A/N: Shoutout to the other amazing Hades and Persephone Bonkai fics, concept art, gifs, etc, out there (especially Him and Her by JusticeRecieved which is legendary). I know this isn't a new idea, but the edgy mythology-obsessed fourteen year old in me really wanted to do this anyway. It might go without saying, but, uh, some warnings. This gets a little fucked up. In many ways. But if you're into Bonkai, do you really need me to tell you that? You filthy animals? Enjoy.

XXX

There's a field in Mystic Falls where flowers grow year-round. Tulips, in shades of blushing red, dusty purple, burnt orange. Bright sunflowers that grow taller than the trees. Little violets that shoot from the ground, tender and unassuming. Morning glories that somehow don't shy away from the setting sun. Even in the dead of winter, the field remains stubbornly green. Bonnie Bennett has decreed it so.

When she was four years old, people say, she made a rose grow straight up out of her palm. Its bud was soft as silk, but its thorns made a mess of her hand. She had walked calmly to her mother, dripping blood and petals through the house as she went, and asked for a bandage that wouldn't hurt the flower. Never had anyone seen magic like that from someone so young, especially not Abby Bennett.

If she was overprotective, it was only because the world is a dangerous place. If she kept her daughter tightly leashed, it was only to shelter her.

And now Bonnie is hardly a young girl anymore, and it's not just her magic that fascinates anymore, but the hillside curve of her hips and breasts. Her skin, smooth and brown as the branches of sapling trees. Her eyes an eerie shade of green.

But still Abby follows her to the field, every time, and watches warily from the edges as her daughter roams. Bonnie walks lazily, rolling her fingers over every leaf, every bud, as if coaxing them awake.

Perhaps her mother would be more afraid yet if she knew who—knew what—else watches, from miles underground.

XXX

Kai Parker is buried alive.

He's not technically sure if he is alive, actually. He's died so many times now that the distinction has become unnecessary. He died first when his family sent him underground, when the dirt pressed down on him from all sides, in his throat, in his eyes, under his nails. When worms and maggots crawled over him, inside him, but finally found his flesh unpalatable.

He died when he found the others, dead, buried beneath the earth with only stray bones and petrified marrow to prove that they were once human.

He died whenever he tried to escape from his prison, every time he remembered the sun on his face or soft grass below him.

He died whenever he forgot, temporarily, that he was a dead thing already.

He was once promised a kingdom someday, and so he has it: his kingdom is an empty cave, his subjects the long dead and the long forgotten.

Sometimes he thinks he's less a king, more a pale spider in his lair, his skin chalk white, his frame hollowed and stretched. Wearing dark rags that fade him into the background, coaxing him to disappear.

But his hands still work. That's something.

His hands, which once stirred fire and water and destroyed what he pleased, now are forced to create, for there is nothing below the ground to destroy.

He can conjure food and drink from nothing. He can create worlds for himself, insubstantial as the air, but amusing enough. He can make the dead talk to him, or pretend to. He can watch the world above his head unfold like a tedious, unending stage play.

The only thing he cannot do, in fact, is leave.

So he watches. He watches the girl miles above him who makes a garden wherever she walks, the girl with an easy smile and a soft heart, the girl who is somehow more beautiful than all the flowers in her field could ever dream to be.

How he hates her.

XXX

It's the height of summer, with her flowers gaudily in bloom.

Kai watches as she flutters—not walks, she flutters like leaves on the wind—around her garden, her mother keeping her faithful, wary watch. The same as always.

She's wearing a dress of palest pink today, her hair down around her shoulders. She's touching the petals of sunset-colored tulips, tall and bold tiger lilies, and making them all brighter. She's feeling bold today.

There's many things he hates about her, but this the most: her garden. Her perfect little Eden where everything is beautiful, everything is bright. For years he's watched her chase away weeds with a wrinkle in her flawless brow. It worries her, the things she can't control.

If only you knew, he thinks, his thoughts bitter as her roots. If only you knew.

He hates her mother's protective and careful love. He hates the ease in her step. He hates the way life gives her everything.

He wants to rip it all apart.

And there's nothing he can do to her from so far below, no way to reach her, make her feel what he has felt.

And yet, somehow, he does.

On this day, he watches her as her feet carry her further and further away from her mother's watchful eyes. She steps into an overgrown area of her garden, hidden by lilac bushes, willing something else to grow, but she doesn't know what. She wants fruit to burst from her garden, but somehow it never does. She frowns. She's a petulant child, used to getting her way.

And something poisonous is building in Kai's mind, as it has for every day he's watched her. He imagines tearing into her chest, pulling out her sickly sweet heart. Sticking her with thorns until she's drained and dead like him. Dragging her down below the earth until she withers like a weed in the dark.

His fists clench. There's a rumbling above him like thunder. The dirt above his head is shifting.

Bonnie feels the grass beneath her bare feet. She leans down to touch her fingertips to it and feels it shaking, like a faraway earthquake. The ground is sinking. She looks down, and sees nothing, because it's all fallen away. The garden, the grass, the sky and the sun, they've all fallen away. And her with them.

She tumbles through dark and dirt for miles, and she can't breathe, can't see, can't feel the life flickering under her fingertips and she's dead, she's dead, she must be, until she's finally through and gasping on a hard stone ground.

Kai stands before her, frozen. Staring at what his hands have done. In his own mind, in his own world, he's created palaces and wastelands, danced with royalty and killed them, too. But this seems real. She seems real.

Her pale pink dress is dirty and ruined, her hair tangled over her face. Her legs spread open with her skirt up around her thighs, but she doesn't seem aware of this. She's coughing, trying to rub the dirt from her eyes, and she doesn't see him.

Above their heads, the earth has sealed back around them. As if nothing had changed. Kai wonders if that was his doing, too. He has no idea. No idea of what he's capable of now. He still half thinks his mind is tricking him.

He crouches down beside her, his hand outstretched. Living creatures are unfamiliar to him now, after so many years. He reaches for a lock of her hair, tugs it gently through his fingers. It's soft like he thought it would be. Almost hurts, how soft it is.

She jerks beneath him, aware of his sudden intrusion, and she brushes her arm frantically over her eyes to try to clear them, but she does not stand. She seems too frightened to trust the ground beneath her.

His finger softly traces her collarbone, the curve of her neck. He feels the subtle hair on her arms and marvels at the warmth of her. That he hadn't imagined her, after all.

