Eva let out a low whistle. “Persi took a huge risk.”
“I’m still only just getting to know her, but I think that’s kind of her thing,” I said. “Being ungovernable.”
“Well, at least this time, it paid off,” Eva said. “So what happens now?”
I shrugged. “I don’t really know. Sarah Claire can’t interfere again, but that doesn’t mean it’s over. It feels like I’m just sort of… waiting for the Darkness to try again.”
Eva grinned, and nudged me with her elbow. “You don’t think the Darkness learned its lesson, messing with you the first time?”
I laughed humorlessly. “I think that was mostly luck, and the Darkness knows it.”
Eva’s grin faded down to a grim smile. “That was more than luck, Wren. I know you’re raw and untrained, but you are powerful.”
“I don’t feel powerful.”
“Doesn’t change the fact that you are.”
“But how can I?—”
Thump.Eva and I both turned to the sudden sound which came from the direction of her closet.
“What was that?” I asked, but Eva had already stomped over to the closet door, and yanked it open.
“Bea! How many times do I have to ask you not to hide in my room!” Eva shouted.
Bea was crouched on the floor of the closet, staring back at her older sister with a mixture of embarrassment and defiance on her face. “How else am I supposed to find out what’s going on around here?” she demanded, in a small but steady voice. “No one tells me anything!”
“No one tells you anything because you’re still a kid,” Eva said, and though she still looked aggravated that her privacy had been invaded, her tone softened just a little. “I know it’sfrustrating. I’ve been there, Bea. Truly, I get it. But there really is stuff that a kid shouldn’t know about—that they aren’t ready for. And there’s a lot of that going around at the moment.”
“You’re still a kid, too,” Bea shot back, not backing down.
Eva almost smiled, but managed to smother it. “True. But I’m a big kid. You’re still a little kid. And there’s a difference, Bea, as much as you wish there wasn’t.”
Bea pressed her lips together around whatever retort she was longing to throw at her older sister. However, at that moment, Eva’s mother called from downstairs.
“I’ll be right back,” Eva said to me, before rounding on Bea again. “When I get back, I want you in your own room, where you belong.”
Bea stuck her tongue out at Eva’s retreating back, flinching when Eva slammed the door on her way out.
The silence expanded to fill the space left behind by Eva’s absence. At last, I felt compelled to break it.
“She’s just trying to look out for you, you know,” I said.
“She thinks I’m a baby,” Bea said, pouting; and then, realizing that pouting was rather a babyish thing to do, tucked her lower lip in and sat up straighter, trying to look dignified.
“Maybe,” I said with a shrug. “I don’t have any siblings, so I should probably mind my own business.” At that moment, Bea shifted her position on the floor, and I noticed for the first time what she held in her lap. “What’s that?” I asked her.
Bea’s complexion darkened with embarrassment, and she made to hide the object behind her back. “Nothing.”
“Oh, come on,” I said, smiling and winking in what I hoped was a conspiratorial way. “Is it Eva’s? A diary, maybe? Come on, let’s see.”
Bea looked almost affronted. “I wouldn’t read Eva’s diary, even if I knew where she hid it,” she said. “It’s… it’s mine.”
“Your diary?”
“No. My sketchbook,” Bea replied, dropping her gaze to the book she had tucked behind her leg.
“You like to draw?” I asked.
