But it snapped its misty jaws around the tip of the blade, then sucked it down. Sora’s sword disappeared, eaten in a single gulp.
She jerked back in shock.
The mist snake coiled around Sora, locking her arms against her body. She struggled to get free, but the snake might as well have been made of iron, not fog.
“You’ll never pull this off,” Sora said, hands balled into fists. “The Society will fight you. You’ll never get what you want.”
Virtuoso sighed. “Trust me, I’m used to not getting what I want.” A resigned kind of sadness tinted her tone. It was almost as if the ferocity and arrogance from before was a facade.
She stepped toward Sora. Then she pulled the hood of her cloak off her head.
She really was just a girl. One with pale blond locks, almost platinum, the same color as Sora’s beneath her taiga-black dye.
And a similar sprinkle of freckles across her cheekbones.
And the same button nose.
The ship seemed to lurch all around Sora, and she grabbed onto a citrus drum for stability.
I must be seeing things.
But she wasn’t.
Virtuoso wasn’t just any girl.
Sora’s sister was alive.
Chapter Thirty-Two
Sora gasped. “Hana.”
Her world spun. The deep pit she’d felt in her heart for the past ten years, everything she thought she’d known about the Blood Rift, no longer made sense. How was her sister standing before her? Alive?
The girl nodded curtly. “You recognize me.”
“Th-the hair. The freckles, like mine. And you have Mama’s nose and Papa’s sharp jawline.” Sora’s voice was barely louder than a whisper.
Hana bit her lip. “I wouldn’t know. I don’t remember them.” Her voice was a little sad, but also bitter. The years apart had left their mark.
“We still remember you,” Sora said. “Stars . . . Mama and Papa will be beside themselves when they find out you’re alive.”
Sora could see Hana’s return home now—Mama tripping over the hem of her long skirt as she ran down the pebbled path in front of their house to greet her, her face already splotched from crying, and Papa standing back to let his girls reunite, quiet tears streaming down his face as he looked on. They would spend the first evening at home, just the four of them. Mama would cook a feast of all of Hana’s favorite foods. Papa would begin sketching a new piece of pottery to commemorate her homecoming. Sora would read from Mama’s newest stories as they curled together in front of the fire. And in the morning, they would walk down the mountain path together and dismantle the shrine, perhaps offering one last slice of cake to the gods to thank them for Hana’s safe return. They would be an unbroken family again, no more ghosts whispering guilty things in their ears, no more sad, burnt skeletons in memories anymore.
Several ryuu recruits emerged from the galley, and Hana’s tough outer shell snapped back into place. “What are you staring at?” she said. “Sound the alarm. Alert Prince Gin and the others that we have a stowaway, and search the ship to see if there are more. I suspect that, at the very least, this taiga’s gemina is on board.”
The steely prick of panic pierced Sora again, although this time, it was her own. But Daemon would feel it and know they were after him now.
Please, please, get off the ship.
The ryuu rushed off to carry out orders. Hana turned back to Sora.
“You say you remembered me,” Hana said, the harshness of giving orders still lingering, “and yet no one tried to come after me. If you and the Society cared as much as you claim, someone would have pursued us. We were tenderfoots, for gods’ sake. I waited for you that Friday night for our sleepover, and you didn’t come. You just left me in the nursery for them to take us.”
Sora staggered at the anger in her sister’s eyes, as savage as a tempest. This was not the Hana she’d known.
“What do you mean, let them take you? Who is ‘they’? I thought you died. The nursery burned down that night. I . . .” Sora could hardly choke out the words. “I saw all the little bodies.”
Her sister scowled. “Some tenderfoots died, but Prince Gin’s warriors took others.”
“Why?” The question came out as a whisper.
“Because we were small and they could hoist us over their shoulders as they retreated. Why would Prince Gin leave an entire generation of talent for the Society, when he could have them for the day when he returned to Kichona?”
