“No—” Lynet choked out. She tried to rise to her feet, but she merely inched forward on her knees a little, fighting to keep upright. She tried to cover her heart with her hand, a futile but instinctive attempt to protect herself, but her hand wouldn’t obey. And despite everything, she looked to Mina to help her, as she always had. “Don’t let him—”
But Mina did nothing, said nothing, as Gregory came to stand at his daughter’s side. “It shouldn’t be long now,” he muttered. “Stay here until she’s dead. I’ll return shortly.”
He left, and Lynet was alone with Mina again, her face as blank as snow.
Snow, Lynet thought, her mind growing foggy. I still have the snow. She could use it to protect herself, to keep Gregory away—but when she called to the snow on the roof, a spasm of pain went through her chest, and she cried out. The poison was shutting down her heart, freezing her blood, and freezing her magic with it.
And yet the most painful detail of all was that Mina could just stand there and watch.
“It wasn’t supposed to happen this way,” she muttered through gritted teeth, her head bowed from its own weight. “I had too much faith in you—or too much faith in myself, to think I knew you so well.” Her tongue grew heavy. “I know you now. I see you.” With a final effort, she lifted her head to look Mina in the eye. Now, finally, she saw those eyes clearly—they were black, shining, and empty, two glassy stones placed in a human face.
Lynet looked away before she saw herself die in them.
33
MINA
Mina huddled in the chapel, shivering at the cold wind that came in through the broken windows. Her thoughts were as chaotic and confused as they’d been when she’d first run from the North Tower, Lynet’s heartbeat still echoing in her chest.
What a queen I am, she thought bitterly. Hiding away from a girl half my age. And what would a true queen do? Strike down any threat, of course, even if it meant killing her own stepdaughter. That was what her father would have her do.
Mina was wrenched out of her daze by the sound of hurried footsteps. When she heard them at the chapel door, she didn’t even turn around.
When Mina did look up, Felix stood over her, his voice cold and impersonal as he said, “This is for you.” She looked up, and he was holding something out to her—a folded sheet of paper, yellowing at the edges.
Lynet’s letter. She looked up at Felix in surprise. “You went to see her?”
He nodded. “I did her a terrible wrong, and I had to atone.”
How easy he makes it sound, she thought. Just like Lynet—Felix was too inexperienced to understand that sometimes it was too late to atone, too late to stop moving forward on the chosen path. She snatched the letter from him. “Do you really think this letter can change anything?”
He shook his head slowly. “I don’t know. I just promised her I would find it and take it to you. I warned her that I couldn’t make you read it if you didn’t want to.”
Mina sighed and unfolded the paper, glancing quickly at the first lines as she leaned back against the altar.
My dear Mina, I can’t leave without saying good-bye.…
She frowned, wrinkling her nose at the musty smell of the old paper. She had thought it was only the paper that was old, and that Lynet had written a letter to her, but this wasn’t Lynet’s handwriting. She didn’t recognize this hand at all. Her eyes swept down to the bottom of the page, and the name Dorothea made her suck in a sharp breath.
Felix tilted his head. “Should I leave you?”
“No,” she said quickly. “Don’t … don’t go.” She had no desire to be alone with her mother’s ghost. Felix sighed and settled beside her, careful not to let even their shoulders brush against each other.
At first Mina imagined that this letter was her mother’s last good-bye before taking her own life, but as she read—going over some of the sentences several times—she started to frown in confusion. Her mother’s words didn’t match what Mina knew, what she expected. Mina couldn’t understand the words until she put aside the story she knew and focused on the one she held in her hands now.
The letter wasn’t just a good-bye. It was an apology—and not for killing herself, but for running away.
I wish I could take you with me, but I don’t know where I’ll go, if I can take care of myself, let alone a child your age with your poor health. Your father says your heart is stable thanks to what he’s done, but I can never tell if he’s lying, if he’s only trying to trick me. I’ve never been alone before. No one ever told me how hard it was to be a mother, how much of a child I would feel even when holding my own child in my arms.
The paper was stained in places—smudges of ink during hesitant moments, stains that might have been tears.
I know I should stay, and that it’s wrong for me to leave you here with him, but I can’t stop myself from hating him and I know that he sees it in me, and that he hates me for it too. And I’m sure that if I stay, he would do me some harm. But he wouldn’t hurt his only child, not after he worked so hard to save your life. I’ve failed you too many times, and I don’t deserve your forgiveness, though I hope that one day you might still try to think kindly of me. I won’t look for you, in case you don’t want me, but I’ll always be waiting, in case you ever find your way to me again.
And then, miraculously, the words that made the least sense of all—
I love you, Mina. I love you so much. I wish I could be stronger for you.
Mina’s hands trembled, both from anger—She left me—and from joy—She loved me. She ran her fingertips over those last words again and again, wanting to hold them, to transform them into something with weight and shape, something she could carry with her. All these years, this letter had been hiding the secret of her mother’s love. Where had it been? How had Lynet found it?
She had gone to Gregory, Mina remembered. Lynet was always so curious, always snooping where she shouldn’t be. Gregory had kept this letter, or perhaps he had forgotten about it, but he still knew that Dorothea hadn’t killed herself. He had lied to Mina—about her mother’s death, about her mother’s love, about the way her heart worked. You cannot love, and you will never be loved, he had said, and he had been wrong.
Didn’t you see how much I loved you? Lynet had asked.
No, no, she’d only ever seen the world through her mirrors, surrounding herself with distorted images and believing that they were real. Lynet is younger and more beautiful than you, and she will replace you, one of them had told her, and she had believed it while ignoring the joyful smile on Lynet’s face as she talked with her stepmother, the love that poured out of her with every word. Mina had let reflections fool her, too afraid to look beneath them for a heart she didn’t think she had. She wondered when she had started to imagine that Lynet was as cold and heartless as she saw herself.