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She walked down the narrow hall, lined with awards spanning the years that proclaimed theGazettea town favorite—it was the only paper in town—and photos of the town’s most notable events.
Right at the very end of the hall was a grainy, black-and-white newsprint shot of a baby.
Ruby.
It always made Dahlia pause. It was impossible for her to not get completely lost in her memories, and with them a profound sense of sadness, which no one seemed to share but her.
Someone had abandoned Ruby.
Left her on a bridge to die.
And Dahlia had always felt that no one wanted to dig too deeply into that.
All Dahlia ever wanted to do was dig.
She sighed and turned away from the picture, then walked out the front door, jamming her key in the lock and turning it till it clicked.
She stepped away from the door and ran almost smack into Ruby. “Dee!”
“Rubes?” She shook her head and stared, her sister’s presence completely out of context.
Ruby laughed and jingled along with it. Dahlia always made it a game to try and quickly identify which piece of Ruby’s jewelry was making her sound like a human wind chime, because there was always something. Earrings today.
“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.
