“That’s very odd because a sorceress of Oneira’s power should be able to see through most magic. This Jada, is she good at wards?”
“Very,” Thorn answered fervently.
“Sebastien saw you. I see you,” Rose pointed out with clear logic. Shelookedat Thorn in a penetrating way that reminded Thorn of Jada when she worked some sorcery. “There are no wards on you now, but it’s also really difficult to ward a living being. They move around too much.”
“Maybe they weren’t working so well anymore.” Thorn considered. “She used to just lock me in and keep me from leaving the cottage garden, but then she started putting me to sleep while she was gone.”
Rose set down the cookie she’d been nibbling, very slowly. “Put you to sleep? Locked you in?” Flags of red colored her high cheekbones, dark eyes glittering with anger, seeming to reflect the swirling metallic colors in the roses she wore.
Thorn wasn’t quite sure how to respond. She didn’tthinkRose was angry at her again. It seemed that lately all she did was upset people. “Jada had to make excursions, you see, to the city, to acquire more supplies. And she needed me to stay inside the briar fence while she was gone, for my own safety, but I hated it, so I tried to slip her wards and go through the gate.”
Rose had set her cookie down. “You can’t go past the fence?”
“No.” Thorn waved a hand at it. “Well, I found that Icould. I disobeyed. I stole books on warding from the library—she wouldn’t teach me that kind of sorcery, she said I had no talent for it—but I wanted to try.” Suddenly it seemed very important to convince Rose that Thorn hadn’t meant to be a bad person. She hadn’t intended any of those terrible things at all. “But Jada was right. I should never have tried to leave the garden.”
“That’s when you met Sebastien?” Rose asked evenly.
Thorn shook her head. “No, that was later. This was, oh, years ago. But Jada was right. I muffed up breaking her wards and she returned immediately. Then she made me sleep any time she was gone. The whole time.” Rose was frowning, so Thorn added, “Enchanted sleep. Like you said Oneira did to Jada. Only for a long time. Sometimes weeks, I think. I was supposed to just sleep, I think, but I remained partly awake. I just couldn’t move. Jada said I shouldn’t be aware, but I was and I don’t know why. Anyway, I wouldn’t wake up until Jada returned and lifted the enchantment.”
“That… that is inhumane,” Rose breathed, looking and sounding horrified, which made Thorn feel a bit better.
“I hated it,” she said, feeling on the verge of tears again, but so very tired of weeping. “And then Moriah came to visit and she told me—”
Rose held up a hand in a sharp gesture. “Moriah. You mentioned her before.Theblack cat Moriah, the antimage, the witch’s familiar, repository of all the spells in the world?”
“I don’t know what most of that means,” Thorn repliedquietly, feeling her ignorance like a debilitating weakness in the face of Rose’s dazzling strength. “She just called herself Moriah. But she did call herself the antimage and she’s the one who got rid of everything I dreamed into being at the inn.”
“Maybe it’s time you tell me that story. Starting with how you met Sebastien.”
Thorn felt herself cringe. She stared at her tea, unable to meet Rose’s lovely, accusing eyes. “He, ah, didn’t tell you?”
“He was too distraught,” Rose replied, voice cool and unforgiving. “And he was wounded, as I’m sure you know.” Thorn barely nodded before Rose relentlessly continued, that flinty anger returning. “After I treated his injury, he fell asleep in my arms, crying for his lost and beloved hound, Nina.”
“I didn’t know how to bring her back,” Thorn said, miserable. “Maybe you can?”
Rose shook her head. “I can try, but she belongs to the Dream now. This is why the untutored should never play at being oneiromancer.”
Thorn swallowed down her tears. “I realize I’m a danger to the world, and that’s why I’ve been locked away here.” Though she did wonder why Rose wasn’t an amateur, why she’d been taught. “That’s why I promised Moriah I would come back here and stay. And I have.”
Rose bit out a sigh. Ate a cookie while staring out the window. “Just tell me what happened, Thorn.”
So, Thorn did, in as much detail as she could remember. Rose listened with intent interest, not contradicting or questioning.
“That explains a great deal,” Rose murmured, almost to herself, though her gaze remained keen on Thorn. “And raises a dozen more questions. When did Moriah visit you the first time?”
“I was upset, because I worried I was sleeping my life away, that Jada was staying away longer and longer and I hated lying there awake while… I was upset,” she repeated, the words seeming inadequate. But Rose reached across the little table,took her hand, and squeezed it. Even their hands felt exactly the same, as if she held her own hand—though the one callused and the other polished to brilliance—but the reassuring contact steadied her. Especially since she rather thought Rose didn’t often touch people casually.
“Of course you were upset,” Rose said carefully. “Thorn, what you’ve endured, all of this, is terrible. And we’re going to get to the root of it, I promise.”
Thorn lifted her gaze from their identical joined hands to meet Rose’s eyes, so like and unlike her own. “You’re going to help me?” she asked, hearing the incredulity in her own voice.
“You’re my sister,” Rose said matter-of-factly, squeezing Thorn’s hand one more time before letting go and retrieving her half-eaten cookie. “I don’t know why we were lied to—though I aim to find out—but you clearly are the twin I was told was dead. Of course I’m going to help you.”
“But you were so furious when you arrived.”
“Understandably so, I’d think.” Rose waggled her expressive brows. “After all, some sorcerous bitch had stolen my boyfriend, wore my face around, sent his dog into the Dream, potentially damaged my—”
“You already went through the list of my crimes,” Thorn interrupted. “There’s no need to go over it again.”