But her eyes snap open now, red and bleary, and take in the pale creature in dark rags before her, and she screams in terror.

He presses a hand over her mouth to try to stop her. Please, I'm trying to think, stop that now.

But she claws at his fingers and kicks him away. Her teeth bite into the flesh of his palm and he lets go, skittering backwards to another corner of his cave.

At last she stands, her dress tumbling back over her body, and she presses her hands to the stone wall behind her and lets out a terrible wail, one that echoes endlessly over them.

"Help! Help me!" Bonnie yells to the hidden sky. She doesn't take her eyes from Kai, afraid of him making any sudden movement, of him putting his cold hands on her again. "Mom! Help me!"

"She can't hear you," he says quietly, but the noise still makes her stop and stare. She didn't expect words of any kind of from him. She sets her jaw, her eyes still wild.

"Where am I?" she says.

Kai's wide mouth tilts up in a smirk. Laughing at his own little joke.

"The underworld," he says.

XXX

She doesn't give in easily, he'll give her that. For hours she shrieks and tries to climb the walls of stone and dirt until her fingernails are broken, one by one, and she's coated in damp earth, until she's almost as horrible and stained a thing as he was. Is.

He watches her curiously from the sidelines. He hadn't thought a girl so tender and fragile, with her soft rose petals and her cautious shadow of a mother, would have this much fight in her. How nice it is, after all this time, to have somebody to surprise him.

Eventually, inevitably, her strength is spent and her legs give out from under her. She sinks to the ground, with only the aftershocks of sobs wracking her body. Her arms wrap around her middle, and she turns away from him. A childish gesture. If I can't see you, you're not real.

His head perks up, leans to one side. Slowly, slowly, he crawls back towards her. Careful not to startle her now. The damp earth swallows any sound he might make. She's shivering violently, her breath coming in shuddering fits. She might even be dying. It's interesting, strangely intimate, watching someone die. He knows from experience.

He reaches out, touches his palm to her shoulder. Her skin is colder now. And she gasps again, a spasm of breath, but seems to be too tired to draw away. Instead she collapses further in on herself, a flower trying to turn back to a tiny and thoughtless seed.

And he must admit, he feels the smallest shimmer of what might be pity, watching this living, dying thing. Remembers how it is to be suddenly taken from the sunlight.

Perhaps this is why he takes his hand away, gently skimming the length of her spine as he does. And he turns his instruments instead on the cave itself, twisting the weak light and mounds of dirt and rock into something else.

It's a complex illusion, but he's had a lifetime of practice. Slowly, the cave expands. Its walls become marble columns. The dirt beneath them becomes shiny and smooth. There are firey torches, bronzed tables and chairs. Pillows of delicate silk and tapestries hung on the walls. There's a golden throne atop a high platform, and a huge empty hall before it.

"Look," Kai tells her, and she opens her eyes.

She blinks slowly at first, her eyes adjusting to the unexpected light. But then she turns, opening herself up again. Her eyes become wide.

Her exhaustion forgotten, she rises. Hears her bare feet tap against the polished floor. She runs her hand against the wall, over the woven tapestries. She can feel heat coming from the torches when she brings her hand near.

She spins in place, her eyes dancing. She runs to the throne, skimming her hand over the smooth golden finish. Looks up and sees a mural on the ceiling, its shine tarnished as if it can't quite fight the earth above it.

It seems to be only now that she remembers Kai is there. Her eyes find him again, still crouched on what was moments ago the dirty ground.

"You made this," she says, and it's not a question. It's an acknowledgement. She knows very well that it's an illusion, and a skilled one at that. He can feel her gaze finally take in his face, the sharp jaw, the sunken but still bright eyes. He's aware that his face was once handsome. She's realizing that he's a person, or something like it.

He nods, and she continues to float around the room, finally settling in the golden throne at the center of it all. She looks up at the ceiling again, considering it.

"You like it," he says, and it's not a question, either.

XXX

Somewhere, miles above them, Bonnie's mother is conducting a frantic search. She's calling to her sisters, anyone who will listen, grasping for their hands. They're standing vigil, in the midst of a locator spell that leads nowhere, time and time again.

"Start over."

"Abby, we've tried—"

"I said start over."

"You're only draining your energy. This isn't working. There has to be something else—"

Abby turns, her eyes wild. They're brown, her eyes. She still doesn't know where the green of her daughter's eyes came from. Sometimes she still scrys late at night, after Bonnie has gone to sleep, with the same shameful question on her lips: What is she?

"My daughter has not disappeared off of this earth. She's out there somewhere, scared and calling out to me. And I'm going to keep trying to hear her until it works. Until something, somewhere will tell me where my baby girl is. Unless you have a better suggestion."

The other witches cast their gaze down, falling silent. Chastened. They grasp Abby's hands and begin the spell again.

XXX

Somehow, Bonnie has fallen asleep. She can't remember having done it. And to her surprise, when she wakes, she feels silk sheets under her. A bed softer than hers at home.

There's marble and gold still wrapped around her from all sides, a fire burning in a hearth across the room.

When she sees Kai sitting in a chair across from her bed, she doesn't start. She'd felt him watching her.

He's still at odds with the decadent palace, with his filthy hands and emaciated figure. He's conjured a brass plate heaped full of brown bread which he sets on his lap, and a chalice full of red wine at his side. He chews thoughtfully as he watches her. It occurs to her that he could cast an illusion over himself, too, if he chose. To make himself appear more palatable, more human. Strange that he doesn't.

"Is it morning?" she asks.

"Hard to say," he replies. "I stopped keeping track about a millennia ago."

She smiles a little, though she can't tell if he's telling a joke or not. She sits up slowly, carefully. She pauses before speaking.

"All this...it is beautiful." She runs her fingers over the sheets, like water through her hands. She wants to seem languid, though her stomach is clenched. "You must be very powerful."

He says nothing. He takes the chalice up, swallows wine in a large gulp. Some of it runs red down his chin, and he doesn't wipe it off.

"Powerful enough to get me back to the surface. Don't you think?"

He sets the chalice down with a rueful grin. "Ah. That's what all the flattery's about. Should have guessed."

Bonnie gathers the sheets around her protectively, but doesn't look away.

"Maybe I could return you to your mother and your garden," says Kai thoughtfully. "But...why should I?"

