“Stop it,” the Red Queen whispered, closed her eyes, lowered her head.
But the White didn’t. She instead pointed her finger at her face.
“You knew, and you stayed. You stayed because you likeit, because youlovethis life. You stayed because youlovebeing young and beautiful and rich and all-powerful—you love it too much to do anything about it!”
The Red Queen’s chin trembled. Her eyes glistened but the tears didn’t fall.
“I am doing something about itnow,” she said in half a voice.
“Now.” The White Queen spat the word like poison. “Now, when it’s too late. Now, when I force your hand—how ridiculous! You think you’re brave?!”
“Iam.” Her voice steadied. Hardened. “I’m brave because I’ve been a coward too long. And you’re right—I didlike itin the beginning. I did let you manipulate me, paint the perfect picture for me. I let myself be fooled and I let myself be dragged along because I believed I was powerless—but I am not. I never was!” She turned to us, and suddenly she looked like she was about to fall apart any second. “I am not like you.I can look at these boys and girls, at that man, and I can stillfeel something!”
It was the White Queen who looked like she was coming apart now, especially when the Red one said, “Youcan’t.You won’t let yourself. You don’t remember what it was like?—”
“Don’tspeak to me like I’m an imbecile, Aurelia!” she exploded.
My eyes closed, and I held onto March and Mimi tighter. He was trying to look back, to see if there was a way out of here, a way to run—he and Silas both—but there wasn’t. We were surrounded by soldiers on all sides, and there was nobody else there. The fences were too far. The Ever was too far—and even if someone saw or heard us, who would dare to come close?
“I remember—of course, I do! I remember everything this crown cost me,” the White Queen said, no longer smiling, no longer bothered with keeping up the facade. “It took everything from me long before I took anything fromit.” Just now, she was quieter. Colder. Like shehatedthe crown on her head. “It’s because I remember that I know all of this belongs to me. It’s owed to me—Iam queen!”
“And you need to be stopped.” The Red Queen took a step back.
“You were with me every step of the way!” said the White, laughing that ice-cold,fakelaugh.
Her sister shook her head so hard her red curls bounced. “You made me?—”
“I didn’tmakeyou do anything?—”
“—by threatening my family. You threatened their lives if I didn’t comply—don’t you dare stand there and pretend?—”
“I gave you a choice!” The White Queen was back to screaming again. “I gave you the same choice I was given—sacrifice or lose everything. You chose the same thing I chose,sister. So don’t think for a second that you’re better than me in any way.”
The Red Queen was shaking. Her whole body vibrating with something that was either rage or grief or both. Impossible to separate. Impossible to even name.
“I amnotbetter than you,” she said after a long, loaded moment.
When she spoke now, she spoke like these words hadbeen sitting in her throat for decades, waiting to be released. “I have never been better than you. I have been your shadow for fifty years—your accomplice, your coward, your willing prisoner. I have done things that will follow me to the Everstill and beyond.” She stepped closer to the White Queen. Chin up, eyes dry. “But I amdone.”
“You’re done when I say you’re done,” the White Queen hissed. “I amqueen!”
“You forget, sister,” the Red Queen said. “I am queen, too.”
It all happened fast and slow at the same time.
For a moment—just a moment—something passed between them. Something old and complicated andfullthat none of us could even begin to understand. They were sisters—maybe not by blood but by ritual, by crown, by fifty years of standing side by side. They had shared a throne and a lot of secrets, a lot ofwrongs, and whatever they had once been to each other, it was coming apart.
It was peeling away layer by layer right in front of us, and all we could do was watch.
Both women raised their hands at the same time.
They attacked—at the same time.
Red and white clashed in the space between them. The magic that spread in the air, red in places, blinding white in others, took my breath away. My heart no longer beat. My eyes no longer saw. My ears no longer heard—but I did feel March’s arms around me when he pulled me back.
It didn’t last long, though.
The colors, the magic faded from the air, though the energy still danced on my skin like a million needles were pricking me constantly. But the shapes and the colors of the real world came forward again.
