“Can’t you do something to make me look less exhausted?” I ask, looking in the hall mirror again.
Dark circles shadow my eyes, making my irises look even more violet than they already are. I push my bottom lip into a pout as I turn to glance at Aidia. The baby-sister face usually works on her, but today, she frowns.
“You know I can’t.” Her half-shadowed expression looks almost like concern. There’s something unspoken in her eyes that turns my stomach.
I swallow hard. “Aidy, step into the light.”
“You can’t confront Rafe. It will only make it worse,” she whispers.
Aidia’s magic is weaving glamour, not mind-reading, but there are times when her foresight makes me wonder. She has an uncanny abilityto read my emotions the way a huntsman can read the forest, a deep intuitive knowing that senses an unnatural shift with ease.
“Step into the light and let me see you, and I swear I’ll be on my best behavior,” I say.
She steps forward, confirming what I already knew. A mottled bruise colors her right cheekbone. It’s a regular occurrence, but every time I see her hurt, it robs me of breath.
Despite my parents’ careful rules and meticulous planning to have their children almost exactly two years apart, Aidia and I broke the mold with only eleven months between us. Maybe that’s the reason we’ve always been so close, but at times it feels like all the Carrenwell ambition was spent on our older siblings and none was left for us. Of course, I have long suspected that they never planned for a ninth. I think they wanted to stop at eight children—one to marry into each gatehouse family to secure Carrenwell control in every powerful magic household.
Aidia has always felt like a mirror for me—like part of my heart living outside my body. It doesn’t matter that she’s older. It doesn’t matter that she can take care of herself. She’s my sister, and when someone puts their hands on her, I want to kill them in the slowest, most painful way possible.
“I know you’re worried, but you don’t need to be,” Aidia says. “I’ve always been able to take care of myself.”
Something about those words rings false. Unpleasant memories scratch at the back of my mind, but I don’t want to go to that dark place before this dinner.
“You’ve always had a big mouth that gets you in trouble,” I counter.
She shrugs a shoulder.
I lower my voice. “Aidy, no one would know. I would make it look like an accident. I could just?—”
She holds up a hand to brace against my concern as she has so many times before. As ifshewould allowmeto live with a monster. As if she wouldn’t be the first in line to claw his eyes out if I showed up with a black eye or angry fingerprints pressed into my pale neck.
Panic swells in my chest, threatening to cut off all my oxygen. My heartbeat crescendos in my ears and I run a hand down the silk of my dress.This is smooth, soft. My dress is red.
I’ve done this same exercise so many times, trying to remind myselfthat I’m safe. My body cannot always tell the difference when my mind tries to drag me into the memories of when I wasn’t.
When I meet Aidia’s gaze, there’s a crease in her brow. “Say it,” she whispers.
I press a clammy hand to my breastbone. “My heart.”
She mimics my pose. “My bones.”
“Our blood,” we say together.
Weakness is a punishable offense in our family. We can never outright say when we’re struggling. So those words have been our secret check-in with each other for years. Those words say,You’re never alone in your pain.
I turn to the mirror and press my hands to my cheeks.
“If you’re really worried about how you look, you can always use your pendant,” Aidia says.
Running my fingers over the star pendant imbued with her magic, I turn to face her. “That would be a waste.”
She rolls her eyes. “Of course. You need to save it for yoursecret missions.”
Aidia doesn’t approve of my double life, not because she doesn’t like to see men put in their place, but because she worries about my safety.
“It only has limited uses. I don’t like to waste your gift,” I say.
“What will you do when it runs out?” she asks.
