For the first time in his life, Cecil White saw her not as the child he'd once dismissed, not as the niece he'd tormented but as something else entirely.
A stranger.
Eira stood before him not with fury, but with finality. Her face was unreadable, carved from frost. The girl he remembered—the small, curious child who used to trail behind her tutors with wide eyes and soft hands—was long gone. The woman before him was colder than the snow falling outside. Sharper than any wand he'd ever wielded.
He had underestimated her.
All his life.
And now, he would pay for it.
She turned to Emma, who stood silently at the doorway like a shadow cast from war.
"Drag him," Eira said. Her voice was calm. "I want him to die exactly the way she did."
Cecil's heart dropped. His face paled.
"No," he gasped. "No, no, no—you can't do this. You can't do this to me!"
His voice cracked with panic as Emma moved forward, her wand steady in hand.
"If you're going to kill me, then do it like a wizard with honor," Cecil begged. "Kill me the right way. With a wand. Like how you did with Josh. Not like a Muggle. Please. Please, Eira."
Eira turned her head, brow arched.
"Honor?" she said, a cruel smirk curling on her lips. "That's the funniest thing you've said tonight. You? Honor? That's a better joke than your entire life."
Emma didn't speak. She cast the binding spell, thick magical ropes coiling around Cecil's limbs. He thrashed uselessly as they pulled him from the room, dragged across the marble floor like a sack of ruined pride. His protests turned to whimpers, his whimpers to sobs.
The balcony door creaked open.
The cold bit deep.
They were on the third floor now, where the wind howled like something grieving. Snow fell in heavy curtains around them, silent and unrelenting. Below, the courtyard was buried in white.
Eira stepped out first.
The moment was still.
"Conjure the rope," she said, her eyes on the edge. "Around his neck. Bind his hands and feet."
"Yes, my lady," Emma said quietly.
With practiced precision, Emma summoned the rope. It slithered through the air like a serpent before snapping tight around Cecil's neck. Another spell bound his arms and legs together, leaving him standing—barely—between them, panting with terror.
When he realized she was serious, when he felt the tension of the rope tighten, Cecil's fear broke into panic.
"You can't kill me!" he cried, writhing in Emma's grip. "I haven't even finished—my work—my goals—please! Don't do this, Eira!"
She didn't even flinch.
"I just… I just wanted to be loved!" he wailed. "By him. By anyone. I wanted to be part of the family. I wanted respect. I didn't want to be the bastard! Is that a crime?! I just wanted—please, please—don't kill me!"
Snot ran from his nose. His face was red, wet with tears, his voice hoarse and cracking. It was a pathetic sight. A man who had built his life on control, now stripped of it all.
"I can repent," he sobbed. "I'll leave. I'll disappear. I'll never show my face again. I'll go far—away from here, from France, from England. You'll never hear my name again—please."
Eira looked at him for a long moment. Then she spoke, her voice quiet, cold.
"If you were truly afraid of death, you wouldn't have dealt it so easily."
Cecil collapsed to his knees, barely able to breathe through the rope and his own weeping.
"I didn't want to—Roman—Roman told me to do it!" he cried. "It wasn't me, it was Roman! I didn't mean to kill her, I didn't mean—"
"Enough," Eira snapped. "Don't make yourself more pathetic than you already are. If you're going to die… at least die with your head up."
She turned to Emma. "Hang him. From the balcony."
Cecil wailed now, completely unraveling.
"Eira, please! I'm sorry! I'm so sorry! Please don't do this, don't kill me—I'm sorry, I'm sorry—I didn't mean it—please—please just give me one more chance—"
He screamed her name.
Emma didn't respond. Her wand moved with silent grace, lifting Cecil into the air with a levitation spell. His body floated, limbs taut, rope tightening. Emma fastened the end of the conjured rope to the wrought-iron railing of the balcony.
Cecil dangled there for a heartbeat.
Then—
Emma released the spell.
The rope yanked tight with a sickening snap. His body jerked midair, neck twisted. His legs kicked briefly, then went still. Only the sound of strangled breathing remained—for a moment.
Then silence.
The snow fell.
A pool of urine spread beneath him. He hung there like a forgotten marionette—lifeless, limp, and grotesquely small in death.
Eira stood at the railing, unmoved. Her face was carved of stone. Her eyes locked on the body of her uncle—Cecil White. Once a traitor to his family. Once the self-proclaimed heir. Now just another corpse buried in white.
She sighed a slow, soul-deep breath—land let the cold air press into her lungs.
For a long time, neither of them spoke.
Then Emma's voice came, soft, from behind her.
"My lady… what should we do about Roman Trévér?"
Eira didn't turn.
"Burn the portraits first," she said quietly. "Any that might have seen us. Any that might have heard our names."
Emma nodded and stepped back inside.
Eira remained.
Still.
Watching the body sway gently in the wind.
And so, on the night of December twenty-fifth—beneath a storm of snow and silence—Cecil White, once the would-be heir to House White, but truly the bitter remnant of the Voclain line, met his end.
Not with wandfire.
Not with glory.
But by rope.
And memory.