Corin knew what Briar did not want to discuss what happened. The girl needed to avoid the pain, even if it meant severing whoever she loved before. But the agony Corin had experienced in the ocean told her it didn’t matter how deep Briar tried to bury her suffering. It would always breathe back into their lungs, one way or another.
Waves crashed against the shore and retreated like a whisper. Sunlight trickled across the beach, and a group of tiny spheres glinted like stars in the sand. Corin recognized the pearls that had spewed from her throat moments ago. As they melted in sand, a small wire emerged from each gem, stringing them together into a necklace. She picked them up and inspected closer. The coating had worn off, and the glass base underneath had been what caught the light. There was a stain on several of them, so small and minuscule that they could have been constellations.
But stars were never as red as this, and blood had never looked so familiar.
• • •
THE VISIONS CONTINUED taunting the back of Corin’s mind, distracting her from new senses in Summerland. They had left the beach to hike an upward slope in a jungle, where the air turned thick and warm, and sweat drenched the back of her shirt. Somehow, Elly had enough energy to climb thick trees and tangled vegetation. She combed her fingers through tropical flowers and splashed her boots in mud to see how far they’d splatter her clothes. Malicine even entertained her whimsies and led her below a canopy. They made Elly look up at the overhang until it burst with colorful birds, and she laughed in delight, climbing vines to reach them.
Corin took advantage of their distraction by seizing Briar’s arm. She pulled the girl behind a thick cluster of ferns. Hanging foliage swayed behind their heads like curtains, shielding the two from view. Corin cornered Briar against a tree trunk, her palm pressed against the bark, her voice lowered into a whisper.
“What the hell did I see back there?” she hissed.
“It was just a nightmare,” Briar replied evenly, like she had practiced this response. “It wasn’t real.”
“You’re lying. That was a memory.” Those visions had felt too real to be imagined, too painful to be a dream. Grief clung to Corin’s chest long after the mirages disappeared, twisting her heart as if she, too, had experienced the worst night of her life and wanted to die. “Why are you hiding Amelia?”
A flash of pain crossed Briar’s face. Her eyes lost focus, clouds from a dark night shading the once bright color of sea glass. The rosy blush in her cheeks left behind pallor and clenched teeth.
“The stories say Gyldan would prosper so long as their royaltycarries golden blood. But such things never held weight. The king and queen died because of Amelia,” Briar said. “It is better to be a coward. When I try to fight, it only ends in death. At least here, I can forget. I can be someone else.”
“But you’re not someone else,” Corin argued. “You’re Amelia. You saved me. Which makes everything confusing, because I’m supposed to hate you.”
Sunlight filtered through the trees, fractures of light falling on Briar’s face like crystal gems, yet never meeting her eyes. Their breaths were warm against each other’s faces as they stared at each other. If Corin looked long enough, she could see the small crack in Briar’s lips, the uneven rise and fall of her chest. If she stroked Briar’s jaw, she could notice the way it clenched, the vulnerability of flaws that lingered behind a false painting. Corin had felt Briar’s despair so acutely, because it lived in her bones as well.
She longed to meet Amelia and tear open her heart. She wanted to peer inside that bleeding organ and ask,How did you know this was my pain, too?
“I saw you, too,” Briar said. “When we were drowning in the ocean. Your memory with your friends. And what you told Elly before she ran away.”
Corin took a step back, reeling in shock, as if Briar had cut her open. But of course Briar had seen it. If the ocean revealed the worst night of Amelia’s life, then Corin’s would have been on full display in return. In the underwater depths, their open wounds existed, gaping at one another.
“Don’t,” Corin said, bristling at the edge of her words. “Don’t you dare judge me for that. You don’t know everything.”
“I would never judge you,” Briar whispered, her voice so gentle it made Corin’s heart crack. As if the girl sensed the fracture, sheplaced a hand on Corin’s chest, filling it with warmth at her touch. “You and Elly can be happy here. After everything you two have been through, isn’t that enough?”
Corin could no longer meet Briar’s eyes. The girl saw too much, excavating her bones and unearthing her sorrows without permission. How could Briar have heard what Corin told Elly and believe Corin still deserved happiness? Corin glanced upward, fighting back tears, and fixated on the apricots hanging from a tree. A tiny punch of sour hit her tongue, as if she could taste the fruit. Orange paint filled her vision, a bright round orb that dripped to the bottom of a canvas, her mother’s hand steadying hers over a brush.
You just made the sun,her mother had said. As if Corin really did have that kind of magic in her hands.
But she was not a girl who held magic. She was only a thief with bitter words, nothing more.
“This isn’t real,” Corin insisted, her voice close to breaking.
Briar’s stare seemed to trace the curve of Corin’s face, unearthing her shame and accepting it anyway. “And what if it’s not?”
Corin shook her head. “I can’t do that to El. Or Harlow. Or anyone.” Her voice trembled. “It’s not fair.”
Not after what I did.
Corin heard Elly shouting from the other side of the foliage, her voice breaking their reverie. The sound made Corin’s heart leap out of her chest and jolted her forward. Her limbs thrashed the thick grass surrounding them as she charged through tangled vines to find her sister. In the open clearing, Elly and Malicine had both turned in the same direction, gazes caught by a wild fox behind the bushes. Corin recognized the brown fur and beady eyes in the dappled sunlight. Even when the fox turned to run, she knew he had been following her.
Mud spat in the air as Elly charged after the fox’s blurry tail, leaving the group behind. Panic overtook Corin’s pounding heart again.
“El, wait!”
Elly didn’t listen and disappeared into the foliage. Corin chased her through a winding path of thick trees and sliding boulders. She cut through woody vines and fallen fruit, yelling for Elly to come back. She didn’t want Elly to find out.
Find out what?
