“No, thank goodness,” Thorn answered fervently. “But I also didn’t sleep well.”
“Given the potential consequences, thatisgood,” Rose told her, “but the implications are the salient detail here. There’s probably something embedded in the cottage walls that keeps you from dreaming.”
Thorn felt like an idiot. “I didn’t think of that.”
“I know more about sorcery than you do, which isn’t your fault. This Jada person and whoever gave you into her care—and I’ll be seeking answers there—kept you deliberately ignorant. She didn’t teach you any sorcery at all?”
“At a sophisticated level, just psychometry. I am, at least, good at that. And elementary stuff like lights and fire.”
Rose looked thoughtful. “The psychometry is interesting. I’ve learned only what I need to get by there. I wonder if I could get good at it, too?” She shook her head, dismissing the thought. “The real question is the why of Jada’s reasoning. You’re an oneiromancer as powerful as I am, most likely. We’re valuable. I’ve gone to school my entire life, which is expensive. They’ve invested in me so they can sell my contract and—” She broke off, eyes widening, dark pools in her pale face. “Thorn,” she said, sinking a weight into the single word. “Have you been bound by the blood geas?”
“I don’t know what that is,” Thorn answered, a frisson going down her spine at Rose’s intensity.
Rose pressed her lips together in frustration. “Of course you wouldn’t know. And I don’t know how to check you for it.” She pushed a breath through her lips, staring fiercely at Thorn. “I bet you’re not bound and that’s what all this is for.”
“I really don’t understand what you’re talking about,” Thorn said helplessly. “Would you please explain?”
“Yes, yes, sorry. I’m just still reeling. If you are an unbound sorceress then… Wow.”
“Rose!”
Rose waved her hands. “Sorry, sorry. See, all children are tested for magic, up until they’re past the age of manifesting it. If they have magic, their blood is used in an enchantment that binds them to whoever holds their contract. At this time the headmistress of HASP holds my contract—the Hendricks Academy for Sorcerous Pursuits where I go to school—and they, what?”
Thorn had clapped her hands to her cheeks. “I thought HASP was a city,” she said, her voice muffled, her face aflame. “Or a castle. Sebastien must have thought I was an idiot.”
“I doubt that.” Rose reached over and pulled her hands from her face.
Thorn looked back at the glamorous, incisive, and decisive Rose. “I don’t know how he confused us at all,” she confessed.
“People see what they expect to see,” Rose said with that wry twist of her lips. “Thinking you were me made more sense than that he ran into my identical twin hidden away in a remote cottage in the Aswad Woods.”
Rose was talking on, explaining the blood geas and contracts and sorcerous careers, and it all made Thorn’s head spin. She almost couldn’t absorb any more.
“Apologies,” Rose said, reaching over to touch Thorn’s hand lightly. “This is probably a lot for you to think about.”
“Can you read my mind?” Thorn asked, wondering if she could learn that trick, too, if so. Or would she want to?
“No.” Rose laughed. “There are people skilled in psychic magic who can, but not me. I feel like I’m able to… I don’t know. Read your face really well. Almost feel your emotions. Maybe because being with you is like being with myself.” She rubbed her fingertips together thoughtfully. “Almost like you’re part of me. It’s uncanny, really.”
“It is,” Thorn agreed. Perhaps that was part of why she felt so odd. “But,” she added shyly, “it’s really nice. For me. I always wanted a sister.”
Rose tilted her head, considering. “You know, I did, too. I always felt like someone was missing. Like I’d lost something, but didn’t know what it was. It could be we remember each other, from the womb.” She waggled her brows. “Stranger things are true. I’m going to find out what the truth is.”
Restless, Thorn stood and gathered the detritus of their meal, if you could call devouring cookies a meal. “You’re going toleave,” she said, hoping that if she said it first it would hurt less. Of course Rose had to leave.
“I have to,” Rose said, echoing Thorn’s thought in that uncanny way of hers.
“I thought you were going to help me.” Not abandon her, too. Thorn had to choke back the tears, feeling wobbly again. Did Rose ever weep? Probably not.
“Iamgoing to help you, but I need information first. And that investigation begins with a very important first step. I’m going to go talk to our mother.”
Their mother.Somehow, in all of this startling, revelatory, and thoroughly emotionally shattering conversation, it hadn’t once occurred to Thorn that she had a mother out there. And a father, too, most likely. That is, of course she had a father, but one that was around? Rose hadn’t mentioned one, though she hadn’t mentioned a mother until that moment either and somehow, in the stroke of a few words, Thorn wasn’t an orphan. She had a mother.
Maybe.
If the identical-twins-separated-at-birth thing was real, which seemed awfully unlikely. It seemed more like the stuff of fiction than any kind of plausible explanation. Not that Thorn had a better one. But… amother. Her heart leapt with a hopeful joy, like a bluebird taking flight—until her mind caught up and reminded her of the next logical step. A mother who had given Thorn up, told everyone her baby had died. Who had sent her to live with Jada in this cottage. Who’d sentenced her to a life of sleep and nothing while her other daughter received the finest everything. Who had not only abandoned her, like everyone else had, but also gave her over to misery.
Rose tapped her hand, grimacing. “I’m sorry. That was thoughtless of me. I can’t imagine what’s going through your head right now.”
