And my chest soothed at the idea of Stone waiting for me on Bone Island.
The following morning,a generous smattering of freckles adorned the bridge of Fable’s nose and cheeks. She was sitting across from me, free of make-up, hair tossed atop her head, and wearing the vomit-inducing Voodoos hoodie. Her youth shone as we sipped piping-hot spiked cider at a small bistro table.
We were settled under an arbor right outside The Bean.
Dead roses climbed the trellis, their frosted thorns glinting off the lazy daylight and trying to slice through the thick morning fog. In the middle of Town Square, a shrine to the fallen surrounded the gazebo. Decaying flowers, faded photos, and candles melted down into piles of wax.
Sleepless townies moseyed in the grass with red eyes, bags beneath them weighed down by shadows.
I shifted my attention back to Fable.
A small, vulnerable moment passed where I wished to tell her about Stone and how he was unlike anyone I’d ever met. How he was gentle but also fierce. How things happened when we were together, and I couldn’t explain them. How he was made up of two halves: silent and screaming. I hated how he consumed my thoughts, but at the same time loved it because it distracted me from the memory of killing Lena, my evil, my current life. I especially hated how desperate I was to see him again after what had happened between us.
If Fable knew all of this, what would she think about me?
My fingers scraped along the side of the chair and found an exposed screw.
Fable stared at me as if searching for clues, peeling me apart with hazel eyes. The pad of my finger pressed into the sharp point of the screw, urging me to keep my mouth shut.
When all was empty for Fable, her voice cut the space between us.
“If you missed me so much, all you had to do was say so. You didn’t have to go and try to butcher the fam.”
My gaze warped into a deadpan glare. “Let me guess. Cyrus?”
“He’s worried about you.”
“I can’t believe he called and dragged my family into this. The three of you have enough on your plate to worry about my sleepwalking. I have it under control.”
“Under control.” Fable sighed, her smile fading. She set her drink down and leaned in, wanting me to believe the words she was saying. “Don’t downplay it. This time you walked to the kitchen in the middle of the night and grabbed a knife, acting like you were about to murder someone.” She blinked rapidly, surprised she’d ever say those words in the same sentence. “You’re my sister, Adora. We’ll always be worried about you.”
“Worried I’ll end up like Mom?”
Fable’s head reared back. “I didn’t say that.”
“It is what you mean, though. Isn’t it?” I turned my eyes away. Everything was a little dull: the platinum sky, the worn faces that had been pulled apart by stress, anxiety, and lack of sleep, and the creaking of the coffee shop’s sign hanging from above. “There’s no point tiptoeing around it. It’s clear, and we all know it. I’m the crazy one, and there’s no way to fix it.”
She pushed her glass-half-full smile at me.
“We will figure it out. We always do.”
Fable’s positivity was annoying when it was aimed at me.
I thought of the night before and released a thin laugh. “Cyrus locked me in the bedroom last night. Did he admit to that as well, or did he leave that part out?”
Her eyes looked skyward. “He was protecting you.”
“He locked me in the bedroom,” I repeated, louder, as if she hadn’t heard the extent of it the first time. She acted like the same room he’d locked me in held James Dean, a milk chocolate fountain, and sheets of Egyptian cotton with twenty-four-karats woven into the hem. “He locked me up like I was one of the forsaken.”
“Keep your voice down,” she hissed. “It was only to keep you safe. When Cyrus called Dad in the middle of the night, he was beside himself.”
“Dad or Cyrus was beside himself?”
“Cyrus,” she said, and I tossed my gaze away. “He cares about you, and he will be there for you. We all will. Just like the coven gathered around Mom.”
I never wanted them to know that my sleepwalking was worsening, but they did, and it surprised me that Ivy hadn’t lost her senses over how Cyrus handled it.
The Ivy I knew wouldn’t have been so calm with the news. Despite the Shadows, she would have bolted to the Cantini Manor that night with tunnel vision. And I closed my eyes, imagining Ivy beating on the ten-foot, dead-bolted door until the entire manor woke. In my mind,Cyrus opens the door, and Ivy doesn’t think twice before clocking him in the eyebecause after all was said and done, Ivy always put her sisters above all else. At least she had before, and nothing had changed. Had it?
