I turned to look at her, but she caught my face with her free hand.
“Hold still.”
I obliged, trying to ignore how aware I was of her hand cupping my jaw. I swallowed, knowing she would be able to feel the motion beneath her fingertips. In the hazy corners of my mind, I sensed those dreams flickering to life, the ones I had been trying so desperately to ignore.
As if drawn by the heat of my thoughts, Penelope’s eyes drifted to mine, and I was terrified of what truth she might find there, pinned so openly in my gaze. Still, I could not look away.
Our faces were so painfully close now, I could not tell where my blush ended and hers began. Penelope’s eyes dropped to my mouth, and the air pulled taut between us, threatening to snap.
“That should do it,” she said abruptly, pulling away. “The swelling should go down soon enough.”
I nodded, lifting my fingers to probe the place where hers had just been.
For a moment, we were quiet, Penelope’s eyes set on the flames, mine on the shadows.
“Will you tell me how it happened?”
She asked so tenderly, yet still I felt those familiar walls rearing up, luring me into the protection of their cold, dark shelter.
“Don’t do that. Don’t go to that place I cannot reach.”
Her words shook something inside me, and suddenly those imposing walls did not seem so safe anymore but rather…lonely.
“Please,” she whispered, her gaze reaching tentatively for mine.
Perhaps it was because she said “please,” or perhaps a part of me wanted someone to know, wantedherto know. Whatever the reason, I told her. All of it, every ugly, painful thing Melanthius had said and all the horrible truths that had rung between his words.
Penelope listened as she always did, with that preternatural stillness, her entire body focused on absorbing my every word, as if each were a sacred offering worth treasuring.
When I finally finished speaking, the fire had dulled to embers. I stared into the shadows once again, feeling horribly vulnerable beneath her silence, all those fragile parts of me exposed like gaping wounds.
“She was pregnant,” Penelope finally breathed. “Melitta.”
I nodded, still not looking at her.
“It makes sense now. Why you hated me so.”
“I didn’t hate you,” I said into the darkness. “I only thought I did because…because it was easier to hate you than hate myself.”
Penelope was quiet for a long moment before asking, “And what made you realize that?”
“Melanthius,” I admitted. “The things he said about you—I knew they were wrong. I knewhewas wrong. He’s so blinded by bitterness…and I…I don’t want to be like that anymore. I don’t want to be like him.”
I waited for the stab of guilt, the ache of betrayal…but none came.
“He’s wrong about you, too, you know,” Penelope murmured. “Melantho…look at me.”
I shook my head, glaring into the ground and feeling a sudden, overwhelming desire for it to swallow me whole.
“Melanthius is wrong about you,” Penelope repeated, firmer now. “You must understand that.”
“He isn’t.”
“Melantho—”
“He isn’t!” The words exploded out of me. “That’swhy I did it. That’s why I took your silver—because Melanthius was right, and I couldn’t stand it. I couldn’t stand the guilt. I couldn’t standmyself. Ihave so much…so much ugliness inside me.” I pressed a hand to my chest, rubbing the knot perpetually rooted there. “I can feel it constantly. It eats me alive.”
I sensed Penelope moving closer, the warmth of her body somehow burning hotter than the embers beside us. She placed a finger under my chin, tilting my face to hers.