If not for the mist snake holding her up, Sora would have collapsed onto the ship floor.
“I’m so sorry, Hana. I didn’t know.” The memory of that night came rushing back, as well as all the heavyhearted nights thereafter when Sora would relive the decision to go with her friends on the dirigible instead of getting Hana for their sleepover. Sora would wake with tears soaking her pillowcase, only able to calm down after Daemon soothed her through their bond.
“But I’m here now,” Sora said. “And so are you—”
“Just because I wanted you to be with me ten years ago doesn’t mean I want you now,” Hana said flatly. Her features were pinched, as if saying this cost her something. “Prince Gin raised me. The ryuu are my family. And stop calling me Hana. I go by ‘Virtuoso’ now.”
If it were possible for Sora’s heart to sink, it was happening now. Straight out of her chest, through the bottom of the ship, to the ocean floor.
She slumped against the mist snake’s coils, looking at her sister and trying to reconcile the strong-willed sixteen-year-old before her with the eager-to-please, clingy little girl she’d been a decade ago.
“Enough talk,” Hana said. “I can’t deal with this right now. And Prince Gin will want to see you. He can be very . . . charming.”
But Sora already knew that. She wriggled in the snake’s grasp, to no avail.
She was about to lose her mind to the Dragon Prince. Again.
Chapter Thirty-Three
Daemon dove into the sea just as the alarm was sounded on the ship. He wanted to stay on the surface, to look back at where he’d left Sora, but he couldn’t. The future of the kingdom was at stake, and he’d promised Sora he would do his part, even if it meant leaving her alone.
But if anyone can take care of herself, he told himself, it’s Sora. Daemon tried to take comfort in the fact that Prince Gin probably wouldn’t kill her. He wanted to recruit more taigas, and he would bewitch Sora to join him.
Maybe I can do whatever it was that I did last time to jerk her out of his spell, Daemon thought. Even though he wasn’t quite sure what it was he’d done.
Daemon kicked his legs and swam as hard as he could in the frigid water. For once, his pathetic magical ability had cooperated, and he’d successfully cast a sailfish spell on himself, which would allow him to hold his breath longer. He pushed and pulled with his arms, diving deeper, putting more space between him and the ship.
Suddenly, a shock wave rattled his gemina bond and colored it black, like ink injected into water.
Sora! Daemon gasped and swallowed seawater. He choked and his lungs burned. His legs instinctively kicked upward.
When he broke through the surface, he coughed and gulped for air.
Ryuu swarmed the ship’s deck. Some were up in the rigging. One was in the crow’s nest with a spyglass pointed at the ocean. All were searching for him.
At the same time, his gemina bond prickled with pins and needles, as if Sora had been emotionally stung by a jellyfish. What had just happened?
Daemon’s limbs went heavy with dread.
But he couldn’t stay here for long. If he didn’t move, he’d either drown or be caught by the ryuu.
Either way, he’d be no good to Sora.
His mission was to get to the Society outpost at Tiger’s Belly to send a dragonfly and let the Citadel know what was happening. But after that, he had another mission—he would come back to save Sora, no matter what it cost.
Daemon took one last look at Prince Gin’s ship. Then he took a breath, dove deep, and swam.
Chapter Thirty-Four
Sora knelt on the main deck. Hana stood behind her, flanked by a half dozen ryuu. There was no need for the mist snake anymore, for she was more than adequately guarded.
Prince Gin approached. The ryuu bowed.
Sora cringed. But it wasn’t just his immense presence. It was every little detail—the way he walked with his arms folded behind his back, as if he had nothing to fear and therefore didn’t need his hands at the ready. His smile, surprisingly warm and disarming, despite the fact that it tugged awkwardly at the scarred ridges on his face. And the adoration radiating off his warriors, which wasn’t servile but, rather, seemed of mutual respect.
Before the prince reached Sora, another ryuu ran up to him. “We found no evidence of any other stowaways on board, Your Highness.”