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Not when the girl is so clearly dead.
But then, as I approach the dais, I realize that is not altogether true. Because the girl’s pale cheeks are not pallid as one might expect from a corpse, but flushed with life. And if I peer closely enough…
The girl’s hands are interlocked over her bosom, but her chest is moving in and out, ever so subtly.
“Who is she?” I find myself asking, though it’s not a question. Not really. Not when I already know the answer.
Not when, while her coloring is unfamiliar, the slight curve of her nose and the cut of her cheekbones are not.
Maybe that’s why the question comes out more akin to an accusation.
Maybe that’s why the queen doesn’t deign to answer it. Instead, she says, “They are both special in their distinct ways. I didn’t recognize it in her when we first met. In fact, I found her vapid. I’m learning that there are those who choose to display such temperament on the outside as a means to mask their value.”
“You mean lest someone treat them like a bauble to be stolen and profited from?” I ask, venom leaking off my tongue.
I think I hear the queen sigh, but it’s quiet enough that it might very well just be a draft leaking through the window.
“Tell me, child. Is it right to allow talent to wither? Is it right to find that which will benefit the world entire, yet allow such a gift to be buried?”
I ignore her, preferring not to entertain her excuses for why she feels justified in using people for her own devices. Instead, I slip my hand over the girl’s palm and interlock my fingers with hers.
She doesn’t stir, but I hope she can feel it. Know that someone sees her. That someone’s here with her.
That she’s not alone.
“You think me cruel,” says the queen.
“Now, why would you ever get that impression?” I ask, stroking the girl’s hand. There’s something about it that reminds me of Ellie, of Peck, Dwellen’s royal physician, griping at Evander for caressing her hand too much when she was recovering from her stab wounds. Peck claiming Evander would end up rubbing her skin raw.
My chest hurts.
“You took her,” I say, needles puncturing my throat. “You took her so you could hold something over Nox.”
“I’m afraid I don’t know who you’re referring to,” says the queen, to which I grit my teeth. I hate her. Hate how she’s erased him, down to erasing his twin. It all makes sense now. Why Nox does whatever the queen asks. Why he never fights back.
Why he doesn’t try to run.
He does it for her.
For his sister.
This is what he stands to gain if he succeeds in extracting the parasite from me. It’s his sister’s life. All this time, I’ve assumed he had a bargain with the queen that she would leave his parents alone, but he’s not just bartering for their safety.
He’s bartering for his sister’s freedom.
“She lives, you know,” says the queen.
I glance at Zora’s face, at the eyes closed in eternal slumber. “Doesn’t seem like much of a life to me.”
“The girl walks many worlds while she sleeps. In these few short years, she’s lived an abundance of lives. If she’d stayed in that provincial village I rescued them from, she would have lived out her immortal existence never having gotten to experience the realms and their wonders. But now she walks between them. It’s what the girl wanted, though it wasn’t her parents’ plan for her. Nor her brother’s.
“They are dreamers, she and her brother. They’re dreamers born into a little town saturated with little minds. Both deserved more. Needed more. I gave them that.”
The queen brushes the back of her hand over Zora’s relaxed forehead, like a mother checking for a fever.
“What sort of lives does she live?” I can’t help but ask.
A faint smile overtakes the queen’s harsh features, almost softening them. “The good sort.”
