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“Or her doppelgänger,” Ruby said cheerfully. “I could have a doppelgänger, you know. Or a twin. Maybe only one of us was abandoned.”
Dahlia rolled her eyes. “We’ve been through this. You don’t have half an amulet.”
“Iwasfound with a necklace.”
“Not one with a missing half.”
Ruby pretended to look crestfallen. “Right. Well. In that case, I guess that rules out a twin. Inthisdimension.”
“You better hope there’s no interdimensional twin. Because that would be an evil one.”
“How do you know I’m not the evil twin?”
Dahlia laughed and pulled her sister in for a hug. “You are most definitely an evil twin, Rubes.”
“Can I see the office?”
“I just locked up,” Dahlia said.
“Please?” She treated her to a wide smile.
“Oh, all right, but there’s nothing much to see.”
“I still want to see.” Ruby cleared her throat and her gold earrings moved too, punctuating the sound with their own. “Why didn’t you tell me about the new job?”
There were too many answers to that question, and each one was complicated. Mostly, though, it came down to Dahlia’s nature, which was always in opposition to itself. If she failed, she didn’t want anyone to know—least of all Ruby, who never failed at anything. But she was also proud and had been desperate to tell Ruby.
“It was new,” she said, which was honest. “And I kind of bulldozed Dale into creating the position, so I guess I just kept being afraid I’d blow it and he’d fire me.”
“But he hasn’t,” Ruby pointed out.
Dahlia smiled. “No.”
Dahlia unlocked the door and pushed it open. Ruby floated in past her. Ruby always seemed to float.
“How was England?” Dahlia asked. She’d been once when she was in college, and she’d suddenly understood Ruby’s obsession with all things Austen and high tea related.
“Amazing.” She shifted and her blond hair slipped over her shoulder, catching the light. “Everything I could have ever hoped that it would be.”
“And you’re sure you want to trade in your fabulous life abroad for a life back here?”
“Yeah,” she said. “For now.”
They walked down the hall and Dahlia waited to see if Ruby would notice the picture of herself. She didn’t. It said a lot about how... Ubiquitous the Legend of Ruby was here. That a picture of herself on the wall as a baby was visual white noise.
“I haven’t been in here since I was a kid selling candy bars for school,” Ruby said. “It looks the same.”
Dahlia looked down at the orange carpet, and the fake wood paneled walls.
“Yeah,” Dahlia said, “except pretty much no one works here now.” She pushed her office door open again. “Here it is. It’s...tiny.”
“A potted plant. You’re such a hipster,” Ruby said.
“As if you’re not?”
“Absolutely not,” Ruby said, tugging at the ruffled collar of her dress.
“How long has it been since you’ve been in a secondhand store?”
