LILIANA

"You understand?" Trevor asked, his eyes widened in surprise.

"I understand that we will never agree with each other", I replied. "Just one last question: why won't you grant me a divorce?"

"Because I love you and Henry, and I don't want such a trivial matter to tear our family apart. Even if it makes you uncomfortable, I'm sure you'll get used to it eventually, and if it makes it easier for you then I can try harder to do what I must do out of your sight", he said.

I closed my eyes and took a deep breath to steady myself. It was important to keep our conversation amicable if my next act was to succeed.

"Perhaps you are right about that. Only time will tell", I said evenly. Trevor smiled as if he was not a monster, as if this was an ordinary marital dispute.

"We have all the time in the world, my love", he said.

I nodded. Indeed, if I wasn't willing to risk my life over this issue then I would be trapped in a marriage with him for the rest of my life, and perhaps if enough time passed then I would get used to what he was doing to Vivian. That was a big part of what I was afraid of, what I had to prevent.

I pointedly looked at the dining room clock.

"It's already past time for lunch and I'm hungry. Shall we eat?" I asked, trying to keep the nervousness out of my voice.

Trevor smiled again and nodded.

"I always loved your cooking. The cat's cooking only made me miss your dishes more", he said.

I returned a pinched smile at the compliment, then went to fetch the soup from the kitchen while making sure to serve myself from the first portion and Trevor from the second, and to not use the same serving utensil for both.

"Delicious!" Trevor exclaimed.

He seemed happy, now that we were eating together amicably. He ate quickly, as I had hoped. Being deprived of his wife's cooking, and instead having to make due with the cooking of a resentful slave who only worked under coercion, made it hard for him to control himself when served with genuinely good food.

The portion that I served myself was smaller than what I served him, and I ate quickly too. I had to make sure to finish before him in order to serve the next course as quickly as possible.

"This is wonderful! I really missed this", Trevor declared when I presented him with the main course. He wolfed it down as well.

After dessert I went to the kitchen under the pretense of washing dishes, while Trevor went to the sitting room with a cup of tea to digest his meal. The truth was that I just couldn't bear to watch him die.

My eyes clouded with tears, and memories of the time we spent together passed before my eyes. All the times he came to the store to talk to me. When he walked me home. When he brought me flowers or sang to me. Going out on a picnic in a clearing in the woods. When he proposed marriage. When we got married. How he leaped around the room for joy when we learned that I was pregnant. The tender way that he made love to me. His happiness when he played with Henry. His pride at his successes in business.

The door to the kitchen burst open and in a moment Trevor strode over to where I was standing. Through the veil of tears I could see that he was as white as a sheet, and the front of his clothes was covered in vomit.

"YOU BITCH!" He roared into my face. "WHAT DID YOU DO TO ME!"

My eyes widened in fear. I thought he would simply convulse and die in the other room, but it seemed that the poison wasn't effective enough, or that it took longer than the books I've read lead me to believe, or that there was something different about Trevor's constitution that made him more resilient. Either way, I did not expect to have to face him again before he died.

Trevor saw my reaction and his hands shot up and grabbed me by my throat, squeezing tightly.

"So you too choose the animal over your spouse? Well, you can go ahead and wait for her in the afterlife, if animals even get one!" he snarled.

I couldn't breathe and he was too strong for me to fight. I desperately felt around the counter for anything I could use as a weapon, and found the handle of a knife. I lifted it and rammed the blade into his back. He roared in pain and stepped forward, causing me to lose my balance. When I fell, he fell along with me, his grip on my neck never slackening in the slightest. The fall caused me to lose my hold on the knife. I tried to grab hold of it again, but I couldn't find it.

My vision was fading and there was a ringing in my ears. I realized that I was losing consciousness due to the lack of air, and soon after that I would die. I had to do something to get him to let go, so I turned to the only tool I had left: my magic.

I drew out as much as I could, but it didn't feel like I did much of anything, so I drew more until I started to feel that I was straining myself, at least a little. I converted the magical power into heat and sent it into his wrists through my hands. I had the satisfaction of seeing his face twist in pain through my fading vision. Distantly I heard something like a pig squealing while being slaughtered, and realized that was Trevor screaming.

Strangely, his hands never left my neck, and right before everything turned black I could see flames leaping up, engulfing his head.