He’s safe. It’s all that matters. I tell myself it is all that matters as Stepmother rages at me, as she rages at Koré, as she slaps us and shakes us and drags us down the stairs to lock us in the cellar.
Anax is safe, and I cannot stop thinking of his eyes and his voice as I betrayed him, but he is safe. He walked away from this house and he will never, never come back to it.
Invisible fingers stroke my hair. I lean back, and curve my lips upward, and whisper, “I’m so happy to stay here, Mother.”
“What?” Koré says, and I flinch, remembering she is here with me. I have never been locked in the cellar with anyone else before.
“I said, I’m so glad I can stay here,” I say. “I talk to my mother whenever I feel lonely. Don’t they say that the dead watch over us?”
Koré looks over my shoulder, and then her eyes meet mine. I can see she’s guessing, and recklessly, I go on, “That’s why I’m always cheerful. Because she’s watching over me. And I know she’d want me to be happy.”
The air trembles around me with affectionate, inaudible laughter.
Koré’s eyes widen slightly. I can see she’s putting together my smiles and the rumors of demons and coming up with the truth, and I feel a sudden twist of fear because if she panics—
But she just nods slightly and straightens her shoulders. Even crouched in the cellar with a bruise on her cheek, she looks like an artwork: a princess of Troy, perhaps, mourning and yet stately among the ashes of her people.
For the first time, I don’t think of her poise and her beauty as a lie. She’s lived for years among demons and the ashes of her mother’s love without weeping. Now she knows about my mother’s ghost, and she doesn’t even blink.
In truth, she is as brave as a princess. And she deserves better than this house.
“I’m sorry,” I say, “that it didn’t work.”
“I will find another way to save Thea,” says Koré, and I believe her.
The air around me is still, clammy, and cold. I realize suddenly that my mother is worried—that she thinks I have been thwarted, disappointed. Fear sets my heart thudding and my voice chattering.
“But it was so amusing,” I say brightly, “to see Stepmother angry over such a little, little thing. And then she locked us down here, as if she thought we wouldn’t enjoy it. It makes me love her more than ever.”
Koré meets my eyes. And then she smiles, the perfect image of a gentle girl with a happy secret. “She’s never understood how sweet and quiet it is down here,” she says, in the same elegant, modulated voice that she uses to practice making small talk with the guests who never come.
Nobody has ever conspired with me before, and it’s a thrill almost as drunkenly delightful as telling the truth.
I will never leave this house, and I will never be free, and Anax will hate me forever. But my eyes meet Koré’s, and for a moment our smiles are almost real, and a wisp of happiness curls in my throat.
Locked away belowground, our only light the steady, dim glow of a Hermetic lamp, it’s hard to mark the passage of time. But I’m sure it’s hours later that Thea knocks on the door and says waveringly, “Koré? Are you there?”
Koré, who had leaned drowsing against the wall, bolts upright. “Thea,” she says, and for the first time I hear the urgency under her expressionless calm.
“I’m— Mother’s locked in her room now, she’s talking to herself—I’m going to let you out.”
“No,” says Koré. “Let it be. We’re all right in here, and Mother will calm soon enough.”
She stands by the door, not touching it, but her head tilts an infinite, yearning fraction toward her sister, and I wonder how all these years I never saw the desperate care in every line of her movement. I saw that she loved Stepmother, foolishly and without hope, but not how much she loved her sister.
“I’ve never seen her like this,” says Thea.
“She’s always angry,” says Koré, “and she’s always all right.”
“She’s not angry anymore,” says Thea. “I don’t think she’s just talking to herself. She’s . . . talking to Stepfather.” I hear a little wavering gasp; she’s nearly crying. “I’m scared.”
“Then go to your room and lock the door,” says Koré. “But Mother won’t hurt you. Don’t you realize you’re the favorite right now?” There’s a wry slant to her voice.
“Please let me get you out,” says Thea.
“No,” says Koré. “I am having a tea party with Maia and I can’t be bothered. Come back tomorrow morning.”
There’s a little thump that I am sure is Thea leaning her forehead against the door. “Maia?” she asks wistfully. “Can I get you out?”
And I wonder what is happening to my heart, because I hear the wistful longing in her voice and I don’t despise her; instead I think of Koré’s chill poise, and Stepmother’s heartlessness, and my own silences, and I realize how long she has been hoping that anyone, anyone would turn to her and smile.
“Tomorrow,” I say. “And then we’ll all have tea together in the garden.”