"Because she'll be worried about me," she says carefully. "Because I don't belong here."

"Mmm," he shrugs, unimpressed.

"Because I don't want to stay here," Bonnie says, more loudly. Her temper is rising in the face of his awful cold calm. Perhaps she was wrong before. Perhaps he's not a person after all.

"You've hardly been here five minutes. Give it a chance. Maybe I could convince you," says Kai. His sharp eyes dance in the firelight.

"I don't need convincing, you piece of shit, I need to go home." Bonnie rises from the bed, throwing off his too-soft sheets.

"You're the most interesting thing that's happened to me in centuries," he says. "You don't like it here? Pick a place. I'll make it for you. Come on, Bonnie. Yes, Bonnie, I know your name. I'm Kai, by the way." He stands, offering her the plate of bread. "Eat something. You know you want to."

With a swing of her arm, she pushes the plate out of his hands. It makes an ear-splitting crash as it hits the floor and sends the bread scattering.

She sees his anger flare briefly, but only because she was watching for it. It appears like a deadly spark in his eyes and is swallowed up again in an instant, as if into a black hole. He appears coldly amused, unbothered.

"Fine. Suit yourself," he says. And just as he says it, the room around her dissolves. The walls melt away, the warmth of the fire leaves them both, and they are once again in the middle of a dark and deep cave.

Before she can even open her mouth to protest, Kai himself seems to melt away, too. His stark features give way to empty air, and Bonnie is left standing alone.

Hunger rises in her now, as if to mock her defiance. But she doesn't show it. She knows he's still there, and that he's still watching. She won't give him the satisfaction.

XXX

Nothing grows down here. Bonnie finds that out quickly. Or rather, things can grow, they can be coaxed into being with her hands, only to arrive out of the soil pale yellow and sickly and already half-dead. She grows a tiny violet, unbudded and stunted, and quickly plucks it, gobbles it up greedily. It tastes like bitter pith.

She's almost unbearably thirsty now, after three days of this. But far too stubborn to call to him. It doesn't matter. He seems to know anyway.

He arrives like a ghost out of the darkness, a flask full of water in his hand.

"Enjoying your feast?" he asks, holding out the water to her.

"Better than anything you could offer," she hisses, but grabs the flask roughly and takes a long drink. The water is cool and clear. When she's had her fill, she pours the rest over her face and neck, enjoying the brief sensation of feeling clean.

"Is this real?" she asks him. It feels so perfectly fresh, so...perfect. She could almost close her eyes and forget where she is.

"As real as anything here," he says.

"Well, you might as well show me more, while I'm stuck here," she says. She stretches out her arms behind her, looking up at him with petulant impatience. "Show me something really impressive this time."

She expects him to argue, but he doesn't. He reaches out a cold hand and pulls her to her feet.

"All right," he says, grinning at the challenge. He turns his head, and the cave begins to change. It fills with bright light. The air turns to bitterly cold wind, with the smell of snow on the air. The ground shifts beneath them, becomes jagged and unsteady. They're standing at the very top of a mountain, looking down at a cover of clouds and the rocks down below.

Bonnie stumbles and almost falls, but Kai has her by the hand and pulls her back. She's shivering uncontrollably, and she hates that she is. She wants to be untouched by the things he does.

"Impressed yet?" he asks, with a smirk.

"I'd be more impressed," she says through her chattering teeth, "If you could really fall off this mountain to your death. I'd be ecstatic then."

"You're more than welcome to try, Bonnie dearest."

She looks down at the sharp rocks and ice below. And she knows it's not real, she knows. But it's difficult to convince her shaking legs of that. She stays rooted to the spot, pressed against him.

Kai smiles indulgently. "How about a change of scenery, then?" he says. The harsh winds begin to lose their force, and the landscape resettles itself again. This time they're standing on an empty beach, the sun warm overhead. The water is a clear, bright blue. Palm trees reach overhead, and Bonnie can smell the salt as the water crashes against the shore.

Bonnie steps away from his grasp, steady on her feet again, and closes her eyes as she listens to the waves. It would be perfectly serene, if not for the fact that she can feel Kai watching her.

"This is all right," she says, the corner of her lips drawing up.

"Just all right?" he laughs. She's never heard him laugh. It makes something in her stomach twist. "Fine, then. Let's try another."

Bonnie can hear crickets chirping, leaves rustling. The light is a dusty purple, the air sweet and warm. She opens her eyes, and sees they're at the edge of an overgrown forest, and the sun is slowly going down.

She heaves a sigh. She could cry at the feeling of the soft grass under her feet, and she twirls on the spot, taking it in. There are even flowers—flowers! Overgrown at the base of the trees. Their petals are sharp and pale white. Bonnie's never seen a bloom quite like it.

"Nice, isn't it?" Kai says. He gazes at the scene with satisfaction. "I thought you might like it."

Bonnie doesn't listen. She's already sunk to her knees in the grass, working with her hands to bring forth something new. It's been agony not to be able to create. She'll make a raspberry bush, maybe, or lilac. Something sweet-smelling and fresh, something familiar and alive.

But it doesn't come. Just as before, the plant tries to spring up, tender shoots breaking through the soil, but before it can grow to meet her outstretched hand, it withers and dies.

"Bonnie—" Kai begins hesitantly.

She ignores him and lets out a sigh of frustration before standing up again. She springs to the nearest tree, a pine with soft needles trembling in the breeze, determined to make her magic work. She runs her fingers over a few needles, not even really sure what she wants to see happen. To make them turn purple, or grow fruit, or to turn into something else altogether. But nothing happens. She tries again and again, her mind scrambling for a tether to her power, but still nothing.

"It won't work," he says coldly. "Nothing grows here."

She runs to another tree, tries again and again to bring something to life. But the tree stays as it is, a stubborn unmoving thing. Like a stage set of a forest, a pretty, lifeless painting.

Kai follows after her, finally grabbing her by the shoulder. "Stop," he says.

She jerks herself violently out of his grip. "I hate this place," she spits. "This hollow...nothing." She reaches over, tears at the bark on the tree with her fingernails. It yields to her, coming off in rough sheets, but it tears back at her, and now her fingers are bleeding.

"This...pointless…" she turns frantically, looking for something she can destroy. She snaps branches from the tree, tears the leaves off and rips them to shreds. She tears up handfuls of grass from the ground, kicks at the dirt below her.

