And it made Roa jealous. Not of Essie, though. OfDax.
It had never before occurred to Roa that she could lose her sister. And as silly as it was, the thought of losing her to Dax terrified Roa.
She didn’t know how to say that, though. So she fled.
It was an absurd notion. Running from her sister? Essie would find her. She always found her. It was like trying to run from her own self.
“I’m not the only one keeping secrets,” said Essie, breathing hard as her bare feet padded the cracked dirt floors of Roa’s hiding place.
Roa lifted her forehead from her arms, hugging her knees. Essie came and sat beside her, pressing her back to the crumbled wall of the ruined House of Shade.
“I don’t keep secrets from you,” Roa whispered, hooking her chin around her arms and staring straight ahead at the abandoned fire basin, half-eaten by rust and sinking into the ground.
Essie rested her head on Roa’s shoulder, soaking Roa’s dress with her wet hair. “This is a secret you don’t realize you have.”
Roa frowned at her, not understanding. She shook it away. “We made a pact,” she said. “He’s not allowed to come between us.”
“He’s not between us. Look.” Essie squished herself right up against Roa’s hip, until more of their bodies were touching than not. She grinned at Roa.
Roa looked away, trying to stay cross. But her sister’s grin melted her anger and a smile touched her lips.
“He’s not going to take me away from you,” Essie whispered, knowing Roa’s innermost fear. “Besides, you’re the one he likes. Not me.”
Roa pulled away, staring at her. “What?”
But she remembered the way Dax smiled at her lately. The way he loved to make her laugh.
Maybe it was true. But even so, who cared? Certainly not Roa.
“If he’s going to take anyone away,” said Essie, a little soberly, “it’s going to be you.”
Roa shook her head. “You’re daft.”
Essie bent her head toward her sister’s so that their temples touched. “Just wait and see,” she said, snaking an arm around Roa’s waist and holding her tight.
Eleven
Roa didn’t hear the footsteps crunching glass. Didn’t feel someone at her side, saying her name, until he started wrapping a torn strip of his own shirt tightly around her arm.
“Are you all right?” Theo asked gently.
Roa looked down to find slivered shards of blue and red glass scattered all around her on the floor. Blown out of the window.
It was then that she felt the warm blood seeping through the cotton bandage tied around her arm. One of the shards must have cut her.
Roa looked from Theo’s handiwork up into his eyes.
His gaze swept over the shattered glass, up to the empty window and the red sky beyond, then back to the bloody strip of linen tied around Roa’s arm.
“What happened?”
Roa thought about that strange look in her sister’s silver eyes just before she flew through the broken window. As if she didn’t recognize Roa. As if she didn’t know her own sister.
As if her time was running out.
Roa and Essie never spoke about what it meant, aboutwhyEssie was trapped in hawk form. They never spoke about why Essie’s feathers had turned white after the last Relinquishing, or her eyes silver.
But they knew.
