Her shoulders sag. “I know. But how was she executed?”
My lips pull into a snarl. “Mr. Duveau shot her with an iron bullet and ended her life.”
Silence stretches between us, and I wonder if she’ll cry. Beg for forgiveness. But she does neither of those things.
“You’re right,” she whispers, lower lip trembling. “I don’t think I ever admitted it out loud, but I am now. It’s my fault. I killed Mother.”
At that, I shudder, her unexpected confession far more chilling than the tub.
“I may not have had a choice in refusing to attend,” she says. “I tried. I really did. I tried to get a letter to you after the one you sent me. Cobalt showed up just as my orders not to communicate were beginning to fade. I had a pen in my hand and ink had already begun to flow, but he stopped me. And yet, that’s not when it began, is it?”
Her eyes meet mine, and I shake my head.
She continues. “It began when we arrived at Bircharbor. When I had my heart set on your fiancé. When I agreed to do whatever it took to be together. When I was stupid enough to fall for his lies and extend the very ability that allowed him to deceive me in the first place. To continue to deceive you.”
Slowly, I nod, but my malice is beginning to fade. I can’t help but recall the thought I’ve had many times now. If she hadn’t betrayed me, I might be in her position right now. I might not be with Aspen.
Amelie’s gaze turns to steel. “I did it. I killed Mother. And when this is all over, when I’ve killed Cobalt, I want you to take your final revenge on me. I want you to punish me. I want to feel every inch of pain you can give me until my dying breath.”
Her face contorts, shifting from the sister of my childhood to the feral creature who lashed out against me for robbing her of the chance to kill Cobalt with a clear mind. The one who wants to watch the life fade from her mate’s eyes, force him to peel his own flesh from his bones. I told her this isn’t the life for her, but it’s clear it’s the life she’s chosen. She wants revenge.
And not just on Cobalt. She yearns to have revenge on herself.
My heart feels like it’s shattering in two.
Seeing the hatred in her eyes tells me she’s already punishing herself more than I ever could. The realization unwinds me, melts my anger, freezes it in place like the water that surrounds me. Her permission to kill her makes me understand something else: I don’twantto kill her. I don’t want to hate her. Not really. Maybe I never did. I only want to hate her because it helps me hide the truth. That it isn’t her I hate. It isn’t her I blame. It’s me.
It’sme.
She is my mirror. We are one and the same.
The lump returns to my throat and with it comes a searing truth. It breaks through the shadows in my mind, battles the chains around my heart, and rises to the surface. A truth I despise more than any other.
“It isn’t your fault,” I say with a sob.
Amelie burns me with a glare. “Stop, Evie. I don’t want your pity.”
I shake my head, feel words rising from my gut like bile. Words I can’t keep from either of us a moment longer. “You may have started this, but you never acted alone,” I say in a rush. “You alone didn’t kill Mother. At the very end, I had a choice that could have saved her life. A bargain was offered, one that would have defiled my body and shattered my pride. She told me not to accept it. She wanted me to fight. She wanted us to fight together. But even knowing what she wanted doesn’t make it better, for the choice still rested with me. In the end, I refused the bargain, and it resulted in a bullet in Mother’s forehead. That was me. I killed her.”
I expect another lash of pain, for that chasm of grief to return to finish the job, for endless black to consume me until I’m nothing more than dirt and ashes. Instead, I feel empty. An emptiness that feels an awful lot like peace.
Amelie remains silent, her gaze neither accusatory nor pitying. There’s only a dawning understanding in her eyes. I stare back at her, waiting for her to speak. When she does, her words are quiet. Weak. “Mother had a choice too. We all had choices. Some of them might have been wrong, but her choice not to let you sacrifice yourself wasn’t a wrong choice.”
“But I still must live with the part I played. I don’t know how to get over that.”
She attempts a shrug despite her bonds. “Do we ever get over the choices we make that lead to another’s death? Will I ever be able to look at my hands and not see Melusine’s blood? What else can we do with our grief but let it eat us alive?”
The answer comes to me right away. It’s what Aspen would say if he were here.Take it to the Twelfth Court.
My breath hitches, and I repeat it out loud. “Take it to the Twelfth Court.”
Amelie furrows her brow. “What does that mean?”
I ignore her. Closing my eyes, I throw my head back with equal parts gratitude and irritation. Why didn’t I think of this before? My flames may be thwarted but that shouldn’t stop me from shifting. The Renounced don’t know about my unseelie form; only Ustrin did, and he died before he could share what he knew. My unwitting captors put nothing in place to stop a fox.
The Renounced underestimated me.
Now I’ll make them pay for it.
