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I’d been precise in how I’d asked. Hadn’t she been precise in how she’d answered?
My mind spins over possibilities. Could an illusion have accomplished the disparity? If I didn’t actually talk toher, but someone pretending to be her, would that explain the wrong information being relayed to me?
Defeat scrapes at my chest.How deep does this all go?
Alia holds my gaze for a prolonged moment, then nods. “There has to be something with that. But she couldn’t have lied. Fey can’t —”
“We can still deceive.” I swallow hard. “You know that.”
“I don’t know if she was being deceptive. But I think she was honest about blocking our letters.”
All thoughts of illusions and different days collapse. I snap toward her. “Shewhat?”
Her expression falters, and she recoils a step. “She said she thought she was doing the right thing at the time. From her perspective, you broke my heart. I can’t fault her for doing one thing to protect me.”
Ican and I will. But it’s not the time to say anything about that. Not when Alia already seems ready to shrink into herself.
Another curse breaks free, snarled this time. I grip the fountain’s edge with both hands. “This whole situation is madness.”
“It is.” She sniffs and settles herself against the stone edge as well, staring into the darkened expanse and the palace beyond. “Did you figure out anything with the magic involved?”
“No. Nothing new or solid.”
Her breath catches, but she says nothing. Out of the corner of my eye, I can see her fidgeting with her mother’s necklace and its miniature shoe charm. Her hair cascades down to shield her face, revealing the slight point of her ear. My fingers itch to brush the strands from her cheek.
I roll my shoulders and tighten my hold on the stone barrier.
“Kirran? I need to ask you something.”
“Sure.”
“Did you do something magical to my dress? The one you gave me?”
Tension spreads through me as I shift to face her. “Like what?”
“Like…” She shrugs and turns her head away from me. “Made it change color.”
I manage to restrain the scoff, but I can’t keep my gaze from darting toward my hands. I step back from the stone wall and cross my arms. “That’s not what my magic does, Alia.”
“No, I know. But when I asked my stepmother what could turn a blue dress brown and make it decay, she said it sounded like —”
“Decay?” I blink at her, trying to ignore the heat building under my skin. “You never said it wasdecaying—”
“I didn’t know before. But I remembered when I was there, talking with her. I remembered seeing myself in her wall mirror, and the dress was falling apart, not just brown.” She stiffens, chin up as she stares me down. “Answer the question, please.”
I dig my fingernails into the fountain’s stone edge and lean toward her. She flinches away. “Exactly why would Idothat, Alia? Give you a dress only to enchant it to crumble off you in front of hundreds of people?”
She narrows her eyes. “You tell me.”
My teeth jab into my tongue, nearly drawing blood. “For the last time, I gave you a blue dress — a dress your favorite shade of blue — to present you as my chosen bride. If whatever happened hadn’t happened, if you’d actually come to the ball like you promised, you would’ve been my wife within theweek.” I shouldn’t move closer, but I can’t stop myself. “Whatever you think I did, Ididn’t.”
This time, she doesn’t withdraw. Fire sparks in her stare. “You’re the one treating me like I’m an enemy. Like I betrayed you when I swore to you last night that I’d never hurt you like that.”
Seconds pass, neither of us backing down.
No words seem right. She’s not wrong. And I can’t stop doing it.
I look away first.
