Prilia felt a sudden chill run along her spine that told her that she was in danger.

She quickly turned down the stove brewing the medicine to hear better.

Holding on to the handle of a scalpel she had been cleaning, she quickly turned to strike down the thing that gave her such a strong murderous intent.

“Waller?” Prilia said, stopping her knife before it could enter her fiance.

It was so odd. Now that she was looking at him directly, she did not feel anything nefarious.

“Are you not too jumpy, Pri?” Waller chuckled.

Prilia nodded her head. She definitely needed sleep.

Prilia simply shook her head. Ever since her red berry poison’s dose went missing, she has been terrified that guards will come and take her to the dungeons because someone got killed by ingesting her poison.

Among fairy folk, people were allowed euthanasia for valid reasons. The red berry was the most effective poison for this purpose, but since it killed fairies so fast, healers were only allowed the exact amount that would put the fairy to the final eternal sleep, and not a speck of dust more.

Even then, the poison came with an enchantment that would immediately tell exactly which healer the particular poison had been sent to. 

I cannot believe I was careless enough to lose something that dangerous!

Prilia was worried that her poison would end up in the wrong hands, but she was more worried about what the court would do to her if her poison was used wrongly.

Just thinking about their history made her wings tingle painfully.

Putting the thought away, she followed Waller to her dining room in the clinic where he already had tea set up.

Sitting down in front of the empty spot, she let Waller distract her from the impending doom that was coming for her.

But what if it was still somewhere in the clinic, and I had just missed it. Then it won’t be ingested by anyone, and I will be in the clear.

That was such strong wishful thinking that she snorted. Prilia was a very caring person and had always kept all her medicine in a specific place so that she never grabbed the wrong one even by mistake.

Either way, she had already cleaned her clinic 10 times. Everything was in place except the red berry. There was no way someone would steal something from her clinic that specific and not use it.

Waller noticed Prilia was distracted and waved in front of her face. When he had her attention, he asked, “Is the tea not good?”

Prilia took up the cup again. Tea was already cold. Sighing, she drank everything in one go. Putting the cup down again, she said, “No. It was very sweet, just the way I like it.”

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Prilia noticed that her tongue was getting heavy, and touched it with her fingers.

The world was becoming technicolor, with odd colors taking over everything. She watched as Waller became the color bright as a red berry and laughed.

Her laugh must have sounded as manic to Waller as it did to her own ears because she saw him flinch and walk away to the farther back side of the room.

Prilia could not even stop laughing and fell off her chair.

It took her a bit longer to finally lose all the energy she had in her and look like she was not conscious anymore. That is when Waller whispered 

“I think she is gone.”

She heard the door to her house open and close, and then the flutter of two pairs of wings. There was no way. One of them lands right on top of her while the other one keeps its flight.

“It worked!” Prilia hears her sister’s voice whisper.

***

Melodie does a dance on Prilia’s abdomen to check for movements and sees notice. She feels happiness bloom in her heart and can’t stop her wings from fluttering again.

She goes airborne and does a round of Prilia’s dining room before she notices the expression on Waller’s face.

Oh, that face.

Melodie had fallen for it the first time she had seen it. It took her such a long while and so much manipulation to make it her own.

She flew over to Waller and took his guilt-ridden face in her hands. 

“Hey, you did it so you can live free with me.”

Waller quickly lost the guilty look, making Melodie smile, her wings turning amber to match her emotions. They had started to change color when she confirmed her sister’s death, but to gain Waller and not have Prilia steal everything she deserves was an ending better than Melodie had hoped to get.

Prilia had somehow always gotten things that Melodie had wanted in life.

Melodie was the one who wanted to become a healer, but she failed the exam. She was so excited to see the orb turn white, only to realize that it didn’t do that for her. It did that for her sister. For Melodie, it remained transparent.

Melodie saw Waller first, but Waller fell in love with Prilia instead of her.

Thankfully, she was able to manipulate people so well. She turned all of Prilia’s friends against her while Prilia spent her days and nights toiling away in the clinic.

Waller had been harder to manipulate, which had made Melodie furious. Had Waller just come to her easily, she might have considered letting Prilia live. But every time she saw Waller’s devotion towards her sister, she was filled with even more hate.

That was when she decided that she would make Waller kill her sister. Just to make sure that the very thought of Prilia would make him stop himself. Waller may be a very devoted person, but he was also very pathetic when he was wrong.

Just the way a rapist never accepts that they did something wrong, whenever Waller did something wrong he stopped himself from feeling guilt by lying to himself.

Melodie had noticed this quirk in him when he had started to completely ignore his hamster’s death after he stepped on his pet, killing it. She had stolen the red berry poison rather easily. Poor Prilia was too trusting towards her sister to keep an eye on what she was doing. 

Melodie then put the medicine in Waller’s bag, making him think that he had mistakenly brought it with him when he had gone to Prilia’s clinic to meet her.

From there, it was easy for Melodie to manipulate Waller that the only way to escape the punishment for stealing such a dangerous poison was to kill her sister Prilia using her own stash.

“What do we do now?” Waller asked, more than happy to forget about his actions if it meant he could get away with the crime.

Melodie gave one last disgusted look at her sister’s crumbled body and said, “Just leave her there after you remove the cup you were going to use. They will not investigate much when they find out that she was poisoned by her own red berry stash.”

After they were done cleaning, Waller and Melodie left the clinic.

None the wiser to the fact that Prilia was still alive.