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Agatha froze.
She hadn't expected this. The Dark Witch standing before her was actually offering her an invitation.
What was she playing at?
Hermione watched the emotions chase each other across Agatha's face and found it mildly entertaining. She reined in her magic, her black robes settling with a soft drift, her tone perfectly even: "My magic — your absorption ability doesn't work on it, does it?"
Agatha's face went stiff. She said nothing, which was answer enough. Their brief clash had already proven it.
"In that case," Hermione continued, "there doesn't seem to be any real conflict of interest between us. You want to get stronger. You want to absorb more powerful energy. Wanda Maximoff does have enormous potential, but Chaos Magic isn't something you can just pull apart and swallow whole. The risk is too high."
She paused, then dangled the hook: "I happen to know a place with more energy than you could ever use. And it currently has no owner."
Agatha's eyelid twitched. Wary as she was, she couldn't stop herself. "Where?"
"The Dark Dimension." Hermione said it like she was naming a coffee shop.
"What?!" Agatha nearly came apart at the seams, her voice cracking up an octave. "The Dark Dimension? You want me dead!"
Her absorption ability made her a walking nightmare for most mages, but everything depended on who she was up against.
Actually trying to absorb the Dark Dimension's power? Dormammu would grind her into nothing. Or the Ancient One would. Either way, same result.
Starting trouble with ordinary mages was one thing. Wandering into that feud was pure suicide. It was like learning a sword technique for half a day and then walking up to the greatest master alive and asking to spar.
Never mind Dormammu, the Ancient One was the nightmare of every mage on Earth. Neither Agatha nor the Salem Coven had dared go anywhere near Kamar-Taj in centuries. The very thought of being dragged in front of the Ancient One made them all find somewhere else to be.
Sorcerer Supreme wasn't a ceremonial title. The Ancient One had spent eight hundred years proving she was the most powerful mage on Earth, and there was no close second.
Agatha had lived for centuries too. She knew that. And still, standing before the Ancient One, she'd always felt like a child witch who'd only just learned to light a candle.
Hermione raised an eyebrow with exaggerated surprise. "Oh? Your information must be pretty stale if you don't know about this."
Agatha blinked. "Know about what?"
"The Ancient One." Hermione spread her hands. "She's been dead for a while now."
lmaooo.
"What?" The word came out as a gasp. Agatha's purple magic bled from her uncontrolled, curling into the air around her. "How could the Ancient One be dead? Who could possibly kill her?"
This was the Ancient One. Eight hundred years guarding the Earth. The Sorcerer Supreme.
In all of Agatha's long life, the Ancient One had existed like a mountain range, permanent, immovable, an inescapable shadow pressing down on every mage who walked the earth.
Hermione shrugged. "Herself, more or less. Said she was done, that she was tired, that she needed a rest."
Agatha stared.
That was insane. That was also, somehow, exactly the kind of thing the Ancient One would do.
The brief shock hadn't fully settled before Agatha's expression curdled into something far more alarmed as the real problem hit her:
"Wait. If the Ancient One is gone — what about Dormammu? Without her holding him back, Earth would—"
Her face went ashen. She didn't even stop to wonder whether any of this was true. She was already turning to leave.
"I have to warn the Coven. Now."
Agatha Harkness was no martyr. Most of her centuries had been spent doing exactly what she pleased, taking what she wanted, absorbing what she could. But when the world itself was on the line, even she understood that some banners had to be carried. She had no intention of being swallowed up by Dormammu along with everything else.
As for the Avengers? Please. That collection of tech-dependent and mutation-reliant fighters looked impressive enough when alien infantry came knocking. Against Dormammu, they were decorative.
"Oh, Dormammu." Hermione's voice drifted over, unhurried, stopping Agatha mid-step. "Don't worry. I dealt with him too."
Agatha stopped dead. She turned, slowly, and stared at Hermione the way you stare at someone who has just said something clinically insane. "What did you just say? You dealt with Dormammu?"
She could admit the Dark Witch in front of her was powerful. Powerful enough to outmatch her.
But Dormammu was something else entirely.
The ruler of the Dark Dimension. A dimensional being of near-infinite energy. The Ancient One had spent over eight hundred years and only managed to keep him outside the door, not destroy him, not contain him, just hold the line. And this girl was claiming she'd handled it?
Hermione caught the look and smiled. "I used a shortcut. But the outcome's the same, the Dark Dimension has no master."
She turned her wrist, and an ancient, worn tome appeared in her hand: the Book of Cagliostro, borrowed from Hannibal.
"Don't believe me?" She held it out. "Try it yourself. Use the book to reach into the Dark Dimension. See if anything answers."
Agatha looked at the Book of Cagliostro. Something complicated moved behind her eyes.
She knew this book. The forbidden text said to hold the secrets of the Dark Dimension. She hadn't imagined it would be sitting in this witch's hands.
Skeptical, half-convinced she was being played, she took it. She drew a slow breath and began to chant.
As the incantation built, a mark surfaced on Agatha's forehead, purple-black, shaped like an eye, pulsing with chaotic, massive energy. The unmistakable signature of the Dark Dimension.
She closed her eyes. She reached her awareness into the mark and called out that name, carefully, like pressing a finger against a bruise.
Silence.
The Dark Dimension was still there. Vast and churning, soaked in primordial energy that called to her like a siren song. But there was no will behind it. No presence. No intelligence. Just raw power with nothing at the center.
Dormammu, the being who had ruled that dimension for untold ages, the one even the Ancient One had moved carefully around, was gone.
Really, truly gone.
"It's real." Agatha's eyes flew open. "The Dark Dimension is actually masterless!"
Ecstasy hit her like a wave and tore every careful thought right out of her head.
A masterless Dark Dimension. Do you understand what that meant?
Infinite dark energy, completely unclaimed. If she could take hold of it, forget the Scarlet Witch. Even if the Ancient One came back from the dead, Agatha would meet her at the door.
Her whole body was shaking. The look she turned on Hermione had gone bright and hungry and very, very warm.
Then the book in her hands went light.
Hermione had taken it back. Smoothly. Without a word.
Agatha's expression froze.
Her hand shot out on reflex, reaching for it, and stopped cold, arm suspended halfway up, going nowhere.
Reason caught up with instinct.
This witch had taken down Dormammu. Even by a trick, even sideways, that meant she could crush Agatha without working up a sweat. Their earlier exchange had felt almost even, but Agatha had burned through everything she had, including the Darkhold. Meanwhile, Hermione had looked comfortable the entire time. There were cards she hadn't played. Terrifying ones, probably.
Whatever magic could kill the master of the Dark Dimension, Agatha was fairly certain she wouldn't survive one use of it.
Hunger and self-preservation slammed into each other at full force.
In the end, she decided she wanted both.
Which meant what she had to do next was obvious.
➤ Next: Wanda and Tom Riddle
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