“You need to let the girls win,” Seleste continued. “It’s the only way they’re ever going to find each other. They’re blood, and blood should stick together.”
I shook off my shock. Seleste was just spouting nonsense again or somehow saying that she and my mom had been as close as sisters. Mom had never mentioned having an actual sister. Not even once. Surely, Mom would have told me that I had an aunt—
My stomach dropped. Or maybe not, since that aunt was married to Victor Draconi.
“I think you’re confused.” I didn’t want to hurt Seleste, but my voice came out sharper than I intended. “I’m not Serena Sterling. I’m her daughter, Lila. Remember? We met the other night at the cemetery.”
For a moment, Seleste’s face cleared, but then her eyes clouded over again, burning even brighter than before. “Lila . . . she finally came to her father’s grave, just the way I saw she would. . . .” Her voice trailed off, and she seemed lost in her own thoughts.
This conversation was going around and around in circles, and I didn’t need Seleste and her visions messing with my head. Not before the final match. I turned to head back to my friends, but Seleste latched out and grabbed hold of my arm.
She looked at me again, this time actually seeming to see me, and not my mom or some ghost or misty vision of the future. “You have to let Deah win,” she hissed. “Whatever you want, I’ll pay it and more. Just let her win the tournament. You’re the only one who can beat her. And you’re the only one who can beat him.”
I shook my head. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
She tightened her grip on my arm, still staring at me. “Victor will punish Deah if she doesn’t win. You know he will. The same way he punishes me when one of my visions turns out to be wrong or not what he expected. But he doesn’t realize that I’m telling him the wrong things. Never the right things. Never the important things. He slaps me and locks me away with no food, but I don’t care. Not anymore.”
Seleste cackled, as if she was happy she was lying to Victor despite all the pain and misery it brought down on her.
“I’m going to do my best in the tournament,” I said, trying to bring her back to the here and now. “Maybe Deah will beat me, and maybe she won’t. But I’m not going to just let her win.”
Seleste tightened her grip, her fingers painful and bruising on my upper arm. “But you have to. It’s the only way Victor will ever be defeated—if you and Deah work together.”
I had no idea what she was talking about. Deah loved her father and desperately wanted his approval. Even if she knew what a monster Victor was, there was no way she would ever turn against him. Especially not to help me. Deah hated me because I knew about her and Felix. Because I kept pointing out how stupid it was for the two of them to keep sneaking around when so many people could get hurt as a result.
“I’m sorry,” I repeated in a firmer voice. “But I can’t help you.”
Seleste’s face took on a sly, cunning look. “Not even to get your revenge on Victor for murdering Serena?”
Her words were like a slap across the face. “How do you know about that?”
No one knew about that, except for Mo, Devon, Claudia, and a few other people. It wasn’t like Victor had announced he’d murdered my mom to all the other Families. I doubted he’d given the horrible things he’d done to her more than a passing thought over the years.
Seleste gave me a pitying look. “I saw it, of course.” She sighed. “I see everything.”
Anger roared through me. “Well, if you saw it, then why didn’t you stop it? Huh? Especially since you were her friend. At least, that’s what Mo said.”
“Not just her friend—her sister,” Seleste snapped back. “She was my sister, and I still couldn’t save her.”
More questions crowded into my mind, including why she kept insisting they were sisters. Seleste didn’t look anything like my mom, with her blond hair and dark blue eyes, and she didn’t even have the same kind of magic—
Wait a second. Blue eyes. Mom had had dark blue eyes. So did I. And so did Deah.
My mom had had sight magic. Seleste could see the future. I could see into people with my soulsight, and it seemed as if Deah could do something similar with her mimic magic.
Jolt after jolt, shock after shock, zinged through me. Could . . . could Seleste be telling the truth? Could she and my mom really have been sisters? That would mean . . . that would make Deah my cousin. We would be related. Family.
Blood.
“You have to believe me,” Seleste said, pleading with me. “I tried to save Serena. I try to save everyone, but it doesn’t always work.”