Koré’s gaze snaps to me, but she only says, “Yes. Now go.”
With a snuffle and a sigh, Thea leaves. Koré stays on her feet, looking down at me.
“Do you know what you’re doing?” she asks.
“I’m going to have tea in the garden,” I say. “Stepmother won’t get angry at her for that.”
“Halfway kindness,” she says flatly, “is worse than none.”
I have known for years that Thea longed to be friends with me, that it vexed her I would only obey her orders. But now I realize I might have actually hurt her. Koré’s hatred of me might have more than one reason.
Of course, it does not matter. Not when it’s so dangerous for anyone to love me. Koré, at last, understands how much.
“I’m only going to pour her tea like an obedient sister,” I say. “And, I hope, dance at her wedding.”
“If she comes to love you any more,” says Koré, “she will miss you far too much.”
“She’ll have you,” I say, and so it is settled between us that I will be kind to Thea but not encourage her, and together Koré and I will scheme a way for them to escape, and when my stepsisters are gone, they will never look back.
Then I will be utterly alone, except for my mother and the demons. It is the happiest ending I could ever wish, and thinking of it no longer makes me happy.
But for now, Koré is sitting down beside me and huddling against my shoulder for warmth. For now, there is the promise of tea in the garden and sly half-truths understood. For now, I have sisters, just a little, and that is far too comforting as I fall asleep.
The screaming wakes us.
For the first few moments, I think it is a dream. Nobody has been hurt in so long. I have been so careful. Mother, I am so very, very happy—
Then I realize that Koré is on her feet and flinging herself against the door and this is real. Thea’s screams are real.
It’s too late. Nobody has ever healed from seeing a demon, and as I think this, the screams die away.
If Thea’s lucky, she is dead now.
But Koré is still trying to batter down the door, and I can’t sit still and watch her desperation. Together we pound at the door until the old, rusty lock gives way and we stumble out into the hall.
I lean against the wall, gasping for breath, but Koré immediately bolts up the steps. She will only find Thea dead—or worse, clawing her face open while her eyes stare in silent, ceaseless agony. I should warn her, but she probably knows, and anyway, nothing will hold her back.
I was happy, I think. I was always happy with Thea. How can Mother have turned on her?
Perhaps it was an accident. And it doesn’t matter, because there is only one reason there are demons in the house, and that is me. Stomach roiling, mouth dry, I stagger after Koré.
I catch up with her on the second floor. Stepmother’s voice echoes from her room in a high, querulous rant. It does not sound like she is talking to herself, and we push our way into her room together.
“Koré,” says Stepmother, “maybe you can talk sense into the silly girl.”
But neither of us can speak.
Because I am lying huddled at Stepmother’s feet.
In the hallway of the duke’s palace was a mirror, and I caught a candlelit glance of myself in it as I walked into the ball. It’s as if that glance fell out of the mirror at Stepmother’s feet. Those are my thin, chapped hands; those are the sharp lines of my collarbones. That is how the demons pinned up my hair, taming the wavy brown mess into loops and curls; that is the shimmering gold dress they wove around my body; that is the red ribbon of the mask they gave me to tie around my face.
The girl raises her head, and that is my pointed chin, those are my thin, pale lips. Blood oozes down the side of her face from the edge of the mask.
“Koré,” she whispers hoarsely in my voice. But the way she shapes the word with desperate longing—
It’s Thea.
“The mask is stuck and she won’t hold still while I tear it off,” Stepmother says. “It can’t hurt that much.”
Blood drips from Thea’s face to the floor. One drop. Two.
“You bargained with the Gentle Lord,” says Koré, in the same lifeless, cultured voice that she says, I do like the weather lately.
“Now she’s exactly the same as that chit was when Lord Anax fell in love with her,” says Stepmother. “He can’t fail to marry her once the mask is off, but she won’t stop screaming. I did it all for her and the honor of our house, but she’s so ungrateful.”
Thea hunches away from her. But she doesn’t run, because she knows that would only make the punishment worse, and my throat closes up with horror. We should have saved her before she learned to cringe like that.
Koré tilts her head as if wanting to examine the room from every angle. Then she seizes my arm, and before I can get my balance back to resist, shoves me into Stepmother’s wardrobe and slams the doors shut on me. The latch goes click.
“Koré!” I shout, but my voice is drowned out by hers, loud and terrible and lovely:
“O Prince of Air and Darkness. O Silver-Tongued Deceiver. O Gentle Lord of all Arcadia! Let me make you a bargain.”
