It isn't like the first time, full of the desert biting at every pore or the feeling of grief. She doesn't witness her husband peeling away every layer of herself to attach to Jean, and she doesn't feel despair.

This time, Madelyne is determined, clear headed, and most of all, armed with foreknowledge. She makes her own plans. She pores over Molly's phone, sends out the letters she needs and after she's sure no one will come after her, she leaves.

The Uber driver smiles at her as she erases his memory, the wind picking up in the twilight. Madelyne watches as he drives off, tucking her hair back and turning on her heels to view the housing development that no one has ever moved into. She walks up the steps, holding onto the bag she's brought that's brimming with candles and chalk, a caged dove floating beside her. The house is as empty as she needs it to be, finding the door to the basement with no problem. Fear attempts to over take her as she descends into the darkness.

She can't give into it -- refuses to, after how far she has come, after she and Jean both realized exactly what lay ahead of them: to be taken, to be used to have no control. The Goblin Force had power over her life: her emotions, her actions, her sanity and her soul. It had kept her awake, turning it over in her mind: she and Jean both would never be free, not really. They'd spend their lives looking over their shoulders.

And Madelyne wasn't going to wait.

This was the only choice she could afford to make. She'd lived her life as an unknowing clone made to bear children with a man who didn't love her the way he should have, she'd died in the arms of a woman who she'd seen as her enemy instead of a sister, and she was alive because of the machinations of beings more powerful than her.

Even if she couldn't change her marriage, she had changed her relationship with Jean. And she could do this, for herself. She could choose the Goblin Force, not be tricked into it. She would choose, knowing exactly what it was, and being able to control it this time. She would seek the Goblin Force out instead of it swallowing her up in the throes of anger and grief and this time, it would be different. The power she hadn't understood the first time wasn't going to control her ever again, not if she could help it.

Madelyne's feet hit the basement floor, and she takes a deep breath. The bird struggles in the cage, and she takes a deep breath to steady herself. She could do this. She would do this or die in the attempt. Nothing was going to stop her.

It's all she needs, to think, before she sets the bag down and gets to work.

An hour later, with ten minutes to midnight, she stands up, dusting chalk off of her hands. The magical circle before her is precisely correct, from the four points to the symbols scratched into the rings. No one will disturb her here, no one will find her if they come looking, and the barrier will hold once she steps inside of it.

Madelyne calls down the dove, and her fingers grasp it tightly. "Sorry, little guy," she says, and wrings it's neck. It's nasty work, but by the time she's shed her close and taken her place in the circle, the blood sizzles and pops along the magical lines the way it's supposed to. The barrier strengthens, and Madelyne thinks for a moment to say a prayer.

She doesn't -- it wasn't as if a god of any kind were going to listen to her. Instead she shuts her eyes, legs crossing beneath her. It takes ten minutes for her to clear her mind of everything except what she came for: S'ym, the very demon that she brokered her deal with. The heat rises in the basement, the candles flaring and snapping as they climb higher and higher as she extends herself, focusing on him, on his power, on his name. A true Summoning. Sweat pours down her forehead, down her nose, her lips that keep murmuring his name, down her chest, hitting the floor. The magic in her, the little left over, flares and grows the more she reaches into it to pull it up. There's a bottom there, she understands -- the magic she has without the Force is weaker than she's used to. If she has to use every ounce of it to ensnare S'ym, she will.

She can feel him, at the edges of magic and reality, trying desperately to avoid her. As powerful as ever, and still a goddamn coward.

"You cannot refuse me, demon," Madelyne hisses out, her head thrumming, her hands clenching, the sensation of burning sliding up her back. It seeks to break her concentration, to hurt her. Madelyne has fared worse. "I will not be denied by you. S'ym. I was good enough of a vessel then, and I'm better now." The snarl that leaves her lips is laced with magic, and her sweat dissolves in the heat. Thirst curls in her throat. The walls feel as if they're going to cave in. Her voice goes hoarse, and it seems like the magic inside of her is paper thin. Madelyne can feel her heart thrumming in her chest and she pushes. It feels like thunder strikes her temple, her body shaking with it, the magic twisting around her. She can taste blood in her mouth. Voices that sound like Scott, like Jean, like Nathan, like Circe, like Arthur, like Alex whisper in her ear. Their words are too low to make out -- but they're a distraction. None of them are here. Madelyne hisses out, Show yourself, you bastard. I know your tricks."

It could have been a minute, and hour, a second before S'ym's voice hisses in her ear, "Madelyne Pryor. To think I would see you again so desperate."

She opens her eyes and there he is, stepping out from the shadows, mouth leering and hungry just as it was years ago.

The easy part was over.

"I want to bargain with you," she says, voice hoarse, throat still dry. God, she wanted water so badly. "I want the Goblin Force back."

He laughs, the sound making the hair on her neck rise. "And what makes you think I will give it to you so easily?"

"I don't," Telekinetic pressure drops on S'ym faster than he can react, shrieking as he's forced onto the floor. Madelyne holds him steady, unaffected by his pleas -- and they both know that if she wanted, she could squash him like the bug he was. "I do expect that I'll either have to make you suffer for it or kill you -- I'm not the little girl you played before." Madelyne sneers, pressing on him so hard that she can feel something breaking beneath the force. It seems a bit much to hope for a bone or an organ. "Do you want to do this the easy way ---"

"Yes! Yes!" S'ym shrieks, to her surprise -- he squealed early.

There went her plans of having to torture him further. Which meant ---

"What's the catch to the easy way?" She sinks the pressure onto his head now. "I understand how demons work -- I don't care to be dallied with today."

"No tricks! Just the same as before!" S'ym pleads. The pressure comes close to popping his wretched eyes.

Madelyne nods. "A choice. I can make that." She stands up on wobbling legs, able to magic a chain around his neck, pinning him into floor. "So give me the choice. But understand -- " her foot hovers over the chalk, and the protection it gave her " -- trick me, and I will make you wish I'd killed you here, Force or no Force."

"I understand," he hisses. Her foot erases the line.

But he doesn't hold up his hands to offer her the choice. The shadows of the basement instead come crashing around her, and Madelyne shrieks in a rage as she's dragged into them.

Sy'm watches smugly as she's taken. It may not be a win, but the moment is satisfying. Futilely, he struggles against the chain. It holds. No matter -- Madelyne Pryor would get her just desserts. He hoped that it would at the very least, be painful.