Chapter 3
Wanda lowers herself down onto the ledge, the magic dissipating from her hands with a wave of her fingers through the darkness. Whatever this place is, it looks as though it might stretch on forever, but, despite its appearance, there’s a sense she has that she may have reached the very edge of it. It feels almost as if she’s being held back by some invisible barrier that there to stop her from walking off the edge of the world. She strains her eyes, squinting into the darkness in an attempt to make out anything - anything - that might be of use to her.
“You won’t find what you’re looking for out there,” a rasping female voice says.
Wanda spins around, magic jumping back into existence in the palms of her hands. A transluscent, ghostly figure stands on the ledge behind her, hands grasped before them. Wanda looks the figure up and down, takes note of their appearance.
“Who are you?” she asks.
The woman tilts her head, returns Wanda’s appraising stare. “I am Evanora Harkness,” she says, “I believe you know my daughter, Agatha?”
Distrust immediately flares through Wanda’s belly. “You’re Agatha’s mother?!”
The woman dips her head in acknowledgement. “I’m sure you’re aware that we . . . were not close.”
Wanda scoffs. “Bit of an understatement, don’t you think?”
“Perhaps,” Evanora concedes, “but the past is what it is.”
Wanda’s nostrils flare. “Why are you here?”
“I have . . .” Evanora frowns, as if trying to produce the words that would best convey what she has to say. “A debt, I suppose one might say, to repay.”
“To who?”
“Agatha.”
It’s Wanda’s turn to frown, her shoulders drawn together with tension coiling her muscles uncomfortably tight beneath her skin. “I don’t understand.”
“I have done much to hurt my daughter, Wanda, and yet she has done nothing but prove me wrong.”
“How do you know my name?”
Evanora’s eyes drop to Wanda’s hands, still glowing red with magic. “It was mentioned in passing that an individual going by the name of Wanda was the Scarlet Witch. The way you wield chaos magic dictates that it must be you who is the Scarlet Witch, and is therefore also the one who goes by the name ‘Wanda’.”
“Mentioned by who?”
“Agatha, when she was begging us to help her get the baby to safety.”
Wanda’s heart leaps into her throat. “You’ve seen Agatha and Irena?! Are they okay?!”
“Yes. We were able to return them both safely to Salem.”
Relief floods through Wanda. “That’s good,” she says with a soft, sighing exhalation of breath. “What about the others?”
“One of the soldiers is dead. His remains and the other two individuals who arrived here with you have also been returned to Salem. You are the only one who has yet to leave this place.”
“Why haven’t I been able to leave?”
Evanora tilts her head. “You moved,” she answers simply.
Wanda blinks. “What?”
“When you moved, the tether to the portal that brought you here became tangled, confused. As a result, when it came time for the portal to open again and take you back to Salem, it couldn’t find you, and thus, here we are.”
“How do I get back to it then?”
Evanora rises into the air and beckons for Wanda to follow. “This way.”
“I have a question.”
“I suppose you have many, but go on.”
Wanda tries not to let her hackles rise at the comment. “If the portals were going to open up on their own, why would Agatha need help to keep Irena safe? Surely she’d just have to wait it out.”
“She was being harrassed by Dormammu.”
“The guy in charge of this place?”
“The being, yes.”
“What about her magic? Couldn’t she have just used that?”
“If she’d been using the innate magical ability she has with witchcraft, then yes, she could have. However, she chose to forsake the development of her skills in that area of magic at a relatively young age in favour of gaining near omniscient access to dark magic, which is decidedly easier to master.”
“Why does that matter?”
“We’re in the Dark Dimension, Wanda. This place is the source of all dark magic in our world, and thus, the inhabitants here are effectively immune to it.”
“Why?”
“Because the laws of existence are different here. Unlike in our dimension, the matter a being that lives here is made up of cannot be used against them.”
“So, because Agatha’s magic comes from here and it can’t be used against Dormmamu, she was powerless?”
“Effectively, yes.”
“But she has her magic back now that she’s home, right?”
“Her witchcraft, yes. Her dark magic, no.”
Wanda frowns. “How do you tell them apart?”
“The colour. Witchcraft is a pale blue colour. Dark magic can be anything from purple to navy blue to black, depending on the individual.”
