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A flood of memories and emotions came rushing back to Thea, so intense she had to steady herself on the edge of the table.
‘I need to talk to you,’ Thea said quietly.
Wren stepped back, suddenly silent.
Is that realisation dawning there?Thea wondered, staring at her sister, numbness spreading from her chest outwards. Wren had always been her first confidant, she knew everything there was to know about Thea, the good, the bad, the death looming over her. And yet… She suddenly felt as though she didn’t know Wren at all.
‘Is there something you want to tell me?’ Thea asked softly.
Wren turned to busy herself again with her tinctures, her hands flitting about the range of glass vials. ‘That I’m glad you’re alive? That I’m wondering what in the realms went on out there?!’
But Thea’s mind was spinning.‘You have no idea… No idea what I have done for us,’her sister had yelled not all that long ago. And Thea had never thought to ask whatexactlyWren had done for them. Until now.
‘No… None of that,’ she replied.
‘Then what?’
‘You know what…’ It was taking all of Thea’s strength to remain upright, exhaustion and pain threatening to sweep heraway. But she wouldnothave this conversation from a sickbed. ‘You lied to me.’
It wasn’t lost on her that her words echoed those Wilder had spoken to her mere moments ago.
But Wren didn’t flinch. ‘I did? About what?’
‘Magic.’
Thea stared at her sister, waiting for the cries of denial, waiting for the show of shock and the claims of ignorance.
But none came.
When her sister turned to face her, her stare was as defiant as ever. ‘Yes,’ Wren said at last, with not a trace of regret. ‘I lied.’
Thea’s legs did buckle then and she caught herself on the edge of the table, her sister making no move to assist her.
‘Why…’ she managed, ears ringing. ‘Why would you lie about that?’
Wren crossed the small space between them and standing right in front of Thea, reached for the fate stone at her breast. The cause of so much pain and suffering already. It was stained with blood and muck, but the jade colour gleamed through.
‘I did more than lie about it,’ Wren said slowly, turning the stone over in her fingers. ‘I suppressed it.’
‘What?’ Thea couldn’t believe what she was hearing from her own sister’s mouth.
Wren tapped the fate stone with her dirt-lined fingernail. ‘When was the last time you took this off?’
‘I… What does that…’ but Thea trailed off, the weight on her chest threatening to crush her.
Gently, Wren pushed her down to sit on a nearby stool. ‘I’ve been coating that stone with a powerful suppressant for years.’
Thea could only gape at her, her stomach knotted.
Wren watched her sadly. ‘I felt mine when I was much younger —’
Thea’s head snapped to hers. ‘Yours?’
‘Yes. I have the same magic as you. I suspect you managed to keep yours at bay with all your physical activity. You were always running off somewhere, always trying to scrap with the fortress boys, always demanding that we play Dancing Alchemists… I was more sedentary. I think that meant it settled in me sooner.’
‘This… It’s impossible, Wren.’
‘Tell that to the lightning coursing through our veins.’
