The Sorceress's Resolve and New Beginning

Late at night on Wood Thorn Street.

Four women sat in Emma's room.

The oldest was in her early forties, while the youngest looked no more than sixteen or seventeen.

Michelle, her brown hair framing a face still pale from injury and bandages wrapped around her body, asked weakly, "What was so urgent that you called us here this late, Sister Superior?"

Sefni had suddenly messaged all four of them and asked them to come to Emma's home for a meeting.

Dora had black hair and a face horribly eaten away by some kind of drug, leaving it covered in scars. "Who knows?" she said with a dark, nervous laugh. "Maybe she wants us all to kill ourselves together."

Annie, whose chestnut hair fell around a face marked by four scars, hugged a patched-up doll and murmured, "It might be good news."

Lisa, an ordinary middle-aged woman beside her, gave a self-mocking smile. "Is there any such thing as good news for us these days?"

"I just heard they've started another crackdown."

"They're searching for hidden Ecstasy Witches."

Annie looked puzzled. "Why?"

Lisa scoffed. "Wasn't the Charity Aid Society attacked a few days ago?"

"The investigation says the Sisters of Pleasure ordered it. They want to round up every last one of us!"

Dora gave a chilling smile. "Then we die. It's not like there's any point in living."

Since her disfigurement, Dora had grown deeply withdrawn and had developed a strong urge to destroy herself.

Michelle was still more or less herself, though her wounds had yet to heal. "Same old trick," she said weakly. "Blame everything on us."

"That's how the powerful operate," Lisa said. "I heard the Alliance came up with its own findings too."

"They say the Revolutionary Army carried out the terrorist attack. Now they're