
Liam stepped closer, his gaze steady. “I need to ask you something.”
Sebastian gave a faint, tired smile that did not quite reach his eyes. “That sounds serious.”
“It is,” Liam replied without hesitation.
The faint attempt at humor faded, and the space between them settled into something more tense, more deliberate.
Liam held his gaze. “Tell me about Sarah. How did you find out she was a witch?”
The name alone shifted something in Sebastian’s expression. His jaw tightened slightly, and for a brief moment, he looked away as if the memory itself carried weight he was still trying to process.
“I didn’t figure it out myself,” he said after a moment, his voice quieter now.
Liam’s eyes narrowed slightly. “Then how did you find out?”
Sebastian reached into his clothing slowly and pulled out a folded piece of paper. He held it for a second, almost as if debating whether to let it go, before extending it through the bars.
“I was supposed to give you this,” he said.
Liam took the note carefully, unfolding it as his eyes scanned the contents. It was simple at first glance—a message, a request—but something about it felt off now that he looked at it with everything he knew. Lisa had never mentioned ever speaking to Sebastian and here was a note allegedly written by her asking him to meet her.
“This doesn’t explain much,” Liam said, his brows drawing together slightly. “What am I supposed to see here?”
“It wasn’t Lisa,” Sebastian said.
Liam looked up immediately. “I guessed that as much.”
“That note,” Sebastian continued, nodding toward the paper in Liam’s hand, “the one that led me to the locker room….”
There was a pause as the meaning settled.
“It was Sarah,” he added.
Liam’s expression hardened slightly.
Sebastian leaned forward, resting his forearms on his knees as he exhaled slowly. “Earlier that day, I had tried to speak to Lisa. I wanted her to forgive me, or at least hear me out, but she ignored me. So when I later found a note in my locker asking me to meet her, I thought she had changed her mind.”
He paused briefly, his fingers tightening slightly against his arm.
“When I got to the locker room, it wasn’t Lisa waiting for me. It was Sarah. Before I could question it, before I could even understand what was happening, she closed the distance between us, and everything after that became a blur. I remember moments, but they don’t connect properly. It was like my thoughts were not entirely my own.”
Liam watched him closely, already piecing together the pattern.
“She was feeding off your life force,” Liam said quietly. “And erasing your memory afterward.”
Sebastian gave a small, bitter nod. “Yes. Every time it happened, I walked away believing something else entirely. I thought I had been with Lisa. I thought I was making my own choices, but I wasn’t. She controlled what I remembered and what I believed.”
Liam’s grip on the note tightened slightly as he listened.
“It wasn’t me who exposed her,” Sebastian continued. “It was Anna. She saw Sarah feeding on one of the guards and wiping his memory afterward. That’s when everything started to unravel, and I finally understood what had been happening to me.”
Silence settled between them for a moment as Liam lowered his gaze back to the note in his hand. Then, slowly, he reached into his coat and pulled out the second note—the one Miss Blackwood had given him.
He held both pieces of paper side by side, studying them carefully.
At first glance, they served the same purpose. Both were used to lure, to manipulate, to control movement without raising suspicion. But the more he looked, the clearer the difference became.
“The handwriting is not the same,” Liam said quietly.
Sebastian frowned slightly. “What do you mean? Sarah wrote mine.”
“Yes,” Liam replied, his voice steady, “and that is exactly the problem.”
He lifted both notes slightly, his eyes moving between them again, confirming what his instincts had already told him.
“If Sarah wrote this one,” he continued, gesturing to Sebastian’s note, “then she did not write this.”
The implication settled slowly.
Sebastian’s expression shifted as understanding dawned. “Then that means…”
Liam finished the thought calmly. “There is someone else.”
The weight of that realization hung between them. This was no longer about a single witch manipulating events from the shadows. It meant there was another presence moving just as carefully, just as deliberately, and close enough to reach both Isabel and Lisa without being noticed.
Sebastian leaned back slightly against the wall, his expression darkening. “Another witch… inside Lunaris?”
“Or closer,” Liam said quietly.
He folded the notes carefully and slipped them back into his coat, his thoughts already moving ahead, connecting details that had not made sense before. The attack on Lisa, the manipulation of Isabel’s phone, the precision of it all—this was not coincidence, and it was not the work of someone acting blindly.
It was calculated.
Intentional.
And still hidden.
Liam turned to leave.
“Commander,” Sebastian called after him.
Liam paused but did not turn.
“If you find her,” Sebastian said, his voice quieter now but steady, “don’t assume she’ll make the same mistakes Sarah did. Whoever this is… they’re careful.”
Liam stood still for a brief moment, taking that in.
“I already know,” he said.
Then he continued walking, his footsteps steady as they echoed through the corridor.
Behind him, Sebastian leaned back against the wall, closing his eyes briefly as the weight of everything settled again.
And somewhere beyond those prison walls, unseen and untouched….
Someone else was watching.
Waiting.
And still moving.