"Stop it!" Kai says.

He grabs for her, catching her around the waist and hauling her back, and she's still scratching at him and anything she can reach.

With difficulty, he manages to turn her around to face him, pinning down her arms, all the while shouting back at her. "Bonnie. Bonnie! Enough!"

"Let go of me!" she says. "What do you care? You can just remake it. None of it's real anyway."

"Easy for you to say," Kai says. He's shaking her, and Bonnie's not sure if he knows he's doing it. His grip is starting to hurt. "Easy for you to say, when you have the whole world up there! This is all I have!"

She stops struggling. This crack in his cool demeanor is satisfying, in a sick way. She watches him, that spark in his eyes blazing.

"You have nothing," she says relentlessly. "It's pretty, but it's nothing but a lie."

Bonnie feels him twitch. She thinks for a minute he'll strike her across the face. Instead he releases his grip, and she stumbles backwards.

The world they're in begins to blur at the edges. The trees are beginning to collapse in on themselves.

"You're tired of pretty things, then?" he says, and his voice is low and deathly quiet. "There are other things I can show you."

As if with a bitter gust of wind, the forest and the sunset disappear. They're back in the cave, surrounded by dark and by silence. Alone again.

Almost.

Bonnie looks around her. She's hearing someone crying. Choking. In the far corner of the cave, there's a girl with dark hair hunched on the ground where before there was nothing at all.

Bonnie looks to Kai, questioning. His eyes have gone cold again, and he gives her no answer. He inclines his head as if to say, go ahead, see for yourself.

She doesn't want to see. She's afraid of whatever this thing Kai has dreamed up will do to her, show to her. But curiosity drives her forward. She approaches the girl.

As she comes closer, she notices that the girl is surrounded by a mound of freshly turned earth. She sits atop a pile of it, and her clothes are stained as if she's been rolling in it. Bonnie can see she's sobbing from the convulsive rise and fall of her shoulders, but her face is still turned away.

Instinctively, Bonnie reaches out a hand to the girl's shoulder. "Are you all right?" she asks.

The girl turns suddenly, and Bonnie jerks her hand away in horror.

"Help me, please," the girl sobs. "Please. I'm so hungry." With shaking hands, the girl reaches into the dirt, picks up messy fistfuls and crams them into her mouth. She retches against it, but continues chewing and swallowing as if she's been starved for weeks, gone half-mad from it.

Bonnie's frozen in place, watching with grim fascination. The girl reaches out to her again, her hands filthy with dirt, with spit and tears. "You're a kind girl," she says frantically, clawing for Bonnie's hand. "A kind girl. You'll help me, won't you? You'll make it go away?"

Bonnie scrambles away, not wanting to let the girl touch her. "What is this?" she says, turning to Kai. He's watching from a distance, his expression inscrutable.

"It's my sister," he says. The girl caves back in on herself, crying quietly.

"Make it go away." Bonnie says, her face twisted as she watches the girl. Now she sees the girl's eyes, pale blue, just like Kai's. They have the same nose, same sharp jaw. "Make it go away!"

Kai, somewhat surprisingly, obeys. He waves his hand and the image of the girl vanishes. The cave is quiet again.

"That...what do you mean that was your sister?" Bonnie asks him, her heart still pounding feverishly.

"My family were the ones who sent me down here," he says. "My brothers, my sister...my father. They left me here to rot. So I came up with fitting punishments for them. To feel what I felt. My twin sister here, she'll be starving forever, with nothing but dirt to eat."

"And your father?" asks Bonnie.

Kai's mouth quirks upward on one side, an almost involuntary movement. Not a smile at all. "My father…"

He nods to something behind Bonnie's back, making it appear, and when she turns she sees it—him—splayed out on the ground before her.

It hardly looks like a person. Though with a few long moments of observation, she begins to see traits that give the figure away. It has no eyes, but eye sockets it does have. Flesh peeling away shows the places where bones fit together: a leg to a hip, a hand to an arm. The mouth is intact enough for her to see it has been sewn shut.

And crawling on every inch of the thing, pallid white and squirming, are maggots. Slowly eating away at whatever flesh it has left.

Bonnie feels a wave of nausea sweep over her, bending her over. She takes a few frantic gulps of air and straightens. Kai waits for her to recover in silence. The wave leaves her, and in its place is a horrible curiosity, an inability to look away. She steps forward, closer to the thing on the ground. She wants to see what it is clearly.

As she comes closer to the body, it jumps suddenly out at her, and she recoils in terror. She does not scream, though. She can't seem to find enough breath for it.

The thing is tied to the ground, and was only able to thrust its rotting body forward a little bit. But that's not what troubles her, what makes her legs shake. The body lets out a muffled moan, and she can't help but wonder how and why this thing is alive. Illusion or no.

"Pleasant guy, isn't he?" Kai says from behind her. "He's a little worse for wear by this time of day. See, every morning he wakes with all his precious skin and organs intact. And every day he gets them slowly eaten away. He feels everything. By the end of the day he's nothing but bones. And then he starts the next morning again, good as new."

Bonnie backs up against a cave wall, leans against the cold stone a little. Her legs won't stop shaking.

"It's always the eyes that seem to bother him the most," Kai says thoughtfully. "I usually leave his mouth for that part, so he can still scream."

"But it's not real," she says. She gulps for air. "They're not real."

"No," he says. "Sadly. I don't know what my real family is doing. They've hidden themselves from me. Maybe they're dead. But does it really matter?"

Bonnie looks back at the mess of a man on the ground. The man who doesn't exist. She's never seen something so horrible, so fascinating. She's feeling lightheaded, as if she could step and float away.

Instead she steps towards the wrecked body again, and this time she's ready for it to move, but it doesn't. She moves closer. Something makes her want to touch the rotten skin, feel the texture of it, the way it might give way for her. It won't hurt her, she knows. She tells herself. But I can hurt it.

She looks over at Kai. He's watching her with naked captivation.

"He could be nicer to look at," she says slowly. "If you help me…"

"What did you have in mind?" he asks.

"Daisies," she says. "Daisies would be nice."

Kai nods indulgently. Bonnie drags a finger across what used to be the man's forehead. And from her touch, a daisy sprouts from his skin, bright yellow and white. She giggles. She touches him again, and another flower sprouts instantly. And another. Another. There's a garden popping out of his head.

