He looked up at her, his eyes clouded from his unnatural sleep. He said one word:
“Emilia?”
“No,” she heard herself say. “No, it’s not Emilia. It’s Lynet.”
“Lynet,” he murmured, his eyes fluttering closed again.
“Yes, Lynet,” she repeated. She had come here to say good-bye, but as soon as she started to speak again, the words seemed to tumble out of their own volition. “I’ll always be Lynet,” she continued in a whisper. “I don’t want to become her. I don’t want the South, and I don’t want to be queen, and I wish … I wish I didn’t even look like her. I wish you’d stop seeing her whenever you look at me. I wish you’d stop wanting me to be like her so badly.” Maybe she could only speak her mind now because he couldn’t really understand her, or maybe it was because she knew this might be her last chance, but now that she had started, she couldn’t stop, the stiff and careful speech that she had rehearsed forgotten. “I wish I knew how to make you happy without forgetting who I am,” she said, choking on the words. “But … I still love you, and … and I wanted to say good-bye.”
Her voice was breaking, but she felt so light at that moment, light and whole.
Nicholas opened his eyes to look at her, though he didn’t quite seem to see her, and again he breathed her mother’s name.
“Yes,” she said. “Yes, it’s me. Emilia.” She would grant him this one favor. She could do it without fear, now that she had told him the truth.
She bent down and kissed his forehead, quickly withdrawing before he asked for anything more. I’m not my mother, she reminded herself. I am alive.
His eyes slowly closed again, and she backed away, grateful to see the slow rise and fall of his chest as she left the room.
*
Sybil was waiting for her by the lake, hiding her face in her stone hands as always. Tonight’s birthday celebration had been called off, of course, and so Lynet paid no attention to the gradually darkening sky as she huddled underneath the statue, hugging her knees to her chest and saying silent prayers for her father.
It was strange, the way nothing had changed. Queen Sybil wept; the lake was as serene as ever; the trees in the Shadow Garden twisted their naked arms up to the sky. It didn’t seem fair that Lynet should enjoy anything beautiful while her father was dying (alive, but dying; dying, but alive). I should have stayed, she thought. I should have waited until the end.
But then she had heard him calling her by her mother’s name, and the panic had overwhelmed her. She hugged her knees tighter, and she knew she wouldn’t go back, not now, not when death was so near. This wasn’t a game anymore. What if when death came for her father, he mistook her for her mother and took her, as well?
But she was already on the verge of death, wasn’t she? Because if Nicholas lived, she would never be able to refuse his offer of the South, not after nearly losing him, and if he died, she would become queen. And either way, Lynet feared that she, too, would slowly die away, leaving nothing but Emilia.
And either way, Mina would hate her for it.
The shameful memory of her fight with Mina finally brought Lynet to tears, and she made no sound as she wept into her hands like sad Queen Sybil above her—Queen Sybil, who was only remembered for her death and the damage that followed. And how would Lynet be remembered? As a scared little girl who lashed out at the people she loved?
It’s so easy for you, isn’t it?
Lynet lay her head down on the snow and closed her eyes, willing herself to stop crying, to stop thinking of her father or Mina, to stop thinking of anything at all.…
When she opened her eyes again, her neck was hurting and the sky was completely dark except for the moon shining overhead. She must have fallen asleep. As she eased out of her curled-up position, she remembered what had brought her here in the first place, and she wished she could dive back into unconsciousness and make the whole world disappear once more.
She crawled down to the lake’s edge and washed her face. The wind was making ripples in the water and whistling through the trees in the Shadow Garden in a mournful wail. Lynet thought it sounded like words: Run away. She heard the words in her head, as urgent as a command, but as gentle as a whisper. Run away, run away.
“I can’t. I shouldn’t.”
It made sense, though. Nadia had made it clear that her father’s life was already over, and this way, no one would ever bring her news of his death. There would be no news to tell, not if she were long gone from here. Even if he somehow lived, Mina would still have everything she wanted, since Lynet wouldn’t be there to take it from her. And Lynet—
Lynet would be free.
She heard another urgent whisper, but this time it was Nadia’s voice asking her, What do you want?
But she had told Nadia what she wanted, and Nadia had denied her, making Lynet feel weak and spoiled, a butterfly with stunted wings that had never learned to fly. Nadia would stop Lynet from going, if she knew.
Then I won’t tell her.
Lynet rose to her feet. The whisper gave way to the deafening roar of her heart pounding out the words in a kind of furious chant:
Run away, run away, run away.
Nadia thought Lynet couldn’t survive outside Whitespring, but she was wrong; the only way to survive at all was to leave Whitespring, to make a new life for herself outside these walls. She’d been born and shaped from a dead woman, living under her ghostly shadow, and now she would finally escape it the only way she knew how.
She would pack what she needed tonight and then leave right before dawn, when it was still dark—and perhaps by then she would know her father’s fate for certain. Lynet focused on the blood rushing through her body, on the strange bubbling energy that filled her chest and almost made her want to laugh, just so she could release some of it. She needed to remember this feeling, because she knew it would all shrivel away when she went to see Mina. She couldn’t leave knowing that Mina was angry with her, that their last words to each other had been laced with resentment.
She didn’t bother going to Mina’s room. By now she knew where her stepmother would go when she was most distressed.
But the chapel was empty when Lynet arrived. She walked slowly down to the central altar. Her burst of energy from making her decision was fading, and now her nervousness at seeing Mina again was settling over her.
Footsteps were approaching, and at first Lynet thought it must be Mina, but this was too heavy a step to belong to her stepmother. Instinctively, Lynet hid behind the large stone altar, peeking out to see who else other than Mina would come to this abandoned chapel.