I tsked. “For all I know, you’re a weakling who can’t spread anything apart.”
He beamed a wolfish grin, his eyes swearing that later, when it was only the two of us, he’d remind me just how good he was at spreading me apart.
“Shut up.”
“I didn’t say anything.”
“Uh-huh. Sure you didn’t.”
“I didn’t say a peep. I’m as innocent as a faeby.”
Tutting, I circled the cage, next reached up for the hand of Young-Rafaela’s lookalike. “We’ll figure it out somehow. We won’t leave you caged and alone,” I was saying as I pressed my fingertips to hers?—
My hand slipped, not catching on hers—as if she were made only of shadow.
Baz was at my side in an instant. “What the fuck?” After several seconds of our mutual staring, he said, “And I was about to climb the cage to open the bars too.”
I snorted. “Of course you were. Of course you can.”
“Don’t want to make it too easy for you.” But he sounded distracted.
“I won’t be making it easy for you.” My eyes were only on her.
Young-Not-Rafaela’s face crumbled, losing all of its previous animation. I smiled sadly up at her, suggesting I understood, when of course I didn’t—couldn’t. I, at least, had always gotten free eventually. She, it appeared, never would—even if we found the way to release her from this prison.
Tenderly, though it wouldn’t make a scorching difference, I caressed my fingers along hers. All I felt was cold.
“She’s a phantom,” Baz said.
In unison, the woman and I nodded.
Whoever she was, we had arrived much too late to save her.
Chapter 18
Both Saved and Cursed; Here Is the Ghalubu of Lore, the Razer of Dreaded Legend
For as long as I’d lived, my principal imperative was to protect my siblings. After Isolina had been killed, my priority had shifted just to Teo—always Teo.
We’d never known the identity of our father, and our mother had died when we were so young that we knew nothing about her either. All we had were assumptions, not even a family friend who could tell us why she’d died or give us so much as her name.
By our best guesses, Isolina had been less than two years younger than Teo and I. Our mother had died sometime after giving birth to her but before we were old enough to retain any memory of her. I would have loved to have known even one thing about her, to have something, anything, to hold on to—just her scent or her smile would have been enough—proof that at some point we’d been wanted, that our lives hadn’t been intended to be about struggle, the hardship of survival.
Once Rafaela rebirthed Teo and me and provided for our basic needs, our focus had shifted to ways to endure, to finding distraction and pleasure within the unrelenting trials of life. At last we had a mother, the one thing we’d always wanted. But Rafaela the Ruthless lacked the maternal warmth we’d long envisioned. She demanded our devotion, and so we gave it—to the woman who had both saved us and cursed us.
Teo used to insist that I had to have been born first because of my innate drive to remedy his and Isi’s every problem. Whether or not I was the eldest, we’d never know, but he was right that I was a fixer. I needed to be able to fix whatever challenge I—or my loved ones—was facing.
Now, staring up into the eyes of this incongruous specter, a similar need prickled along my spine, urging me to take immediate action. I had to fix her, had to save her, had to free her from her cage.
Yet she was already long dead, and her cage was the worst kind. Busting her out was impossible.
I began rocking back and forth on my feet to manage the jitters that came from inaction, when Baz palmed his hands together in a quiet clap.
“Okay, I know what to do.”
I faced him. “You do?”
His mouth tipped up into a cocky smile. “Yeah, I do. I can’t promise it’ll work, but you know.”
