The voice sounded closer, and she cast an almost panicked look at the doorway. Her mind drew a blank.
My name is Kelsea, she told herself. At least I know that much. My name hasn’t changed.
She hurried over to the closet and pulled out pants and a blue sweater. The floor of her closet was littered with empty boxes, and Kelsea stared at these for a moment before she remembered: of course! She was getting ready to move out, but to where? Her mind felt as though it were filled with mineshafts, tunnels that hid this life from her gaze. She was supposed to be packing up her room, but she had been dawdling for the past couple of weeks, not wanting her belongings to be boxed away where she couldn’t get to them.
When she was dressed, Kelsea opened her bedroom door, cautiously, as though expecting to find dragons on the other side. She saw a short hallway with several closed doors, and, ahead of her, a descending staircase. On the wall near the top of the stairs hung a floor-length mirror, simply constructed of glass and wood. She smelled eggs cooking.
“Kelsea Raleigh, get down here this minute! You’ll be late for work!”
“Raleigh,” she murmured to herself. That was right. There was no Glynn here, no Barty or Carlin, because she had never been fostered; she had grown up her entire life right here in this house, and now she was tired of it, tired of having Mum wake her up in the mornings, tired of having Mum know all of her business. She loved Mum, but Mum drove her crazy. Kelsea wanted a place of her own. That was why she was moving out.
She moved toward the stairs, still half in a dream, but a glance in the mirror brought her to another halt.
Her own face stared back at her.
She put a hand on the smooth surface of the mirror, her eyes searching hungrily. Here was a girl of nineteen, with a round, good-natured face and bright green eyes. A step backward showed that she had a solid, well-fed figure. Not Lily, this woman, her appearance neither pretty nor remarkable . . . and yet Kelsea could have stared at her forever.
My own face.
“Kelsea!”
After a last look, she went on down the stairs.
At the bottom, she found an open doorway leading into a dining area. There were plates on the table, not bulky stoneware but fine ceramic work, blue on white. She touched the edge of one plate and found it smooth.
“There you are!”
She turned and saw Elyssa Raleigh standing in a tiny kitchen that opened off the dining room. She had a spatula in one hand and a plate in the other. She looked frazzled.
“Here, have breakfast!” She shoved the plate into Kelsea’s hand. “I’ve no time this morning. I have to be over at Mrs. Clement’s; her daughter’s getting married and she wants the most ridiculous dress . . .”
Kelsea took the plate, feeling this lock into her mind, another solid piece of information: her mother was a dressmaker.
“Go, go! You’re going to be late as well!”
Her mother pushed her toward the table, and Kelsea sat down. She felt herself drifting, almost becoming untethered. No one would have recognized Queen Elyssa . . . because there was no Queen Elyssa, never had been. Kelsea had never felt less like eating; she could only watch her mother bustle around the kitchen, putting things away, occasionally vanishing through an open door that, Kelsea knew, led to the cold pantry.
A dressmaker, her mind whispered. Kelsea could accept that, but she felt the rest of it, the world beyond this house, looming over her, a vast unknown. Who was her father?
“Time for me to run,” her mother said. “Give me a hug.”
Kelsea looked up at her, stunned and angry. As though she would embrace this woman, this woman who had done so many selfish things . . . or had she? Kelsea felt suddenly lost, wandering the vast gap inside herself, the chasm between the world she had always known and this kitchen. Queen Elyssa had wrecked the Tearling, but this was not Queen Elyssa. The woman before her was vain, perhaps; Kelsea sensed that this had been a point of contention between them for a long time. But she was no destroyer of kingdoms.
“Kelsea?” her mother asked, frowning, and Kelsea knew that some of what she’d been feeling must have shown on her face.
“I know you’re anxious to move out, Kel. I was at your age too. But I will miss you. Can I have a hug?”
Kelsea stared at her for a long moment, trying to push the past away, or at least make some peace with it. She had never been a forgiving person; it was too easy a journey from anger to resentment. But her mind demanded a basic level of fairness, and that fairness said that her mother was no danger to anyone. Could Kelsea really hold her responsible for that other life, when this mother made no decisions, only clothing?