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“What exactly have you done for me, Mother?”

Another stunned silence.

“What did you just say?”

“I asked what you've done for me.”

“How can you possibly⁠—”

“No. You brought it up. So tell me.”

My voice shakes.

I hate that.

But I keep going anyway.

“I gave Melida everything my whole life because you told me to. Every time she wanted something I had, I was supposed to be the bigger person.”

“That is a gross exaggeration.”

“Is it?”

“Yes!”

“The advanced potion lessons?”

“She showed aptitude.”

“The grimoires Grandmother left me?”

“Melida could actually use them. Really, Belinda, what good were they to you?”

That one hurts.

I close my eyes as the memory hits me.

Those books had been mine. Grandmother had written my name inside every single one of them. I hadn’t been able to perform the spells, but I’d read them, anyway. Studied them. Kept trying long after everyone else had decided there was no point.

Until Mother convinced me they were wasted sitting on my shelves.

Just like everything else was apparently wasted on me.

“My boyfriends?”

Mother scoffs.

Actually fucking scoffs.

“Please. You know Melida has always been the prettier one. If you can’t hold the attention of a fickle young man, that is on you, Belinda. Not me.”

My breath catches.

Goddammit.

Thirty-eight years old, and somehow my mother can still make me feel like the awkward sixteen-year-old girl standing beside her beautiful little sister, wondering why the people who are supposed to love us both keep finding ways to compare us.

I swallow hard.