Saela’s curled up on the small cot inside, her knees pulled tight to her chest, arms wrapped around them like she’s trying to make herself small enough to disappear.
My breath catches tightly in my throat. She won’t be comforted if I gasp at her appearance. But…
She looks so tiny and frail, but there’s still blood and gore staining her clothes and skin, matted in her dark hair. And her eyes are big and filled with tears, but the points of her fangs peek out and hide again when she sees me.
She’s sweet, and she’s sharp.
My world tilts a bit, and I fight to stay standing on both feet.
The future I imagined, that I fought so hard for—it’sgone. Snatched away from us, returned warped and distorted. Like ink that had water dropped onto it, spreading out and away until it’s nearly unrecognizable.
But her sobs sound theexactsame, and that snaps me out of my stupor. Right now, that’s all that matters to me. She’s different, but it’s still my sister in that cell.
“Meryn,” she cries, her voice splintering.
“Let me in,” I say in a rush, pressing my body to the bars. When I look at Aldrich, who has the keys, his jaw is set.
“I don’t know that it’s a good idea to—”
“Let me innow!” I snap.
His lips press into a thin line beneath his beard, and he shakes his head. Still, he slides the key into the lock.
“Sae,” I choke out. “I’m sorry. I wanted to come sooner, but I—”
My sister throws up her bloody hands before I can reach her. “Stop! Stop.” She’s begging through her tears. “He’s right. You shouldn’t be near m-me. I’mevil.”
She’s trembling violently. Her fangs appear, disappear.
I shake my head and try to go to her, but she falls backward and scrambles to the back of the cot.
“You n-need to kill me, Meryn,” she says, and tears spring to my eyes. “P-please.”
She’s serious, and her words dig deeper into my gut than I ever thought possible, breaking some hidden piece of me that was somehow still whole.
“I’m dangerous. I bit that woman!” She’s breathing all wrong. She’s pale and twitching so hard that her skull smacks the stone wall. “D-did I kill her? Did Ikillher?!”
I move more slowly toward her now, so afraid of startling her or making her worse. Something unfamiliar and painful courses through me, as if invisible hands are slowly pulling me apart in a thousand directions and I can’t do anything to stop them.
It’s fear, I realize—true fear, the likes of which I’ve never felt until this moment, with my sister dangling on the edge. A threat to her from the outside? Fine, I will figure it out.
But this,this—
She’s so fragile, and she’s serious. Shewantsto die; I can see it in the tilt of her mouth. More than that—she expects me to help her. It’s a fight to keep breathing, but I can’t let her see that.
And if I make one wrong move, those invisible hands will rip us both to shreds.
“Helene is fine, Saela.” My words are urgent but gentle. Maybe if I speak carefully to her, I can coax her into some calm, walk us both away from this treacherous breaking point. “She was healed by her wolf. No one is hurt.”
Saela doesn’t seem to hear me when I tell her she hasn’t harmed anyone. Perhaps the guilt is too powerful. I sit down slowly next to her, and she doesn’t dart away.
“Kill me.” She’s pleading with her eyes, and my heart shatters again at the words. “I need to go. I shouldn’t b-be…”
“Please,” I whisper. My voice is lost beneath her wails.
“I would rather die than bethis!” Saela sobs. “Our enemy.Yourenemy.”
And the horrible thing is, I understand it. It’s all we know: that the Siphons are evil. They killed our father. But if Killian and Cyril and all the kings before them could live undetected as Siphons for centuries, theremustbe a way for her to live safely among us.