Soon she's laughing hysterically as flowers pop up at her command: from his eye sockets, from the palms of his hands, from his groin, from the top of his head. Kai might even be laughing too. She can barely tell, with the whirl of flowers and maggots in her eyes. She's laughed so much now she might be sick.

She stumbles, gasping for breath, and she finds Kai's hands in hers, fingers twining lazily like vines. They feel smooth and strong. And they aren't cold now.

XXX

He could have taken her then. He could have had her gasping under his hands, amidst the horror he'd created, and they both would have come undone. The thought occurs to him suddenly, violently.

It's a little surprising, actually. Kai finds his desire dispassionately interesting, like the quiet movement of the insects in his cave. But it's only surprising because of a lack of use. He hasn't indulged that kind of fantasy in years. The interest faded and died away, like everything else. There were many times when he'd touch his own face and be surprised to still find flesh there, expecting bone, or dirt, or dust.

Kai can feel blood moving in him now. Rushing to his cheeks, his cock, making his heart pound feverishly.

But he doesn't touch her, just then. Or the next day when she asks to see his father again. Day by day, he becomes her entertainer, her genie, willing to grant her anything. He creates whatever lovely or horrible thing her imagination can conjure up. And when she's had her fill, he conjures the palace again, and she collapses into the bed he made just for her.

He watches her, her soft breathing, her slightly furrowed brow. Her hand made into a fist, clutching the bedsheets to her chest. Her angelic face would never betray anything wrong, anything unseemly or cruel or desperate for control in her. But Kai knows better now.

XXX

Bonnie's garden has finally seen the dead of winter. All the leaves shrunken and blown away, all the flowers frozen and cracked like glass. No animals, no birds or rabbits or foxes, dare to draw near as they once did, for fear that the cold will swallow them up, too.

And so it will stay, until Bonnie is returned home. The other witches left, defeated. They know the small chance of a lost person returning after this long. They know what it means when a person can't be located on this earth. It means that they have moved on to the next, where nobody can reach them.

But Abby stays, deaf to their careful words and hints. Bonnie is not dead. Cannot be dead. She is life itself, or hadn't they heard? But until she is returned, her garden will be cold as death. A reminder to anyone who dares pass by unaware. Abby Bennett has decreed it so.

XXX

The next time Kai wakes, Bonnie is in his throne.

She sits sideways, her legs swung over the golden arm. Her dark hair spreads across the other side. In her hands is something Kai can't quite make out until he comes closer.

"Comfortable?" he asks as he enters the hall. His voice echoes around the big, empty room, but she barely stirs.

He climbs up the stairs that make their way to the throne. She's holding a piece of bone, he sees now. A hip bone, maybe. She spins it slowly with her fingers, feeling the porous texture, the rough edges.

"Where did you get that?" he asks.

She turns her hands, and the thing disappears like smoke into the air.

"I've been practicing," she says, dropping her hands down.

Kai is slightly taken aback. It's been a very long time since he last encountered someone else with his ability. "I didn't know you knew how to make that kind of thing," he says.

"I didn't," Bonnie says. She levels her gaze at him, with those uncanny eyes of hers. "But I've been watching you. And I'm a fast learner."

"Apparently."

She looks back at her hands, twirling her fingers against nothing now. "My mother doesn't like illusions like that. I think she's afraid of them." She pauses, absent-minded. "She's afraid of a lot of things. New spells, and faraway places. Grimoires. Experiments." She stops again. "And me, I think."

Kai lets her words hang in the silence for a moment. "You don't seem afraid of those things," he says.

"No," she says, and the answer seems to surprise even her. "Maybe not."

He steps closer, still fascinated by the movement of her hands.

"Show me," he says. "Show me how you do that."

Bonnie slips out of her reclined posture, sitting like a model student now. She gives him an inquisitive look, but complies. With all her concentration drawn to the tips of her fingers, she draws a cut red rose out of thin air. It's a bud, just beginning to bloom, with drops of dew clinging to the petals. She offers it to him, with a small, sharp smile.

He takes it, carefully adjusting his hand so as not to catch on the thorns. It's immaculate, fresh and green as if it had just been picked. The smell of it makes him ache.

"Good, isn't it?" she says smugly. "It's not so hard, what you do."

She laughs. "I wonder if I could make daisies come out of your eyes."

She reaches a hand up to brush across his eyelids, to play with the toy she's quickly grown used to. But she seems to realize what she's doing as soon as her hand makes contact with his skin. His face is smooth and cool, like the marble floors. She slowly traces the outline of his jaw. She doesn't know why she does it. Kai holds his breath.

"Or make you into a mess on the floor…" Bonnie's eyes are half-lidded, her lips parted. She traces magic on his skin and it burns, just a little. She means it to.

"I think you could," he says, with a small smirk. "Your wish is my command, Bonnie Bennett."

"You're my servant, then?" she laughs. "Should I tell you to kneel before me?"

Kai cocks an eyebrow at her. Slowly, he lowers himself down on the steps until his head is at her knees.

At first she laughs again, at this little game they're playing. But then she falls silent.

It's a challenge. He wants to see what she will do. But it's also a supplication. His eyes slightly downturned, a calculated innocence on his face. He keeps his eyes fixed on hers as his hands go to her knees, shrouded under dirty pink fabric. He hears her draw in a sharp little breath. He waits.

Her legs are trembling. So she is afraid, a little. Not of him, exactly, but of what happens next. Of the warmth that pools in her lower stomach, between her legs, when he's barely even touched her. The thought of the hands now touching her deep in dirt, piling up bones, twisting a knife in somebody's gut, and how she doesn't care, because she has power over him. Her muscles tense and contract at the thought of it.

Slowly, not breaking their gaze, she spreads her legs for him, her knees parting against his hands in an almost defiant sort of way. He smiles up at her, that too-wide, hungry smile that feels more like a slap. But when he finds the hem of her skirt, pulls it up over her thighs, it's gentle, calculated.

Kai's lips are soft against her bare knee, his hands sliding so slowly up her legs. Bonnie feels like she's melting, dissolving into emptiness of the conjured room. She feels hot and cold in the places where he touches her, because he's sick and she's sick, and it feels good, and she wishes it didn't.