And he is there. I cannot see him—the darkness is absolute around me, except for one thread of dim light where the doors meet—but I know he is there from the way the air goes still around me, the way it burns cold against my skin.
“No,” says Thea, “Koré, don’t—”
At the same time, Stepmother begins, “What are you doing, you—”
“Silence,” says the Gentle Lord.
And there is silence. I cannot move my tongue, nor my fingers, nor shift my head from where it leans against the door, because his power has wrapped all around me, binding me in place until Koré completes her bargain.
“So,” he says after an endless moment. “Koré Alastorides. Are you ready to be your mother’s daughter?”
His voice is not a terrifying roar, nor a chilling hiss. It is warm and salt and sweet, like butter and blood and honey, and laughter trembles at the edges of his words.
“Let’s play no games,” says Koré. Her voice sounds like a statue that’s stood a thousand years, worn and weary but unbowed. “I want you to take back what my mother did to Thea.”
“Haven’t you heard the stories? I cannot ever ungrant a wish.”
“Then,” says Koré, “let me steal it.”
“How do you imagine that will work?” asks the Gentle Lord.
There’s a short silence. I know better than to hope that it’s because Koré is reconsidering. She already knows how this bargain will work. She’s seen her mother; she’s seen me. She knows what she is calling down on us, but she’s willing anyway.
There is always somebody willing.
“Set Thea free from this family.” Koré’s voice is low, deliberate. “Let her walk away healthy and whole and sane, never to be trapped in this house again. And for my price, give me the mask and the body Stepmother bought her. I’ll wear them to the end of my days.”
The Gentle Lord laughs softly. “Your price will be half of your dearest wish? That’s a clever equivocation. But it’s not enough. If you want me to grant that wish, you must pay with your sight as well.”
“Gladly,” says Koré.
“Then kiss my ring,” says the Gentle Lord, “and it will be so.”
I hear footsteps. A rustle of movement. And then he says, “Good-bye, Koré Alastorides.”
The air all around us sighs. I shudder and gasp as my body is my own to move again. Somebody falls to the ground.
Stepmother speaks up again, her voice jarringly shrill and human: “What have you done?”
There’s a little gasping noise. Like somebody choking on the sudden sensation of a new mouth and throat.
Then I hear Thea say in her real voice, “Who—who are you?”
A voice like mine says weakly, “It’s me. Koré. Your sister.”
“I don’t have a sister. I don’t—I don’t have a family.” Thea’s voice is high and panicked. “Where am I? Who are you?”
He’s taken her memories. He’s set her free from our family.
My throat clenches as I batter at the door of the wardrobe. I don’t know why my heart is pounding with this awful, tearing feeling. Thea has forgotten us all. She’s stopped her stupid yearning to be loved, the idiot desire that kept her trapped with us. I should be glad.
The latch gives way and I tumble out of the wardrobe onto the floor. Thea is at the doorway, struggling with Stepmother; when she sees me, she gives a little shriek and breaks free. Her footsteps echo as she flees down the hall.
Stepmother wobbles, then sits down heavily by Koré, who is still crouched on the floor.
“She didn’t deserve the honor of our name,” she says, her voice quiet and vicious. “She never deserved it. Any more than that woman’s brat does.” She shoots me a poisonous look; then her hand drops down to Koré’s shoulder. “But you’re true to me, darling. You were brave enough to take the face Lord Anax wants. You’ll come with me to the palace and—”
“No.” Koré pushes her mother’s hand aside. Her voice is low and dull. “I won’t marry him.”
“You’ll do as you’re told, young miss.”
“Thea isn’t here to save anymore.” Koré’s eyes are hidden by the mask, but I can see her mouth twist into a helpless parody of a smile. “I don’t have to do anything.”
And I realize she means to do nothing else, not even live. Koré isn’t as strong as I am. I know this; I think I have always known. She can live with pain, but not without hope. She won’t survive this loss.
Stepmother seizes the sides of the mask and hauls Koré up to her knees, drawing a little gasp of pain from her throat.
“You’re my daughter,” she says.
“You’re dead,” says Koré. “You died seven years ago. Just like me.”
I am silent. I am the wallpaper. I am smiling. I am exactly the same as every other time Stepmother has raged at us, but I feel like I am made of cobwebs and broken crockery. Because I remember Koré’s eyes meeting mine in the cellar and Thea’s voice through the door—the promise of tea on the lawn—and I realize only now that I love them. Now that Thea is gone and Koré is dying, I think I may have always loved them, and always wanted them to turn to me. And now it is too late.
