Witches & Magic
Qetsiyah
“Tessa”
The strongest witch of the ancient world and the origin of what later witches call Spirit or Traditional magic. She created the immortality elixir at Silas's request, expecting to drink it with him. When she found out he intended it for her handmaiden, she constructed a revenge with more engineering in it than most religions: she buried him alive with the only cure, built the Other Side as a purgatory designed to hold him, and turned Amara into its living Anchor.
Two thousand years later she was still angry enough to create the Brotherhood of the Five — five hunters carrying a living map to Silas's tomb — purely so that someone would eventually dig him up and cure him. She returns in 2013 calling herself Tessa, fights Silas one last time, and then kills herself so she can be waiting for him on the Other Side. It works: Stefan kills Silas, and Silas lands on the Other Side rather than in peace with Amara.
Details
- Bonnie Bennett is descended from her, which is why Bennett magic keeps turning out to be structurally necessary to the Other Side.
- She and Silas were both Travelers. It was the wider witch community, frightened that a coven that powerful could unbalance nature the way she just had, that cursed them with permanent homelessness.
- She is the one who states the franchise's only real law out loud: nature demands balance. She takes her own life in 2013 so she can be waiting for Silas on the Other Side.
- She wins the part she cared about. Silas is killed by his own doppelgänger and lands on the Other Side instead of finding peace with Amara — and when the Other Side collapses, he is pulled into Hell.