“I heard her, you know,” she says softly. “That night of your eighth birthday, when Mother told you that story.”
I blink. “You did?”
“I sat outside your door. Waiting to see if she’d come tell me one too.” Luna smiles, but it’s sad. “She didn’t. I used to do that a lot,actually. Sit outside your room while you worked, hoping that day would be different. That maybe you’d finish early and we could play, or you’d need help with something, anything.”
“Luna—”
“I’m not saying it to make you feel bad.” She exhales slowly. “I just want you to know I was there. I always was.”
“I’m sorry,” I whisper, and mean it more than I’ve meant anything in a long time.
“She loved you, Aria. Even if she didn’t know how to show it. She loved me too, just… less efficiently.”
A wet laugh escapes me. “That’s the most Ellis thing you’ve ever said.”
“Tragic, really.” Luna smirks through it. “We turned out just like them.”
“Not quite.” I run my fingers over the cracked leather of the journal. “They didn’t break us completely.”
“Speak for yourself,” she murmurs. “I have a PhD in emotional repression.”
“Yeah, well.” I close the journal. “I’m doing a postdoc in magical trauma.”
Luna’s laugh is soft but real, and some long-coiled tension unspools inside me.
My sister’s hand lingers on the journal, her touch reverent against the worn leather. “Let me see it?”
The question hangs between us and I hesitate. Luna’s fingers retreat, curling back with the reflex of someone used to doors closing in her face.
“Never mind,” she mutters. “I shouldn’t have—”
“No. Here.” I slide it toward her. What right do I have to keep it from her? We both carry the hollow spaces our parents left behind. Scars stitched in different shapes.
Luna’s breath catches as she opens it, Mom’s elegant script spilling across the pages. She traces the loops and curves withtrembling fingers, as if she could absorb twenty-two years of missing moments through the ink alone.
“Is this the one Mother left you?”
Guilt claws its way up my throat. “No.”
“Then where did you get it?” Her frown deepens, fingers stilling on the page.
“You have to promise not to tell anyone.”
Her gaze snaps to mine. “Aria—”
“I mean it.” I lean forward. “Promise you won’t tell anyone. Not your department. Not Alexander. No one.”
The silence stretches, brittle with decades of strained trust and unsaid things. Then, finally, she nods. “Fine. I promise.”
“Dom gave it to me at the gala.” I force the words past my teeth.
Luna’s magic lashes out, cold and immediate, making coffee cups rattle. The journal nearly lifts from the desk under the sudden pressure of frostbitten energy.
“Youwhat?” Her voice is deadly quiet. “Are you completely insane?”
I roll my eyes. “Here we go.”
“No, seriously! Have you lost your mind? A Blackwood hands you a classified journal and you just take it?”