“You died very bravely,” Koré whispers. “I’m sorry, Mother. I should have stopped you. But I was afraid.”
Stepmother snarls and shakes her by the mask; blood dribbles from the seam where flesh meets gold, but Koré doesn’t make any noise except short little gasps.
I don’t move. I can’t. Koré’s words have wrapped around me, holding me fast as the Gentle Lord’s power. The words I should have said years ago, but I was never strong enough to say: I should have stopped you. I’m sorry. You’re dead.
My cheeks are wet.
I should be strong enough. I am always strong enough. But now there are tears running down my cheeks, because I have lost Anax and my sisters, because they have suffered so much from me and none of them needed to. Nobody needed to suffer from my mother’s madness. Not if I had been brave or strong enough to say what Koré just did.
For years I have pitied myself because I had no way to make my mother’s spirit rest. Because her duty to make me happy would never be done. And I drove myself near to madness trying to protect people from her. But I never even let myself think that perhaps I should tell her to rest. Perhaps I should tell her that her duty was finished, that it was time for her to be dead.
I was afraid of her, but I was also afraid to lose her, even the last, desperate scraps of her. And now I am weeping, and those tears will call down the demons upon my family.
I stand. My body feels numb and hollow, but I don’t hesitate. I grab Stepmother’s arm and haul her back; she lets go of Koré and stumbles into the wall beside the window.
“You ruined us,” she snarls. “With your sly, fresh face, like her portrait come to life. How could he love me? How could I love him? With you there to remind us every day that I was second best?”
“I’m sorry,” I say. “I’m sorry. Please leave the house. It isn’t safe anymore.”
“You’d like that, wouldn’t you? Now that we’re ruined, you’ll drive us out. But I won’t be a beggar.” She flings the casement open. “I’ll show you how a lady of this house can die.”
“Mother!” Koré screams. I lunge for Stepmother, but it’s too late: she flings herself out, and I only reach the window in time to see her sprawled on the cobblestones below, blood spattered around her head.
Horror claws at my throat. I cannot hesitate now. I grab Koré’s arm and pull her up. “Come,” I say, and drag her out of the room with me. She stumbles and clings to me: she’s afraid because she can’t see anymore.
I hate that she is afraid.
But nothing matters right now except keeping her close to me, because I can see the shadows crawling and writhing at the edges of my vision, and if I hold my newly twin sister close enough, perhaps my mother and the demons will be confused for just long enough.
We stumble into the kitchen. I find an oil can and a packet of matches, and then I drag Koré outside, into the garden. Toward the apple tree, whose pale blossoms are brighter than moonlight should make them, whose branches cast shadows darker than the night. It is lovely and terrible and home, and I drop to my knees amid the gnarled roots. Beside me, Koré falls to her hands and knees.
“Mother,” I whisper, “my darling mother, you’ve taken such good care of me. You’ve given me everything I ever asked for.”
The leaves rustle as she curls around me, caressing my cheeks, my neck, my arms. I lay one hand against the rough bark of the tree.
“Please, there’s just one more thing that I want. I want it more than anything else in all the world.”
And this is my final lie. Because I realize now that I want her to stay with me, even like this, twisted into a mindless, cruel ghost. I have wanted it—if not more than all the world—more than my nurse’s life, and the butler’s and the chambermaid’s. I have wanted it more than Koré and Thea and Stepmother. Even more than Anax.
But now it’s time for me to stop.
“Please die,” I say.
Her cold touch goes still. My heart pounds jaggedly in my throat, but I pour out the words like sugar and cream: “You’re already dead, but you’ve worked so hard and long for me anyway. Please rest. Please leave this tree and rest forever.”
I wait. For a few agonized heartbeats, her touch doesn’t move; it rests cold and heavy as guilt around my neck. Then she begins to stroke me again, to run her bodiless fingers through my hair as she did when I was a little child, and she would untangle me before bed.
Maybe she can’t stop. Maybe she can’t understand me. Or maybe my true mother has never been in this tree at all; maybe her soul rests in Elysium, and what lingers in the tree is not even her ghost but only an idiot whirlwind of love and protection and mine, mine, mine.
Koré’s fingers clench around my hand, human and heartbroken and warm.
“I’m sorry,” I say to my mother that was. “I love you.”
My fingers are steady as I pour the oil down the trunk of the tree, as I strike the match and lift it.