“Eeeek! I’m sorry!”
Ysabel’s tone filled with malice. “Tell me where my little sister is, or I’ll torture you for the information.”
“Ooo! Let me!” Kaine waved his hand to volunteer. “I’ll rip off her fingernails.”
Alzira sneered. “Why waste time on such games? Let’s skip straight to breaking her fingers.”
“Do you want her to pass out from pain?” Kaine snorted. “Clearly you should let me handle this.”
“I can torture people for Her Holiness every bit as well as you!” Alzira went for her sword again. “I’ll do it slowly so that she feels every bit of Donya’s pain.”
Weren’t you the one who injured Donya to begin with?“Err … ah …” I’d been trying to interject, but they were talking too loudly, and my throat hurt too much to shout.
Ysabel placed a hand on her forehead. “I’m too delicate to watch someone being tortured … so I’ll leave, and you can figure it out between the two of you.”
To my horror, my sister turned and started to walk away.
Desperation forced a scream from my aching throat. “Wait! Yzzy! I’m your sister, Bora!” My brain groped around for a memory from our childhood to convince her. I spoke rapidly: “On my fifth birthday, Uncle Urew gave me a porcelain baby doll. You were jealous, so you stole it after I refused to swap toys. After Mom gave my doll back, you buried it in the backyard, but you told everyone that I’d lost the doll.” This was the perfect story to convince Ysabel, because back then she’d lied that I’d lost the doll and everyone had believed her. She’d only whispered the malicious truth late at night to me, so only the two of us knew how she’d disposed of my birthday present.
Ysabel stopped. She looked over her shoulder. Her eyes narrowed. “I’m impressed at the level of research you put into this absurd deception. Alas, your source failed you. Bora stolemydoll, so I buried it out of spite so neither of us could have it.” She turned and resumed walking away.
My fury overwhelmed my fear. I leapt to my feet. “Ysabel, youfuckingliar, that was my doll!”
Ysabel flipped back her hair. “I would never steal a doll from my precious little sister.”
She dared say thatto my face? “Oh yes, you would! You used to ‘borrow’ my stuff all the time! Even though you always got better toys than me because you were older. I was perpetually wearing your hand-me-downs. And theonetime Uncle Urew got me the better present, of course you had to have it.” Kaine and Alzira gaped at me, but I didn’t even care, my face flushed and panting, too focused on my sister as she spoke over me.
“That’s why you stole my doll, because you were jealous of me.”
“I was too scared of you to steal anything belonging to you. You used to be a huge bully, Yzzy. You would pinch me and pull my hair until Calum dragged you off me.”
Ysabel sniffed. “I’ll have you know that I was a very protective older sister.”
“Protective, yes, I’ll give you that. You were always the no-one-messes-with-my-little-sister-but-me type.” When I was young, whenever other children had tried to tease me or insult my weight, Ysabel had chased them off with such scathing insults that they didn’t dare come near me again. “I never realized how much you’d been protecting me until after you … you left.” Because then, with my protector gone, the bullies had come after me in earnest. “Even if you didn’t let other people mess with me, youdidmess with me yourself, Yzzy.”
“Um, I—” Alzira started to speak, only to close her mouth at the look on my sister’s face. Kaine had already beaten a retreat to the doorway.
Eyes smoldering, Ysabel hissed, “Don’t pretend to be the innocent one. You used to tattle on me to Mom for every last little thing.”
“I told Mom when you got into trouble for your own good.”
My sister snorted. “Still being sanctimonious after all these years? You didn’t care if I said my prayers every night. You just wanted to get me in trouble. After I buried the doll, you went around messing up my chores and then told Mom that I’d slacked off. And she believed you!”
“Pshaw, you had that coming.”
“Now you’re admitting that it wasn’t ‘for my own good,’ you little monster?”
I crossed my arms. “Are you admitting that you stole my doll?”
“It was my doll first!” Ysabel shouted.
“No, it wasn’t!”
“Do you want to ask Uncle Urew?”
My eyes screwed up. “Fine, next time we see him, let’s ask him. Then you’ll see.”
“No, thenyou’llsee.” Ysabel scowled. She turned to Kaine and Alzira, watching with slack-jawed expressions. “Sorry, it looks like she’s my real sister after all. No torture allowed.”