Unease prickles up the length of Wanda’s spine. Same story, different story, echoes Agatha’s voice from the depths of her mind, there will always be torches and pitchforks for ladies like us, Wanda. “Does that mean Agatha’s unprotected?”
Evanora shakes her head. “It just means she’ll have to learn how to wield her witchcraft again.”
“Is . . . is that good?”
Evanora hums absently. “It’s certainly preferable.”
“How so?”
“To wield dark magic is to become indebted to Dormmamu. There is no such risk with witchcraft.”
Anxiety spikes through Wanda’s heart. “Is Agatha in danger?”
Evanora frowns. In that moment, Wanda can see the similarity between mother and daughter. “From Dormammu?” Evanora asks. Wanda nods. “No. She’s paid her debt now.”
“Paid it how?!” Wanda asks in alarm.
Evanora looks at her with eyes that may have once been a pale grey-blue colour. “You are aware of the fact that she is a siphon?”
Wanda nods. “She said she takes power from the weak.”
“That’s a moral stance, not an actual description of what she’s capable of,” Evanora corrects. “Agatha can absorb the magic and life force of anyone around her.” Evanora’s face darkens. “It was an ability of hers that we discovered late into her original training, and we feared her for it. We didn’t understand at the time that she’d been born with it, much like how she’d been born with dark hair and her father’s eyes. We believed it was something she’d learned, and we tried to kill her for it.”
“You keep saying ‘we’. Who’s ‘we’?”
“Our coven.”
Wanda nods, the pieces falling into place. “What’s all this got to do with Agatha paying her debt to Dormmamu?”
Evanora sighs. “She killed us by absorbing our life forces, our very souls, into herself - not that she was aware of what she was doing at the time. But it worked out well enough for her in the end, as that’s how she paid off her debt: by releasing us from our captivity to be consumed by Dormmamu.”
Wanda begins to feel sick. She swallows back the bile that’s threatening to burn its way up her throat and onto her tongue. “You said you had a debt to repay to Agatha for hurting her. Surely keeping you captive for a few hundred years would negate that debt?”
Evanora hums, nose wrinkling in consternation. “Given the alternative - no, it wouldn’t negate that debt. Nothing could.”
“What’s the alternative?”
“There are a few, but the one that would’ve been most likely for us would have been a state of non-existence. Our souls - and the consciousnesses attached to them - would have existed in the form you perceive me in now, but we wouldn’t have been able to think or say or do anything. We would have just been there.”
Wanda shivers a little at the thought. “If you’d been given the choice, what would you have chosen?”
“I can’t answer that,” Evanora replies.
“Why? I won’t tell.”
“Oh, I’m not worried about you telling on me. I can’t answer because I don’t have an answer - an honest one, at least.”
“What about being sacrificed to Dormammu? What would you have chosen if you’d been given a choice in that decision?”
Evanora appears to frown. “Perhaps I didn’t make it clear before. We were the ones who made that decision. We offered ourselves up as a sacrifice to be used to pay off her debt.”
Wanda splutters in shock. “No, you did not make it clear that that was what had happened! You made it sound like Agatha was the one who decided on that!”
Evanora laughs. “Oh, no, Agatha would never have asked that of us. She hadn’t even considered it as an option.”
Wanda huffs in frustration at the revelation. “Got any more surprises for me while I’m here?” she asks in a low grumble as Evanora directs her towards a ledge that looks no different from the multitude of other ledges they’ve flown past over the god-knows how many hours. An open portal already awaits her, crackly at the edges and alluring in its presented offering of escape.
Evanora tilts her head with a nonchalant lifting of her left shoulder. “Just that Dormammu has no interest in our souls now that Agatha’s debt has been repaid. As such, a few of my coven sisters offered themselves up in exchange for the souls and recreated bodies of your sons.”
Wanda finds herself staring at Evanora, her breath stuttering and catching in her throat. “You mean, my boys are okay?”
Evanora dips her head in acknowledgement. “They are alive and to my knowledge, well. They have already departed this place, though I do not know to where. Whoever awaits you on the other side of that portal should be able to answer your questions, though.”
A bright smile splits Wanda’s face in two. “Thank you, Evanora,” she effuses gratefully, before turning away and letting her feet touch the rock. A swirl of red magic returns her to the clothes she’d been wearing when she’d entered this place, and she takes a step towards the portal.