I bite my lip. No, he hasn’t.
“If anything,” he murmurs, “it was the other way around, in the end. Wouldn’t you agree?”
The reminder hits me somewhere below my stomach.
That’s what they think. Kit and Rafe.
They think that I used them. That Iranfrom them.
Silas never told them—
But Kit is reading my face. “What?”
I drop my eyes. “Nothing. Are… are we done?”
He watches me for a second longer, before his fingers drop from my skin and he stands. His eyes travel across my face, my hair. I try not to shrink into myself.
“We’re done. I’ll take you back.”
His voice is cooler, now. Kit walks me back to the kitchen, keeping his distance as though our conversation has reminded him.
The world hates me for one thing.
But they hate me for another.
He leaves me at the door to the kitchen, watching until I walk in. The dishes have been cleared away, the counter sparkling, and I send a mental thanks to Ellen for not leaving them for me. I settle down in front of the hearth, the thoughts tumbling over and over in my head.
Kit’s face when he saw my ankles. Rafe’s fury at the dinner table that I just know I’ll be paying for tomorrow. Silas’s cold anger.
It all flips over inside my head, until my eyes eventually close.
Day one done.
Thousands more to go.
11 – Rafe – ten years ago
“Quick.”
I muffle my laugh at Kit’s horrified hiss. We slip out of the back door as Angelica’s howl rings through the house. “Oh, yeah. She’s livid.”
Our father’s new squeeze is a little…much.
A little too happy. Too many bright smiles that don’t reach her eyes. Too many awkward hugs, as though she’s trying to prove to our dad what anexcellent mothershe is.
Too bad she doesn’t realize that it’s showing us the exact opposite. My father is still blind to her, but he’ll see it eventually. All we had to do was watch her with her own daughter.
The smiles become a little too brittle. The fingers just a little too pointed as they jab. And Anastasia just takes it, as empty-headed as her mother.
So my twin and I decided to test the lovely Angelica. And if the screaming is any indicator, she’s discovered our little gift.
I feel a little sorry for the newt, being trapped in her bathrobe. But it’s for a good cause.
Kit and I break into laughter as we sneak under the kitchen window and down towards the stream, cutting through the orchard.
I slow as I spot something ahead. Kit pauses next to me, shielding his eyes. “The hell is she doing?”
We both watch as the girl scales another foot of the old apple tree. She’s already several feet from the ground, surprisingly nimble as she pulls herself up onto another branch.
