Lahat ng Kabanata ng MAD END'S DECEPTION: Kabanata 131 - Kabanata 140

ARAH“Leave my mind, sylph!” Marianne’s distorted voice echoed in Arah’s ear, and an intense tingling sensation shot from her feet upward, stealing her breath for a moment.Her mind snapped back to the sight of the cell. A force slammed into her like a kick to the stomach, hurling her across the room. Her back collided with the wall, a groan tearing from her throat. Her muscles and bones ached, and a sharp ringing settled in her ears. Disoriented, it took her a few seconds to regain her senses. She cringed as something sticky clung to her hair—she was inches from the toilet, which reeked of piss and leftover excrement.Gagging, her head throbbed with the sound of fists battering against the steel door, growls and curses filling the air. Her wind tattoo coiled around the slit in the door, keeping it shut.Stringmaster stood across the stinking cell, fists trembling at her sides as if all her emotions had gathered there. Arah looked at the

ARAHShe helped Zylas prepare lunch for everyone in one of the prison kitchens. It felt strange doing something so mundane with a witch, and just hours before they were set to fight another coven. But she welcomed the downtime—a quiet moment before the chaos that was bound to unfold later.Besides, this was her chance to figure out Zylas’s weaknesses, even though Gildeon had already told her that he was the one she didn’t need to get close to. But with Lokius currently in some kind of hibernation and Vienna busy discussing strategies with Drusden, Arah didn’t have much of a choice. She might as well hang around with Zylas and make herself useful.She used to underestimate Zylas’s role in the coven. With his weird, carefree attitude at times, it was hard not to question why they seemed to value him so much. If it was his cooking, well, that was something she could easily agree with. He wasn’t as graceful as Tonio in the kitchen, chopping onions l

Long Time Ago (Part 2)YOUNG GILDEONLarge brown eyes, each as big as his head, stared directly at him. He pulled his knife from the sheath on his leg and sliced open the dead swamp beastling’s belly, its guts spilling out in a rush. The smell hit him—rotten fish and sour mud. He scrunched his nose, trying not to gag. He had killed and cleaned beastlings plenty of times by now, but the stench still made him sick.Wincing each time his back throbbed, he sliced through the slimy membranes. He had to be careful—one wrong cut and the coresac would burst, ruining the meat and possibly hurting him. He scooped out the intestines and organs, their weight squishing in his hands, and dumped them into the bucket under the table, blood dripping down his arms.He hated this. But it was better than being stuck underground with old salamander bones and going hungry. His other hand shifted into its beast form,

Long Time Ago (Part 4)YOUNG GILDEONThe middling beast came sooner than expected. Its stench hit him first—a rotten, sour smell rising through the trees below the cliff. His heart pounded hard in his chest, and his breaths came fast. He hated how scared he felt, but at least it had come to them—saved them the trouble of tracking it in the wild.‘Let it come,’ the voice murmured in his head.Gildeon tightened his grip on his shortsword, his other hand already shifting to claws. Nalini changed too, her tail flicking nervously behind her. He stepped closer to the cliff’s edge, peering down into the dense tangle of trees below. Something rustled again, making the branches twitch, but then everything went still. Too still.He held his breath, eyes darting from side to side. No sound. No movement. He bent down and grabbed a palm-sized stone. With a glance at Nalini, he whispered, &

ARAHHer hair was neatly tucked under a black cap to avoid attention, which seemed to be working since her friends hadn’t noticed her yet. Cora, Tonio, and Mabel sat off in the distance. Patricia was there too, along with Nick—just the sight of him brought back those strange flashes from when they’d shaken hands. They were pieces of her memories, but they had come too fast to make sense of. Nick’s reaction to that still bothered her, but now wasn’t the time to dwell on it.Part of her wanted to stay close to her friends, to be there when the chaos started. But she knew they’d be safer if she kept her distance. The farther away they were when Vergilius and his brides thought about snatching her, the better.At least Stringmaster had kept her word—puppet inmates surrounded her friends, acting as protectors. That, somehow, brought Arah a sense of relief.She glanced around, trying to spot any sign of the enemy, but saw nothing. Were they hid