Selena’s nose pinched the way it had when she was small. When we hadn’t cared that our feet were dirty and bare. That sewn-in patches lined our dresses. That we hadn’t combed our hair by the time the sun reached its zenith in the sky each day.
“Why are you taking your boots off?” I asked.
“Aren’t you taking yours off?”
“No.”
Selena grabbed her boot, shoving her foot inside. “I thought we had to be naked.”
A potent cackle from my throat. “We’re not swimming. We’re not moon-bathing. We’re burning a stupid magical flower.”
“Give me that.” She snatched my list away. I crossed my arms, suffocating my smile, though it erupted from the corners of my mouth anyway. I’d memorized the list years ago. Silverspire, opal, mugwort, seashells, feather.
Nonaked.
“Well, everything else we have to do as moon-forsaken Naiads requires us to be naked.” She crumpled the list and tossed it dully at my stomach, her nose even more pinched.
I laughed at her until she shook her head, her mouth breaking into a smile that devolved into reluctant laughter. And then I laughed harder.
I didn’t realize that would be the last time I would laugh out loud with my sister.
3
Selena
We dropped the contents of Cebrinne’s waistband into our dug-out pit on the side of the cliffs.
Feather, shell, vial. My breath stunted as she sliced the long stem of her silverspire bloom with the opal knife. Cebrinne had tended to it since it was a seedling. Its long, slender leaves seemed too delicate for a flower born in the mountains. The petals had only just peeled back, opening at the edges, bright and shimmering. As though someone had shaved a pearl in thin slices from top to base.
Seven years for a glance at a bloom that lasted only moments. She dropped it into the soft flames, and the fire ate it alive, a burning tide consuming it whole until silver dust flecked and sparked into the soft whisper of the wind.
Then she sat beside me in silence.
Our mother used to laugh that we were alternate versions of the same girl. I suppose the differences between us physically were few. My crown was wrapped in rich, dark-chocolate waves, whereas Cebrinne’s locks were the black-blue of night. My eyes shone crystal-blue, while hers took more of a turquoise hue. Our faces might have been molded from the same frame, cheeks and brows slanted in the same ways. But there had always been something wild about Cebrinne that my body never claimed. Something untamed and unforgiving.
“Why do you think we needed to burn it?” I asked.
Cebrinne shook her head. “I don’t know, Senna.”
“The sun burns, not the moon. The moon reflects. Seems more fitting to set a mirror in the rock and reflect the flower to Theia.”
She raised her shoulder. “It certainly does.”
“Why didn’t we think to ask?”
“Ask what?”
I grumbled, though I’m sure she missed the sound under the low roar of the ocean below. “Why we have to burn it.”
“We just do, Senna. No one cares why.”
The moon grew darker as the sun carved around it, its rays too bright to stare at for too long. I crossed my arms over my legs, hoping if I pressed my mouth shut tightly enough, I’d stifle the annoyance that piqued and flattened every time my sister and I shared a conversation for more than two minutes. Cebrinne was my favorite person in the world, but favorite people tend to know exactly how to prod the nerves under your skin.
“Except you,” she amended.
A soft crack hissed under the base of the fire. I hadn’t expected the flames to turn silver. They didn’t even appear hot. No heat waves, no smoke. Just light and ash.
“We should have saved a petal,” I said, resting my chin on my knees. “Just one. Just in case.”
