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Before I leave, Zaina gives me another one of her probing glances. Her eyes hesitate over the cloak pocket, the one where I stored the vial. I wonder if she saw it, if she knows.
Or if she’s only realizing she isn’t the only one with secrets.
She’s just the only one who isn’t suffocating under the weight of them.
CHAPTEREIGHTEEN
ZAINA
Icollapse onto the sofa when Remy and Aika leave, resisting the urge to hurl the offensive ruffled cushions against the wall or into the fire. Anything to vent some of the frustration coursing through my veins.
“Well, that went swimmingly,” I bite out. “She thinks we don’t trust her now, and all that did was push her further away.”
“Well, wedon’ttrust her,” Einar replies, settling in next to me. “And we couldn’t risk her having more information.”
The worst part is, he’s right.
If she’s going to keep turning herself over to Madame, she knows too much as it is. She has too many secrets to cover without adding to that list, and there’s no point clueing her in on a plan she refuses to take part in.
But he doesn’t understand, either. He can’t, when his life has been filled with people who love and support him while my sisters and I have only ever had each other.
And in a twisted sense, Madame.
Then there’s the issue of Mel. Madame’srealdaughter. Will she hate me for killing her mother? Does she love her? Does that even matter, in the grand scheme of things where Madame is a blight on our lives and the world at large?
Thoughts swirl around in my head until I circle back to the one that’s ringing out the loudest.
“She said she grieved me,” I say quietly, surprised when those are the words that leave my lips.
Einar doesn’t ask me to specify whichsheI’m referring to. He only wraps his arms around me, holding me a little tighter, shielding me against Aika’s words.
You want to kill Mother.
She grieved you.
Memories flit through my head, each one more convoluted than the last.
Madame, her eyes lit up with pride when I solved one of her puzzles.
You are everything I could have wanted in a daughter, my brilliant girl.
Her protective hand on my shoulder.
Beauty is power, Zaina. Use it, and no one will hurt you.
Manacles clamping over my wrists.
You’ll thank me for this, when you understand that you’re stronger than the pain.
Even her lithe fingers running through my hair. The bodies that piled up for anyone who dared to threaten herdaughters.
I open my mouth to tell Einar that this is the worst part, that she wasn’t always terrible, or that in her sick way, she didn’t always intend to be. But how do I explain that the woman who killed half his castle and tried to destroy his kingdom wasn’t always a monster to me, even when I wanted her to be?
It doesn’t matter, anyway. It doesn’t change anything.
“There’s still a chance Aika will change her mind,” I tell him instead.
“Zaina,” he begins, and as much as I love him, Ihatethe sympathy in his tone. “We’re running out of time.”