Slowly, he works his way up, dragging kisses up her thighs. Her skin is soft and lush, like the earth after a rain. He still hates it a little, hates the natural perfection of her. He also wants to drown in it. He pushes her dress further up, revealing delicate lacy fabric between her legs. Bonnie closes her eyes and tips her head back. If I can't see you, you're not real.

Kai bites her inner thigh, leaves an imprint of teeth on her skin. Like I've ever given a shit what's real.

He can smell her desire, heady and rich, can see her back arching. And when he speaks, his breath against her thigh makes her twitch.

"I like you in my seat," he says.

She doesn't respond, only mewls impatiently and grinds her hips forward.

He laughs, kisses her in the crease of her hip. He's teasing her a little, his mouth moving back and forth, his nose just missing her center that aches to be touched. Bonnie's hands have snaked off of the throne's arms. They're in his hair now, trying to draw him toward her.

She's so demanding, so accustomed to getting exactly what she wants. Secretly hoping someone won't give it to her, that she'll have to take it.

"...But now that I know you prefer the rougher things…" His breath is hot between her legs. She's barely listening to his words, wanting desperately for his mouth to meet her, annoyed because he's not being a good servant like he says he would be—

But just then, his hands move to her waist and he's lifting her up, up off of the throne, and when she comes back down again, it's on dark and rocky earth.

Kai releases her, and she stumbles backwards. She's lying on her back, her head spinning, staring at the cave ceiling.

Pushing herself up onto her elbows, Bonnie snarls at him. "Bastard," she says.

He falls to his hands and knees, grinning impishly as he reaches for her again. She slaps his hand away, but he's on top of her now, his arms a cage around her. She scratches, pushes against his chest, because how dare he, how dare he make her act like this, feel like this—

His head dips down to kiss her, and she lets out a whimper into his mouth. Her hands flatten against his chest. She melts into him. And he loses the will to play and go slowly now. Kai kisses her like he wants to eat her alive. Constantly hungry, constantly waiting, and there's no relief, but he remembers what it is to be ravenous. She tastes like harsh sunlight against the earth, scorching hot and painfully alive.

Bonnie wraps her hands over his shoulders, at the nape of his neck where his hair is surprisingly soft. She rakes her hand through all the way to his scalp, pulling him harshly closer.

Kai's lips move down, past her chin, hot against her neck. His hands trace the outline of her ribs. She likes the sound of his breath now, the way he's coming undone.

He rests his head in the hollow between her breasts, just for a moment. Trying to regain control. Her chest is heaving, too, and when he shifts slightly, bringing one of his legs between hers, she lets out a shuddering gasp. She squeezes her thighs together around him, grinding her hips down instinctively, and he lets out a soft laugh, watching her squirm.

She can feel him now, his cock hard against her thigh, and mingled fear and excitement swirl like ice-cold water in her stomach. She is really doing this.

But just then Kai brings his hands to the neckline of her ruined dress, tearing it open. He cups her bare breasts, runs his thumbs along her nipples, growing stiff under his touch. And Bonnie throws her head back, feeling the chill spread through her body, her hesitation drowned under an icy wave.

She lets out a soft moan, an ah that sounds close to pain or desperation. And gripping him with her legs, she flips them over, his back against the ground.

Kai's breath is knocked out for a moment when he hits the stone hard, and once again as she straddles him, her hips moving tentatively, curiously at first. He sucks in air through his teeth as she grinds down hard and achingly slow, a strange kind of fear spiking through his mind. That this will end too soon. That he'll die—really, truly die—when it's over. Kai can't remember the last time he felt afraid to die.

Bonnie drags her hands down, exploring his chest, his stomach. She enjoys the feeling of control, that she could do anything to him in this moment. Her eager servant, her captor, tormentor. She stops moving her hips and savors his groan of frustration.

"Bonnie—" he says. His hands go to her waistline, trying to regain that rhythm. But she grabs his wrists, smirking.

"Bring me back to the throne," she says.

He raises his head, his eyes clouded with desire. "What? Bon, just—" he tries to move her again, but she bends his wrists back until he yelps in pain.

"Make me the palace again, Kai," says Bonnie.

He groans, but then looks up at her again, flashing her a rueful smile. "Why should I?"

She turns her hips in a harsh O, and Kai gasps, his head tipping back.

"Don't make me ask again," she says. Her eyes flash dangerously, but a smile still plays at her lips. With a flash of her fingers, she conjures another illusion, reaching up at them from the ground. Green vines burst through the dirt and stone below and lash themselves around Kai's wrists, pinning his arms down. They reach down and grip his ankles tight. He jerks, tries to get free. Though he doesn't try all that hard. He laughs breathlessly, eager to be caught in her trap.

With her hands free, Bonnie continues her exploration, scratching her nails over Kai's chest. She traces his jutting hip bones and gently strokes the outline of his cock, still bulging underneath layers of dark rags. He twitches a little, drawing in a sharp breath.

"Kai—" she says, and she leans forward so they're nose to nose, her breasts pressing soft against his chest. "Are you going to do what I asked?"

She moves her hips again in a slow circle, and he can only whimper her name. "Bonnie, come on—"

"Mmm," she says. And she pushes herself up, off him. She stands, gathering the shreds of her dress around herself again. He tries to break free of her vines, harder this time.

"Bonnie!" he says, and the desperation in his voice is surprising, even to him. She stands with her back turned to him, brushing the dirt off her arms and legs. A secret smile budding across her face.

"Okay, fine, fine, you win, okay?" he says. He spreads his hands, palms open to the ceiling, and the castle returns as if with a fierce gust of wind. The golden walls, the torches, the marble floors, and the throne. All as if they'd never left.

She turns, examining the room with a critical eye. Kai is still bound by her vines. She goes to the wall, feels the texture of it. She passes her hand over one of the torches. When she's satisfied, she releases her vine illusion back into the ground, turning to Kai with a hard, imperious look in her eyes.

He scrambles to stand upright again, and when he does, he stalks toward her, impatient, his eyes alight.

"Was that fun for you?" he asks, backing her against the gleaming wall.

She laughs. "Yes, actually, it was."

He's drawn closer and closer, and her hands wrap over his shoulders like it's the most natural thing in the world.

"Enough playtime, then?" he says. He holds her firmly by the waist and lifts her off of her feet to kiss her again, but she tips her head down and away, his lips just grazing her cheek. He pulls back, examining her face.

