Delilah was in her home the next day when armed men broke down her door. She had left the grisly evidence of the previous night’s sacrifice in her secret forest shelter. But that fact was irrelevant, because she’d been spotted by a servant as she fled the mayor’s house the day before. The sheriff and his men had come for her.

She was dragged to the mayor’s house, where the mayor himself demanded her confession. The councilor and his wife were there, the mother with red-rimmed eyes and the father glaring at her with naked hatred. Seeing their despair and anger was thrilling to the witch.

An instinct toward unrepentance stole over Delilah. It caused her to leer at the distraught parents, and she laughed as she admitted to her crimes. She laughed as she told of how she k...

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