My breath catches. The door’s not locked.
Slowly, I turn the knob and step inside.
The house is only lit by the gray light casting in through the windows. I can almost see them moving through the rooms like ghosts, hear their voices as echoes: memories of Papa and me, in the life we lived before. Me following him from room to room, writing notes as he reads from a text. My old routine of plopping down at the bench by the front door, pulling on my boots, readying for the walk to work. Sitting in the seat by the kitchen window, waiting for someone to return.
I narrow my gaze, examining that particular ghost. But it’s not a memory at all. There’s a person in the rickety wooden chair right where I used to sit, legs all curled up, head leaning against the windowsill.
But her hair is short and wavy, eyes like our father’s sapphire blue.
My sister turns to look at me. She wears clothes that are far too big for her—black sweatpants and a navy hoodie with a bleach stain down the front. My clothes. Swamped in fabric with bare feet and tucked into a ball on the chair, she looks so fragile, like a bird fallen from its nest.
Her blank expression doesn’t change as she takes me in. “Oh,” she says quietly. “How disappointing.” She returns tostaring out the window. “I was hoping it was someone who would finally kill me.”
I swallow in a dry throat. Look around the kitchen. It’s a mess, strewn with pried open tins of beans and peaches and foil packages from various pantry goods. A leak must have sprung in the roof, and a puddle has formed on the floor. There’s other clutter too, stuff that doesn’t belong in the kitchen: books piled on the microwave, my old diaries flung open and left on the floor, old letters of Papa’s hung on the fridge by magnets.
“How long have you been here?” I ask, my voice barely above a whisper.
She shrugs. “Since the Winter Realm.” Then she mumbles so low I can hardly hear her, “No place in the Vale for me.”
“How did you find it?”
“I know more about you than you think,” she spits, that old venom creeping back. Then she sighs and says, “Small town. Easy to find.”
So this is where Wrenley’s run off to. I itch to start tidying up Papa’s papers or take a seat in the kitchen with her, but I’m struck still. What was she searching for in the pages of my childhood diaries or the ramblings my father jotted down?
“I came looking for you,” I say. “Caspian’s worried. Kairyn’s worried. They want to know you’re okay.”
She squeezes her eyes shut. “Cas is gone?—”
I move, scooting into the chair beside her. I reach out my hands to take hers, but she pulls away, huddling more into herself. Because she hates me? Or because she’s afraid of me?
I clasp my fingers together to resist the temptation. “He’s okay, Wrenley. He fought the Baron and won. Caspian’s himself again.”
Wrenley nods and her breathing quickens. Her gaze rises upward, and I see how shiny her blue eyes are. “That’s good. I’m happy for him. Really, I am.”
I bite the inside of my cheek, then go for it, lightly resting a hand on her shoulder. She stiffens beneath my touch. “Everyone’s at Castletree. Me, Caspian, Kairyn. And our parents. We all want you to come home.”
A half sob, half laugh erupts out of her throat. She whips her head to look at me, and I jerk back against the chair, her gaze withering. “That’s great, Rosalina, really great you’ve got your whole happy family at Castletree. You keep on playing princess and leave me out of it, okay?”
“You can’t stay here,” I whisper.
“Why not?” She stands and paces to the back of the kitchen, slamming her hands on the counter. “’Cause this is your precious little home, and I’ll only infect it? Is that it? I can’t even have your dregs?”
“No.” I stand. “Because your place is with your family.”
“I don’thavea family,” she spits. “What don’t you understand about that?”
“Caspian’s your brother?—”
Her lips pull back like a cat in a hiss. “He’s not myrealbrother. And he jumped ship as soon as he could to be with you.”
“Kairyn… He’s your mate?—”
“Argh!” She claws at her chest. “It’s not real! It’s just stupid star stuff! It’s not real! I ruined his life enough already. I’d tear the thing out of me if I could.”
My heart is pounding now. I need to get through to her, need her to understand she is part of all this. “But Mom and Papa are at?—”
Wrenley glares at me like I’m a bag of trash. “I don’thavea mother who made a bargain to protect me. And I never got a dad.”
