“No!” I howl — rage and fear and dread bubbling up inside me and spilling over. “You have to know something! You have to.”
Instinctively, Ms. Chancellor steps closer, but she doesn’t put her arms around me. She knows better than to try to hold a wild thing.
“We will find it, Grace,” she says.
I’m weaker than I’d like to admit, because I find myself wanting to believe her.
She leads me back into the first big room. As we’re passing by the weapons, she says, “Making yourself sick won’t help matters. You both have a lot to learn, and you’re going to need to be at your best when we begin.”
“I don’t care. I want … Wait.” I stop. “Did you say both?”
The stained-glass window is overhead. Dust dances in the inexplicable beam of light, and that is where she’s standing.
I see the outline of her silhouette, and when she moves slowly forward, I know immediately who it is.
“Hello, Grace,” Lila says. “Haven’t you heard? We’re going to be sisters.”
I am my own worst enemy. But if there were to be a second place, it would go to this girl. Lila’s black hair is glossy and straight. Her nails perfectly polished, her back perfectly straight. She’s my Brazilian-Israeli best friend’s twin sister, but there is nothing of Noah in the girl in front of me.
Lila is the anti-Noah, which means she’s also the anti-me.
I spin on Ms. Chancellor. “Yes, Grace,” she says to my unasked question. “You and Lila will be joining us at the same time. Isn’t that wonderful? Learning about the Society is so much better with a friend.”
Lila is not my friend.
One look at the girl tells me she is thinking the same thing, but Ms. Chancellor practically beams. “I’m so excited for you both. Now go on. I’m sure you two have a lot to talk about.”
No, I want to say, but somehow I manage to bite back the word.
“I’m afraid I’m needed at the embassy. We will continue this soon,” Ms. Chancellor says before hurrying ahead of us.
Lila and I follow in silence, climbing the spiral steps to the door Ms. Chancellor showed me just an hour ago. But even if we’re quiet, my thoughts are loud. I can’t even try to hide my disappointment. My mom was supposed to make more sense to me now. This was her big secret. I am where she once was, on the verge of learning the things that she once knew. But as Lila and I start down the tunnel that will take us outside, I can’t help but feel my mother slipping further and further away. The woman I remember now simply feels like a lie, and there’s nothing new to replace it.
“Weird, right?”
It takes a moment to realize Lila is talking, a moment more to realize she’s talking to me.
“You’re in the shocked-and-confused phase right now. It’s okay. I get it. The shock goes away after a few days, but the awe … the awe hasn’t gone away for me yet.”
“So you didn’t know …”
“What?” Lila looks at me. “That my mother belongs to an ancient league of secret lady assassins or whatever?”
“They aren’t assassins,” I say. Then I think about it. “Are they?”
“Oh, certainly.” Lila rolls her eyes. “Did you think their battle-ax collection is for when the librarians want to collect late fees?” She doesn’t wait for me to answer before she shrugs and says, “In answer to your question, no. I didn’t know. My mother told me a few weeks ago. Did yours tell you?” It takes Lila a moment to realize what she’s said. “I mean, before she died?”
She doesn’t sound embarrassed. After all, Lila is the kind of person who isn’t afraid of the truth and doesn’t have time for regrets.
I shouldn’t either, I realize, but all I can say is, “No. I never knew.”
Maybe my mom died too soon. Maybe she didn’t think I belonged here. Maybe it’s just too hard to work something like an ancient family legacy in over breakfast. But no matter why, the fact remains that my mother never told me, and my mother never will. There was a time that would have made me cry, but that’s the good thing about being dead inside, I guess. Dead people don’t feel pain.
Then something occurs to me — something that has nothing to do with my mother.
“Does Noah know?” I ask, and Lila laughs.
“Noah doesn’t have a clue. About anything. Ever. It is safe to assume that Noah is perpetually clueless.”
“I’m worried.”
I don’t know where the words come from or why I say them now. Aloud. To Lila. But I can’t take them back, and it’s too late. Lila’s already looking at me like I’m even crazier than she’d been led to believe.
“What do you have to worry about?”