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Nyx braced for a physical confrontation, moving into the middle of the cell, sinking into her thigh muscles and clasping her cuffed hands together so she could use them as a blunt force weapon.
“So you’re the Command,” she said roughly.
The figure went still again, and Nyx breathed deep, smelling that thick scent that seemed to coat the male as another tangible robe. Sandalwood. It was sandalwood—
Nyx.
From out of nowhere, she heard her own name in her head. Which, considering all the things she needed to be aware of at this moment, was hardly an efficient use of brain power—
“Nyx . . . ?”
Recoiling, Nyx tried to figure out what was wrong with her hearing. Maybe it wasn’t her ears, though. Maybe it was her head injury from that rock falling on her temple. Because there was no way in hell the Command had just said her name like that.
The figure brought up a hand to the top of his hood, and as he stripped off the—
Nyx took an involuntary step back. And another one. The last took her right up against the back of the cell, the cold mesh and bars registering on her shoulder blades through the thin prison tunic.
She could not understand what she was looking at.
It appeared to be . . . a female with long red hair. Which was confusing, as she’d decided the Command was a male, a clear unconscious bias she was going to need to apologize to herself for later. But the sex of the figure was not the big issue.
The overriding problem was that her brain, for reasons she couldn’t understand, seemed to be extrapolating from the features of what was in front of her not just a resemblance to her dead sister, Janelle . . . but an exact copy. Right down to the cowlick next to the widow’s peak at her hairline. And the delicate cleft in her chin. And the arch of the brows, and the flecks of deep brown in the hazel irises, and the way the lips were slightly elevated on one side.
“You’re dead,” Nyx said hoarsely. “Why am I seeing—”
“Nyx?”
Hearing her name come out of that mouth was like a time machine. She instantly traveled back to before Janelle had been falsely accused and sent to prison, to when they’d lived together at the farmhouse, with Posie and their grandfather. And then she went back even farther, to before her parents had died. And farther back still, to when Nyx had just been out of her transition.
When she hit the last memory, it was with a slam: She saw Janelle holding Posie, right after their younger sister had been born.
“You’re supposed to be dead,” Nyx whispered. “I saw your name on the Wall.”
“You . . . were the one who came in here.” Janelle—or the vision that appeared to be Janelle—shook her head. “You were the one. Who infiltrated us.”
Janelle put both hands up to her face, but she didn’t touch her cheeks. Her palms hovered there in midair, the fingers splayed out. Just like she had always done whenever she was stressed.
“It was you, then,” she repeated. Then she shook her head, that red hair shimmering in the light. “I don’t understand. Why did you come down here?”
“I was looking for you. I’ve been looking for you for fifty years.”
“Why?”
“What do you mean, why?” Nyx frowned. “You’ve been incarcerated for fifty years for something you didn’t do. Why wouldn’t I look for you? I’m your sister.”
“I didn’t ask you to come after me.” Janelle’s voice got sharper. “Don’t put this on me—”
Nyx threw some volume into her own syllables. “Put what on you? The fact that I was worried about you? That you were lost and I was trying to find you? What the hell are you talking about?”
“I never asked you to come after me.”
“You didn’t have to! I’m your sister—”
“Not anymore.”
The dead tone to the words shut Nyx’s mouth. But not for long. “I’m not your sister?”
“Janelle is dead.”
“Then who the hell am I talking to right now?” Nyx went to rub her aching temple and winced when her fingers hit the place where she’d been struck. “Jesus Christ, Janelle, you’re in charge here, right? You’re the Command—so why don’t you just leave? If you’re the fucking authority, you can come home, come back to us. Why don’t you come home—”
“I don’t want to. That’s why.”
Nyx tried to breathe through the pain in her chest. “Why?” she said in a small voice. “Why wouldn’t you want to return to us?”
Janelle stepped back, but she left the door wide open. As she paced around the open area in front of the cells, the black robes drifted in her wake, flowing like smoke after her body.
As if she were evil.
Except that just wasn’t true.
“Janelle, come back with me—”
