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She frowns. “What’s nice?”
“You being insufferable. I think I might have missed that.”
Zora blinks, the smug expression vanishing. In an instant, I’m wishing I could swallow the words whole, banish them from existence. But I can’t, and Zora clears her throat as she stands, dusting her britches off.
I scramble to my aching feet, hurrying after her as she strides into the woods. “Please,” I call after her. “Don’t leave. I know you don’t trust me. I know you have every reason not to. But I think…”
“Think what?” She whirls on me. “Think you could help me? It might be true. You might be my brother, but that doesn’t mean you’re here for me. I heard you and Farin talking back at the pit. You’re chasing after a girl you fancy, which is perfectly fine. But don’t act like you’re here on some rescue mission for me.”
I stand stunned, my words caught in my throat. What am I supposed to say to Zora? She doesn’t know the entire story, of course. Doesn’t know that I’ve spent years of my life as a slave trying to buy her freedom.
Then again, it’s my fault she was enslaved in the first place.
Her calves tense, and I ready myself for her to leave me behind, but then she jerks her head agitatedly. “Come on.”
“You want me to come with you?”
She runs her hands through her cropped hair and immediately gasps.
“Here, let me help,” I say, remembering how lifting me out of the chasm pulled her arm out of its socket.
Zora bites her lip reluctantly, but she nods all the same.
I don’t hesitate. In fact, I strike as quickly as if it were an attack; I don’t want to give Zora time to anticipate the pain.
A shriek grinds through her teeth, and she pales. For a moment, I think she might pass out, but then she steadies herself, her uninjured hand on my shoulder.
“As I was going to say,” she says, still heaving, “you want to get back to your girl. I want answers about who…what I am. The way I see it, we can help one another. Oh,” she says, holding her palm out. “I almost forgot—I want my knife back.”
We spend half of the day setting up a new campground in a cavern tucked into the base of one of the island’s many mountains. Neither of us does much talking, at least not until our campsite is set up and we’ve gathered enough berries and roots to get us by for the night.
My stomach growls, eager for meat, but I have to say I’m relieved not to be eating raw hare any longer.
Once we’re done eating and the last rays of sunlight fade over the horizon, Zora sits down cross-legged in front of me and clasps her hands together, as if to signal it’s time to talk business.
“I’m going to need you to tell me everything,” she says. So I do.
I tell her of our parents, of how Mother always had a tendency to undercharge merchants who passed by in need of cloaks after being robbed on the Serpentine. I tell her of how Father always scolded her for it, but never seemed to mean it. I tell her of snowball fights, and the loneliness of being rejected by the other children in the village, and finding friendship in each other. Then there’s Abra and my false apprenticeship, and the series of foolishness that led to Zora being taken as a punishment for my disobedience. I tell her of my Turning, and she bites her lip when I get to the part about developing the ritual to bargain for her freedom. Of Gunter, how I think of him as a father-figure, but struggle with how to feel about him now that I know the pain he caused her. I tell her everything. Well, almost everything. I mention Blaise, but leave out some details I’m not quite ready to admit aloud to myself yet.
The kiss Blaise shared with Farin, namely.
“But this Blaise girl. You and Farin both love her?” Zora asks when I finish my story, apparently unsatisfactorily in the eyes of my sister.
“I love her. Farin doesn’t know how to separate my feelings from his own.”
“Because he was a part of you.”
I shake my head. “Because he lived in my head. Leeched off my feelings, memories. That’s all.”
She frowns, as if trying to make sense of something.
“I know it sounds crazy, and you’re probably thinking I’m out of my mind, especially with the bit about the Fabric and other realms, but—”
Zora waves me off dismissively. “I already told you, I’ve known for years that I’ve lived several lives. Though I’ve always attributed it to more of a spiritual reincarnation than a magically inclined fae weaving the story of my life.”
Her face goes blank for a moment. I wait for her to respond, sensing whatever she’s about to say isn’t something I have any business pulling out of her.
“Would it bother you?” she asks.
