My Sister Stole My Mate And I Let Her (Seraphina) novel Chapter 459

Chapter 459: Chapter 459 A COLLECTION OF WISHES

TOBIAS’ POV

That was how I ended up in Catherine’s facility, wearing another person’s face and sneaking through her corridors.

Catherine was cautious, especially with Evelyn. Though she sometimes needed her power, she never allowed her near the true core of the operation.

At first, Evelyn’s questions had been dismissed with fond indulgence. Later, they were met with irritation.

After several arguments, Catherine began locking her out of meetings, diverting her access, assigning her to peripheral stabilization work and ceremonial tasks that looked important enough to soothe pride but revealed nothing essential.

She knew Evelyn was wavering.

Of course she knew. Catherine had not survived this long by failing to recognize doubt in the people around her.

But doubt was not yet betrayal, and Catherine’s arrogance made her believe Evelyn could still be managed.

That arrogance gave us room.

Under my guidance, Evelyn’s craft steadied in ways Catherine had never encouraged.

In turn, she taught me the rhythms of Catherine’s facility, the language of its staff, the habits of its guards, and the blind spots that arose because every tyrant eventually began to trust the fear they inspired.

Our plan was simple in concept but nearly impossible in execution.

Break the project from within.

Not destroy the facility outright. That would have been satisfying, but stupid.

Too many prisoners. Too many unknown substances. Too many systems that might kill every subject if disrupted without precision.

Catherine had built safeguards into her cruelty, as clever monsters often did.

We had to be smarter.

Soon enough, we found an opportunity, and we succeeded in freeing a test subject.

I still remembered the night Evelyn came to me with his file, her hands trembling—not from fear, but from rage.

“He’s still alive,” she said.

I looked up from the schematic I’d been studying.

“Who?”

“Aaron. One of the werewolf subjects. His mind is damaged, but not gone. Catherine listed him as unusable, but she hasn’t discarded him because there’s something in his response pattern she wants to study.”

Freeing him had taken three weeks of preparation and seven minutes of action.

Seven minutes in which Evelyn nearly burned through her reservoir, I broke two fingers forcing a service latch that should have opened cleanly, and Aaron had staggered through the extraction route half-conscious, his eyes wide and blank.

But we got him out.

We moved him far enough for another contact to take over, someone Catherine’s people would not immediately connect to Evelyn or me.

By the time security discovered a subject had vanished, the trail had already split in four directions.

For one brief, hopeful moment, I thought we had found a rhythm. A plan of action.

Then Catherine tightened everything.

More guards. More wards. New access protocols. Rotating patrol routes. Psychic sweeps. Staff reassigned without warning. Entire labs moved overnight.

The project did not stop. It buried itself deeper.

After Aaron, we spent weeks clawing for another opening and found none large enough to use without collapsing the entire operation on our heads.

Evelyn grew quieter during that time. More withdrawn. More dangerous in the way people become when guilt begins sharpening them from the inside.

I feared for her. Feared that her need for absolution would push her to make a mistake.

Then Margaret arrived.

At first, I did not know it was her.

There were whispers about an important guest-turned-restricted asset, a woman Catherine had visited personally.

Anyone Catherine took a personal interest in was definitely worth looking into.

It took days before I confirmed her identity.

Margaret Lockwood.

Older, hollowed by captivity, stripped of the power she had once worn like a crown, but alive.

The first time I saw her through the narrow gap of a service corridor as guards escorted her to the upper level, my body reacted before my mind did.

My hand went to the blade hidden beneath my sleeve, and Evelyn had to step close enough to murmur a warning through her teeth.

“Don’t even think about it.”

Margaret’s presence changed everything.

Not only because she was an old friend.

Not only because she had trusted Catherine once, as so many had, and was now paying the price for that trust.

Margaret mattered because of what she carried.

Even weakened, even drained, even with Sylvia reduced to a shadow of the wolf she’d once been, Margaret’s bloodline held power Catherine clearly needed.

Power that might also be the fracture point in the structure we had been trying to break.

Psionic inheritance did not behave like witchcraft.

It did not obey the same channels. It did not root itself in the same bargains. It moved through blood, memory, resonance, and will in ways that could not be fully mapped by spellcraft alone.

Catherine had stolen from it once during Sera’s sealing, but theft was not mastery.

If Catherine needed Margaret’s wolf to bridge the hollowness in her resurrected puppets, then Margaret was not merely a victim.

She was leverage.

A key.

For several days after discovering Margaret, I watched. Waited. Tracked the guards assigned to her. Learned the timing of her meals, her movements, Catherine’s visits.

The plan was not to contact her yet. Evelyn insisted we needed a cleaner route, a stronger exit strategy, and more certainty about the wards around the dungeon before risking exposure.

Then Margaret was thrown back into the lower cell after Catherine had revealed Edward’s puppet to her.

The guards were careless after returning her. They logged the transfer late. One patrol was doubled at the west junction but missed the east corridor rotation.

A caretaker was ordered to check Margaret’s condition after impact.

That caretaker became me.

Which brought me to this moment, with Evelyn’s anger charging the changing room like the beginnings of a storm.

“So," I drawled, "are you going to lecture me or simply turn me into a toad and be done with it?”

Her glare deepened. “That spell is an insult to serious witchcraft.”

“So the lecture, then.”

“Tobias.”

I exhaled and headed toward the sink, the caretaker’s scarf hanging loose around my neck.

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