“I never meant—”
“I’m not finished. I didn’t know what happened to Lauriel, only that one minute she was there and the next she wasn’t. I was still trembling when Mother came back inside holding her moonstone, exhausted from whatever she’d just done. I said, ‘You’re a Gwyrach.’ She was too tired to deny it.
“I thought she was going to hurt me. I started screaming for Father, for the Hunters—anyone. I was hysterical. She tried to calm me down, tried to touch me, but I wouldn’t let her anywhere close.”
Angelyne darkened. “My fear gave way to anger, as fear will often do. I’d just seen Junay and Sach’a ripped apart by grief. I was furious she would subject them to an even greater loss. Only Mother knew how volatile I could be when I was angry. You’d never seen my temper, nor had Father. But she knew.
“She begged me not to reveal her. She said she’d rather die a thousand deaths than have her hand grace the king’s Hall. But I was too angry—and too afraid—to listen. I told her I would tell Father the truth as soon as he returned. Then I watched her wrap one hand around her wrist and press the other to her heart. She dropped to the floor.”
Angelyne’s blue eyes were dewed with tears. “Do you have any idea what that’s like, Mi? Watching your own mother die in front of you?”
So it wasn’t Mia’s rage that had killed her mother. It was Angelyne’s.
“I was wrong, of course. Terribly wrong. Not wrong about her having magic, but about her being wicked. Whatever inchoate magic I had inside me, Mother’s moonstone summoned it to life. I bloomed within the week.”
Angie brushed the moisture from her eyes. “Every morning I wake to shame and regret. Shame walks with me through the day, and each night I wrap my arms around regret before I sleep. All these years, I’ve borne the truth alone.”
“Why didn’t you tell me? I would have helped you. We could have helped each other.”
Angelyne shook her head. “You think you’re a cool-headed scientist, but you hold grudges, and you don’t forget. The two things I could never tell you were my two biggest secrets: I had magic, and I was the reason Mother was dead.”
Mia choked down her tears. She had been wrong about everything, everything but this: her mother had broken the Second Law. Faced with certain death at the hands of the Hunters, she had taken her own life.
And now Angelyne possessed the moonstone. She had warped their mother’s healing gifts into a dark, powerful magic, one that no longer required touch. If Angie could enkindle a roomful of people—if one crushed goblet spawned ten instant deaths—what did the future hold?
Mia loved her sister, but she hadn’t truly seen her, not for years. Angelyne, Daughter of Clan Rose, Keeper of Secrets. Grief and shame and magic had frayed the goodness in her heart.
And yet, in spite of everything—or maybe because of it—Mia loved her. Angie had struggled alone under the weight of these crushing secrets. Mia didn’t feel hate or rage or disgust. She felt only grief.
“I’m sorry, Angie,” she said. “I’m sorry I didn’t see.”
“Still obsessed with the seeing.” Zaga spoke for the first time since Mia had arrived in the Gallery. She rose from the king’s seat at the feasting table. “Your sister is able to do what you are not: to think with her heart and feel with her mind.”
Zaga leaned into her cane as she came toward them. “She will make a fine queen.”
Another puzzle piece clicked. What were the words Zaga had whispered to Mia as she knelt beside Princess Karri, trying desperately to save her? Stillness. A dark corridor. An empty room.
Mia ran her fingernails across her palms. Karri’s blood was still caked into the creases.
“You never meant for me to heal Karri, did you? You wanted me to kill her.”
“It is time Glas Ddir had a new queen. A powerful queen who can put aside personal passions and grievances for the good of her sisterhood.”
Zaga stood beside Angelyne and curved an arm around her shoulders.
Mia sensed what was about to happen a split second too late: Zaga snatched the moonstone from her sister’s throat. One quick yank was all it took to snap the fragile chain.
Chapter 59
Who You Are
MIA COULDN’T MOVE. HER feet had sprouted roots that moored her to the floor. She had never felt so powerless in her own body, her cranial nerves compromised, her brain unable to spur her muscles into action. She pooled all her concentration into her hands but couldn’t move a single finger. Her blood was clumped sand, her bones a skeleton in an alabaster box.
“You are wondering why you cannot move,” Zaga said, her voice razor calm. “You Glasddirans tell your children fairy tales about the Gwyrach. You say we steal into your chambers at night, bewitch your breath and blood and bone to do our bidding. In your stories, we are always cast as the demon or the witch. And sometimes you are right. We are demon, and we are witch. We are also human. This is what your fairy tales forget.”
Mia watched, helpless, as Zaga folded the moonstone into her fist.
“No human is good or evil, black or white. We are all of us gradations. But we do have one thing in common: at heart we are creatures, and creatures do what they must do to survive.”
In her peripheral vision, Mia could see Angelyne pinned in place where she had lurched toward the moonstone, her arms outstretched. Zaga held up a hand, and both Angie’s arms fell limp at her sides.
“You will leave the stone in my care.”
Angelyne’s mouth went slack. Her eyes widened, though her body stayed immobile; Zaga must have released her face.
“Please,” Angie whispered. “You swore you wouldn’t take it from me.”
“You have brought the Dujia a great gift with this ‘enkindling,’ as you call it. We have never seen the likes of it before. But you are self-taught. You have skipped over certain building blocks. For example: how to know when someone is lying.”
She appraised the Rose sisters as if pleased with her handiwork.
“Your heart believes you cannot move, and so you cannot move. Your body does not want to move, because it wants what I want. Do you know why I can control you so completely? I am using your own magic against you. And your magic is stronger than you think.”
Though her body was motionless, Mia’s mind was wheeling. So this was what it felt like on the inside of enkindlement. It was terrifying. She’d spent her whole life feeling more connected to her brain than to her body, never realizing how much she took for granted having autonomy over her own anatomy, her own flesh.
Zaga waved a hand and the saliva began to seep back into Mia’s mouth. She felt her jaw unhitch, her face loosen as blood flushed once again into her cheeks. She ran her tongue over her teeth, feeling a deep sense of unease at how strange the texture, how foreign. It was a hideous feeling, being invited by someone else to reenter your own body.
“You never wanted my sister or me, did you?” The words inched out of Mia slowly, painfully. “You wanted the moonstone.”
Zaga walked to the nearest fireplace to warm her injured hand.
“Your mother was the best healer I knew. She was always far more talented than I was.” She gestured toward Mia. “You have the same gift.”
Mia felt a gentle tug in her neck, a slight easing of the muscles. She was able to swivel her head half an inch to catch Angelyne’s eye. Her sister’s face was a mix of fury and regret. So Zaga hadn’t been honest with her, either. They had both been puppets in a grander scheme.