Something that sounded exactly like Tori’s snort echoed through the dungeon. “Yeah, like that would happen.”
I scrambled up as the door swung open, revealing Tori, Genevieve, and Olivia.
30
Genevieve threw herselfinto my arms first.
“How could you have hidden this from me?” my stepsister demanded, her sobs smothered by my hair.
Tori crossed her arms. “And me,” she said. “All this time there was a witch in my house and no one noticed?” She looked serious, but her tone was teasing.
I could only stare at them.
“Amarante?” Olivia said softly from behind them. “Are you alright?”
Genevieve pulled back and took my hands. Tori quirked an eyebrow at me.
I shook my head, hardly knowing how to react. “Aren’t you scared of me?”
“Scared?” Tori said, making a face. “I never believed that fear mongering nonsense about witches in the first place. Pa raised me better than that.”
Genevieve’s eyes brimmed with tears, but she wiped them away and smacked my shoulder. “I don’t care what you are, Amarante. You’re still my sister.”
“And you’re my friend,” Olivia said. She fidgeted, as if embarrassed to be speaking at all. “I knew there was something wrong ever since the soirée, even if you didn’t tell me.”
I lowered my head. “I haven’t been completely honest,” I said. Tori snorted. “I owe you the truth. All of you.”
Taking a breath, I told them everything, from the scarlet smoke to working as Narcissa’s scullery maid. I told them about my fight with Lana and how making the truth potion led to my arrest. In a lower voice, I revealed how Narcissa used her magic to sabotage me. I didn’t want Captain Greenwood to hear what his daughter had done. He had lost enough.
“And now I need your help to escape,” I said after I finished my tale.
All three of them looked astonished. I could hardly blame them. Even I had difficulty processing all that had happened in the past two months.
Tori was the first to recover. “Anything to get those rotten Whittingtons what they deserve,” she said, slamming her fist into her palm. “Really! The audacity of Narcissa to order you around and frame you as a thief and traitor!”
I winced as her voice boomed through the cell. Hopefully, Captain Greenwood was asleep.
