“Why would Mama have put them in for us, then?” I asked.
“Oh, try to keep up, baby witch,” she snapped at me. Her porcelain-doll face was so unsettling from this close up, the youthful delicacy of our own age paired with those deep, distant eyes. “Of course she didn’t give you ribbons—that would have been one of the coven, to set everything spinning in motion before they tried to catch me. Your mother was attempting to hide you as best she could, all these years. After the monumental failure of having had you in the first place, that is.”
Malina let out a distressed little sound next to me. Dunja sighed, her face warming over a fraction. “I’m sorry, sweetness,” she murmured. “No need to say such barbed things to you, you who asked for none of this. Might we agree I’m perhaps a tiny bit on edge? Of course, having you wasn’t truly Fai’s—Jasmina’s fault. We never even considered that it might play out as inevitable, just like everything else. Like the proverbial spindle, as it were.”
“Lina,” I said miserably, “how do we know to believe her? I still feel it, all this . . . devotion. It makes me feel like we’ll be hurting Sorai. Mara. Whoever she is.”
Lina turned to me. “We’ll believe Dunja because I can hear her, and I know she’s not lying, Riss. She sounds entirely pure, unlike any of the others. The sound of her truth is stronger than what the ribbons make me feel. I believe Naisha, and I believe her.”
She searched my eyes with that beloved, familiar clear gaze. My sister’s eyes were so much like my own, but not the same. “I know I’ve let you down before, but remember Fjolar. Remember that I knew not to trust him. This is my ‘I told you so’ moment, sister. Crappy timing, but here we are. Can you trust me enough to be strong for the both of us, to let that be our foundation?”
I wavered, my hands over my face, desperate to hide. I didn’t know how to do this, when I wasn’t the one being strong.
“I could sing you into it,” she said gently, tugging down my hands until I could see her again. “But I’m not going to. Again, this is your choice.”
Looking at her, I remembered that I’d once read how twins, after four or five months of sharing a womb, reached for each other every day, held hands and touched each other more than they touched themselves. My sister and I had been together as little tapioca clusters of cells, bumping against each other as we swam in salty amniotic seas. No matter who else I loved—real love, not the false kind Mara had foisted upon us—I would never love anyone as much as my sister.
And if I loved her like that, it stood to reason that I could trust her when I couldn’t even trust my own instinct or judgment.
“I know,” I said finally. “I choose you. I trust you.”
Malina folded me to her, then pressed a fierce kiss to my forehead. “Thank you, Riss. We’ll get through this, I promise, okay? So what do we do now?” she asked, turning back to Dunja. “How do we get out?”
“I won’t be able to fight through them if we come at them head-on,” she said. “I’ll need the ambush advantage. And I’ll need the two of you.”
My mouth sucked itself dry. “The two of us to do what?”
“To compete, of course, as she means you to. To keep her occupied. To play your parts to perfection until I can make my way toward the center of her web, and then get us out of here in as few pretty pieces as I can.”
TWENTY-SEVEN
DUNJA LED US BACK THROUGH THE PASSAGEWAYS, TO MY bedroom, before taking a branching route away from us. We spilled out of the wall to find the door still shut and the room empty, and after a crushing hug, Lina melted back into the corridors to make her way to her own room. I sat on the edge of the bed to wait, my hands shaking so hard I couldn’t even drink any of the elderflower water to calm myself. Why couldn’t they at least have left some wine, those miserable bitches? Presumably taking the edge off might have diminished the beauty.
By the time Shimora came to collect me, I had flung the windows open and was leaning halfway out, taking great gasps of the brisk mountain air—cool pine and the sweet green exhales of closing plants—trying to fortify myself for the onslaughts of perfume that I knew were coming.
“Lisarah, it’s time,” she said. “Come. Azareen is already here with me.”
“Just a moment,” I told her, swallowing hard. Please, I thought into the night, unsure of who I meant the plea for. Sorai had said there were gods made of magic; if that was even true, maybe one of them would hear me. Please, no matter what happens, don’t let me lose her.
Shimora had become even more stunning since we’d last seen her, in a midnight-blue sheath overlaid with black lace, her hair pulled back tightly into a tail that fell high from her crown, each shining section held fast with a silver band. Her scent was both mellower and spicier than before, allspice, mint, and something Christmasy like chocolate-dipped oranges—a heartening, celebratory smell that made me want to relax my shoulders, let excitement seep into my belly as if we were headed to some sparkling, joyous occasion instead of being all but led to a menhir for sacrifice. I let the scent soak in, but bent it to my own purpose, a bolster for the performance I was about to put on. My heart quickened as I fell into step with her, sharing a warm, furtive glance with Malina—I trust you—before we both shrugged back into the guise of sisters at the worst kind of odds.
Keeping marked distance between us, we followed Shimora out onto the balcony overlooking the atrium. The ceiling fixtures were aflame; the globes and onion domes cupped fire without any kind of fuel, varying in shade from electric blue to ruby red. They snapped with sparks that glimmered oddly, and with a closer look I saw that each flame flung off a perpetual shower of tiny crystals as it burned.
Shimora caught me looking at them. “Do you know, dear heart, that the tiniest of diamonds are born even in a candle’s flame?”
“No,” I said quietly, taking note of it for later. “I didn’t know that.”
Below the chandelier, candle sconces flickered over a hall filled with our family. Some wore clinging cocktail dresses, while others billowed in tiered ball gowns, full relics of satin and lace from another era. Many danced together, arms looped around each other’s waists as if they’d been apart for long enough to fiercely miss each other, while some stood in chillier clusters, by the long glass table that held cut-glass wine decanters and goblets that would take two hands to cup.