"Not like that," she says. Her head turns and her eyes flick over meaningfully to the empty throne at the center of the room.

Kai catches her glance and smiles quizzically. He releases her onto the ground, but keeps a tight grip on her arm as he leads her up the steps to his seat.

When they arrive, he looks back at her as if awaiting instruction, which she is only too happy to provide.

"Sit," she says, and he does.

Bonnie stands before him, taking in the sight of him, this wretched powerful thing in this palace and prison. This desperate king. His cheeks flushed with blood she wasn't sure he had, still achingly hard as he watches her.

She pulls her skirt up around her waist, and pulls down her underwear, kicking them off of her bare feet.

And slowly, she positions herself over him. They both moan as she straddles him, presses herself against his chest fully. She rolls her hips experimentally, feeling his breath catch as she does. She reaches under his clothes for his cock. Her eyes never leave his as she presses the length of him against her center, warm and swollen and wet.

She lowers herself down on him, takes him in. Kai grips the gilded armrests, knuckles almost turning white, because he could have come right then and there, with that commanding look in her uncanny eyes and the warmth of her surrounding him. But he waits. He wants to please her.

Bonnie rocks against him. She's never done this before. Though she is, as she said, an unnaturally fast learner. It's a new sensation, this being filled up, stretched at her core. She likes it. She likes how they both fit together; improbably, impossibly.

His hands are on her hips, steadying her, and when she moves faster, his grip tightens almost painfully. She feels as though she's riding to the edge of a cliff, something wonderful or terrible, or both, waiting for her in that fall through the air.

She's so close that she has to look away from him, has to turn her eyes to the golden ceiling. His thumb circles her clit, guiding her on, but it's not until Kai speaks, the words arriving as if torn out of his throat, that they both come in violent spasms that threaten to undo the illusion, tear the bottom out of the world:

"It's—yours, you know? It's all yours."

XXX

The Gemini coven are difficult to reach. By design.

Famously secluded, less famously cruel and unhinged. When they are mentioned, it's not usually in polite conversation.

But Abby Bennett finds a way, because she has to. She knew to come here the moment she laid her hands on Bonnie's garden, dug frantically under the layers of ice and snow, and felt something rotten underneath.

When she first appears before Joshua Parker, he laughs in her face.

"I don't see how your daughter's fate is my problem," he says. "You should keep better watch over your children. Bennetts. Always so troublesome."

She could have driven that self-satisfied smirk from his face. Should have. She's learned spells she would never tell Bonnie about, spells to boil the blood and twist the intestines into knots. Instead she settles for spitting in his face and storming out of his cold and quiet house.

She doesn't need his help. She'll reach Bonnie with a shovel and an axe if she has to.

But as it happens, Joshua Parker is not alone in the house. And before Abby can leave the sweeping lawn behind, she's caught on the arm of a dark-haired woman with pale blue eyes.

"I heard," she says, and her voice is low, sympathetic. "I'm Jo." A warmth that's been missing in Abby's chest begins, slowly, to creep back in.

XXX

It's quiet in the kingdom beneath the ground.

Days pass by, and Bonnie can't quite be sure how many. Sometimes she thinks the walls seem a bit darker and it must be night. Sometimes she thinks she hears the chirp of birds, that it has to be morning. But she's probably imagining it. All of it.

It's growing colder outside, that much she knows for sure. She can feel it, illusion or no, when she presses her hand against the cave's edges. She can almost feel the earth retract, the wind above her grow harsh.

She notices these things more, in Kai's absence.

She can still feel his hands on her waist, can still feel him inside her, hear the sound of their panting breath echo across the cavernous room.

Bonnie had gotten up quickly afterwards, disentangling herself from his grip. She wasn't sure what to do now. She tried to wrap her dress back around herself, but it just fell back down in tatters.

Her eyes were down at the ground. She felt almost afraid to look at him. It was strange.

She felt rather than saw him stand up from the throne, reach out a hand to her.

"Bonnie—" he said, and that's when she disappeared.

She hadn't realized she could do it. It was a tricky piece of illusion work, covering everything that could give away your presence, just like Kai had done before. But she'd wanted so badly to be by herself, and so she was.

She could see, as if through a veil, Kai's hand reaching at the air. Looking around for her. Could see him sigh and pace before disappearing into another room. The palace illusion stayed up. And Bonnie continued to hide.

She knows very well that he could find her if he really wanted to. She doesn't delude herself that much. But after a little while, she finds that he's hidden himself, too. Waiting for her to make the next move.

Fine, then. She wants the time to think. Quiet as it is.

Bonnie passes the time by practicing her illusions. She's gotten very good at pulling anything inanimate from thin air: a knife, a bunch of grapes, a new dress for her to wear (a dark wine red this time, so as not to show stains). She's been experimenting with life-like things, illusions that move and react. A bee she was able to do fairly easily, a small, fat one that buzzed cheerily from room to room. She had wanted to conjure a dog, but they were harder, and somehow always ended up with three heads.

Still, she's in the palace. The fire burning in the hearths, the throne looming at her like a tombstone. She wonders why he doesn't take that away.

And then one day, however many days later, she forgets to hide herself, or she grows tired of fighting it. And Kai arrives by her side again.

She sits on the floor in the hall, waving her hands idly as she makes a pretend plant. A new kind, a small tree with garish red flowers.

Bonnie feels his hands snake around her waist, locking over her stomach, before he says a word.

"Back from the dead, then." The words are a soft breath against her ear. "It was so boring without you."

"Really?" she says airily. "I was having such a nice time by myself. I barely noticed you weren't there."

Kai's teeth nip at her neck. "Don't lie," he says.

"I'll lie if I want to."

She feels his sharp smile against her skin. He turns to look up at her tree, growing in the center of the room.

"Is this what you've been working on this whole time?" he asks.

"This and other things," she says. "It's not like there's much to do down here."

He laughs, a hollow sound. "Yeah, I'd noticed that myself, Bon."

Bonnie has her hands raised still, poised to change her plant's sharp green little leaves. Make them brighter, or maybe softer. When she speaks, it's as if she's only half aware of what she's saying.

"You said this place was all mine. Here I can create whatever I want. I can make worlds, I can wipe them out. I can kill people, save people. Nobody to tell me I shouldn't or I can't."

