A quiet week later, I’m breathing gray smoke out a window cracked to the May dawn as Poppy sits at her father’s desk in his study, reading through her childhood fairytales with tears in her eyes.
“I want her back,” she rasps, flipping through the leather-bound notebooks. “I want this little girl back.”
I don’t have any encouraging words to offer. She’ll never get that piece of herself back, and she knows it. Her innocence died the day her father handed her a knife and ordered her to take a life. At her core, Poppy Morgenstern is a killer.
Leviathan spent enough time beating that fact into her bones.
“You still have a choice,” I remind her. “Assume your birthright and rule. Or let the legacy of your forefathers die.”
“Let’s tackle that another day.” Poppy sighs, closing her notebooks in a desk drawer and joining my side as she nurses her vape. “How is Dantë?”
Since that bloody night last month nearly killed him, my twin has been healing at a decent rate and walking with only a slight limp. He’s still beyond exhausted, using his recovery time to pour himself into gaming to distract himself from the less-than-slim chances of ever seeing Mama’s ring again.
“Physically, he’s fine.”
“You know that’s not what I'm asking.”
“Not to sound like a copycat, but let’s tackle that another day.”
“Fair enough.” She chews her bottom lip. “How has work been without…”
Without Quinn.We don't speak her name. I refuse to acknowledge she even existed. It was easy for us to plant the evidence needed for a convincing runaway story. Everyone at work had seen how devastated she'd been after Scull “left the city” and believed she'd gone to find him.
But that's not what Poppy is asking.
She's asking howIam without voicing the question directly. Because I never have a simple answer for how I feel about the woman I'd thought was my friend. The friend I'd given a second chance even when I shouldn't have. A second chance I'll regret for the rest of my life, as it had nearly ended in me losing the most precious person in my life.
Something wet and warm slips from my lashes.
“I'm sorry,” Poppy murmurs, stepping into my side and wrapping an arm around my waist. “I shouldn't have asked.”
“Don't be sorry,” I say, pawing at the unbidden tear and kissing the crown of her head. “Mercifor caring enough to ask. For being here even after my mistakes led to you and your parents in that crypt.”
“That's not your burden to bear,mon ange.” She presses a kiss to the angel guarding my heart. “You saw the good in her. Something tells me it wasn't all an act on her part, that she really did think of you as a friend, in her own twisted way. Maybe that's why Scull hadn't gone after you sooner. Maybe she was protecting you.”
I don't know how much I believe that, but we'll never know now. It's the closest thing to closure I'll have, and I'm more than ready to end that chapter of my life forever.
Silence descends over us like a calm mist. It’s as comforting as sitting at a campfire in the dead of winter. Poppy is my flame, and I’m hers. I toy with her hair, my knuckles brushing her spine. Goosebumps prickle her flesh as if my hands haven’t been a constant presence on her skin.
I’ve lost count of how many times we've claimed each other. Lately, though, it’s been different.
We’vebeen different.
Everything we thought to be true was a lie. Margot wasn’t murdered; she’s a member of the same cult that nearly destroyed my own life twice over. Quinn wasn’t my friend; she was using me to get to Poppy for her own gain.
We both saw inexplicable things that defied logic.
But we have yet to talk about any of it.
And it's driving me up a fucking wall.
“What’s wrong,mon roi?”
“Don’t ask questions you already know the answer to,ma reine.”
Poppy palms my cheek, thumbing the scar she gifted me. “Aren’t some unknowns better left in the dark?”
“Says the woman who held a knife to my throat when demanding to know my past I also thought was better left in the dark.”
