Updated Apr 13, 2026 • ~4 min read
Chapter 21: The Medallion
The Collector
The Collector feels the moment the medallion is moved, feels the disturbance in their anchor like a string being plucked, and they smile because Sage Thornwood and her pathetic allies think they’re being clever, think they have a plan, think they can actually win.
How delightfully naive.
The Collector has been preparing for this confrontation since the moment they let Sage escape five years ago—not by accident, not by her skill, but by deliberate choice, because the Collector needed her to grow stronger, needed her to refine her power through trauma and isolation, needed her to become exactly powerful enough to complete the ritual.
And now she’s walking directly into the trap, bringing her allies with her, making this so much easier than the Collector anticipated.
“Tomorrow,” the Collector murmurs, alone in their sanctuary, surrounded by centuries of stolen power. “Tomorrow I take the Thornwood witch and become truly immortal.”
They move through their preparations methodically—the ritual circle is ready, the binding chains are prepared, the absorption spell is perfected—and by dawn everything will be in place for Sage Thornwood to walk into her own execution.
The medallion is indeed the anchor, just as Sage’s research concluded. But what she doesn’t know—what she can’t know, because the Collector has hidden it too well—is that destroying the medallion won’t weaken them.
It’ll release them.
The Collector has been using the medallion as a limiter for decades, keeping their power contained enough to avoid detection by magical authorities, maintaining just enough humanity to plan and scheme and hunt effectively.
But destroy the medallion, remove the limiter, and the Collector’s full power—two hundred years of accumulated witch magic, unrestricted and uncontained—will be unleashed.
Sage thinks she’s removing the Collector’s anchor.
She’s actually removing their leash.
The Collector laughs, and the sound echoes through their empty house, through rooms that have seen too much death and will see more tomorrow.
They pull out the scrying mirror one last time, focusing on Sage’s apartment, and they see her sleeping peacefully with the human curse-breaker, both of them tangled together in post-coital contentment, and the Collector commits the image to memory.
This is what hope looks like. This is what love looks like. This is what they’re going to destroy.
“Sleep well, little witch,” the Collector whispers. “Enjoy your last night with your human pet. Because tomorrow, I’m going to make you watch while I drain him dry. And then I’m going to take everything you are and add it to my collection.”
They can feel Sage’s power even through the scrying mirror—hereditary magic refined through seven generations, strengthened by loss, honed through years of defensive preparation. It’s going to taste exquisite.
The Collector has waited two hundred years for this moment. They’ve killed hundreds of witches, absorbed countless magical legacies, survived when they should have died, transformed themselves into something beyond human.
And tomorrow, with Sage Thornwood’s power added to their collection, they’ll finally transcend the limitations that have plagued them for two centuries.
True immortality. Permanent power. Freedom from the degradation cycle.
They’ll be unstoppable.
Sage and her allies think they’re the hunters.
But the Collector has always been ten steps ahead, planning contingencies, preparing traps, ensuring that no matter what Sage tries, the outcome is inevitable.
She’s already lost. She just doesn’t know it yet.
The Collector turns away from the scrying mirror and begins the final preparations—sharpening the absorption spell, reinforcing the ritual circle, preparing backup bindings in case Sage proves more difficult than anticipated.
By the time the sun rises, everything is ready.
The stage is set. The trap is baited. The prey is walking willingly to slaughter.
And the Collector, who has survived for two hundred years through cunning and ruthlessness and absolute refusal to lose, is going to claim their final victory.
“Come to me, Sage Thornwood,” the Collector commands the empty air. “Come with your hope and your love and your determination. Come thinking you can save everyone. And I’ll show you exactly how powerless you’ve always been.”
Tomorrow, the Thornwood line ends.
Tomorrow, Nathaniel Thorne becomes truly immortal.
Tomorrow, everything the Collector has worked for finally comes to fruition.
They can hardly wait.
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