"Yes," says Kai, his breath harsh against her neck.

"But I miss the sunlight. I miss real growing things. I miss my mother, Kai."

She can feel his hands loosen on her, just slightly. "You said yourself that she was afraid of you. Of what you can do. She was holding you back."

"And you would never do such a thing," Bonnie says, a bitterness coating each word.

He kisses her neck, cajoling. "I'm not afraid of you."

"You're afraid of me leaving."

She feels him twitch. "I'm— " He stops. Releases her. They're face to face now.

"Do you want to leave? Never come back?"

His face is blank. Another illusion. She can see the spite, the desperation in his eyes for the question he does not want to ask.

And even worse, she can't seem to answer it. The silence drags on, and she wishes she could spit a "yes" in his face. But she just can't. Nor can she answer "no" and give him the hope he craves so much and deserves so little. She struggles for the words to explain this, but she can't seem to find any.

"I…" she says, and her tone is turning petulant. "I want to finish this."

She turns back to her tree. It's almost as tall as her, with a plump, branching canopy of leaves.

But her lack of answer seems to suit Kai just fine. Indulgent, he asks, "What is it you're making?"

"I'm not sure." Bonnie has turned her attention to the soft-petaled red flowers. She holds one in her hand, its bloom long and reaching. She can't get them quite right. "I wanted to make something new."

"Is it real?"

She turns her half-lidded eyes to him for a moment. "As anything here," she says.

Just for a split second, Kai hears the note of defeat in her voice, and hates that sound more than he ever hated her. Because he never really did hate her, of course. He wishes, for a second, that he'd never brought her down here, never took away her sunlight. He wishes she were dead, or that he was alive.

And then the second passes.

Still, Kai decides to give her something else. With his hands, he conjures a ray of sunlight to shine on her little tree. Not real, of course. But as close as he can come.

He watches her eyes catch the golden light. She wraps her arms around herself, drinking in the warmth that she's felt separate from. Her eyes close.

Bonnie falls to her knees, her fingers stuck into the dirt, which she imagines—she believes—becomes softer with her touch. Water flows through the soil. She can almost hear the rain.

Slowly, she feels her way up her little tree. Feels its roots greedily soaking up the water. Feels the knotted, strong trunk, the long, thin little leaves. Life coursing through it all.

She reaches for one of the petals brushing at her fingertips, and as she does, she feels Kai's hand cover hers.

"Here," he's saying. "Let me try…"

He's changing something, she can feel the magic like a static charge through her hand. She can feel the bloom changing shape against her fingers.

And when she opens her eyes again, she sees the new creation, a fruit fitting neatly in her palm.

The outside is waxy and hard, with a strange little tail in the skin at the bottom. Almost like a bloom, or a burst of flame. The outside is a shiny blood red.

Bonnie looks at Kai inquisitively. He says nothing, waits for her to open it up.

Which she does, her fingernails digging into the flesh of the fruit and coming out stained red. It splits open unevenly, jaggedly, and the inside looks like a fresh murder. There's something unsettling about the white flesh, the beads of deep red inside. But the smell is tantalizing. Crisp, juicy, tart. Like nothing she's seen or tasted before.

"Thoughts?" Kai says casually. He's already seen her face, knows he's done well. Her eyes are alight in that same way as when she saw his father. She likes to be unsettled. She likes exacting work.

"It's...new," she says. Her voice is breathless. "Definitely new."

"Try it," he says.

The seeds are like tiny rubies in her hand. She plucks them out carefully, not wanting to destroy their work.

"What will happen if I do?" she asks. Her eyes are wide as she looks up at him, searching his face.

Kai smiles broadly, laughing at a private joke. "Absolutely nothing, Bon."

Bonnie's hand stills. She bites her lip.

"What, you don't trust me?" he says.

"I'd have to be crazy to," she says. But she glances down again at the small collection of seeds in her hand, and without another thought, she tips her head back and brings them to her mouth.

They burst against her teeth, little explosions of sweet and tart. The juice inside is cool and refreshing. They taste like summer, like a season's first rain, like a soft breeze and a starless sky. She closes her eyes, savoring it.

When she looks at Kai, it's clear he hasn't taken his eyes off her.

"How does it taste?" he asks.

"Real," she says.

XXX

Bonnie is woken by a snowflake on her cheek.

At first she doesn't realize what it is. It almost feels like something sharp, a needle piercing her skin. But then it melts.

She puts a hand to her face and feels the drop of cold water. Kai stirs beside her. Hours ago, she'd buried her face in the hollow of his chest, breathing in the scent of ash and bone and fertile soil. He'd knotted his fingers in her hair. His arms a heavy, warm blanket over her. And they'd fallen asleep like that.

But now she feels the cold. And it's not coming from him.

She hears a rumbling, somewhere high up above. So high that it seems as if the gods themselves are knocking to get in. There's a pinprick of light. Watery, greyish light. Growing larger, inch by inch. Someone is shouting for her.

Kai watches it, too. Bonnie can feel his heart hammering in his chest, and how funny that he does have a heart after all. But his face is stoic. Resigned. He knows what this is, was half expecting it every day.

There are two figures, somewhere high up above. Bonnie hears her mother shouting her name.

She and Kai get to their feet and stare up at the tear in the earth.

"That must be your ride," he says.

Bonnie cranes her neck at her glimpse at the outside world. Snow is falling steadily, gently on her face. It's not the world she remembers, not at all. Suddenly everything seems upside-down. The warm, sweet underground and the bitter cold earth above. But she has to leave. Has to.

She feels her feet guiding her. She's at the edge of the cave, finding a foothold. Then another, and another. She's climbing up.

But before she leaves the underground behind, she looks back. Kai stands there watching her, alone in the dark. The snow doesn't seem to reach him, and for a moment Bonnie's hands almost slip where she's clawed into the dirt and clay.

"Bring me something nice when you come back," he says.

The cold air burns at her bare arms. "I'm not coming back," she says.

Kai doesn't answer. He just smiles faintly as he watches the last trails of her dress disappear up into the earth. The cave ceiling closes in around him, sealing him back inside his tomb.

He knows she's lying. Knows it as firmly as he knows that her pomegranate tree will stay lush and green in the depths of the cave, through the spring and summer, and that it will be there waiting for her—that he will be waiting for her—each and every time she returns.

XXX