I squeeze her arm closer to me. “It’s nice to have my differences be an asset instead of something that makes me the most unfeminine girl in the room.”
Sylph smiles. “You aren’t unfeminine. You just stink at setting a nice table or sewing a decent dress.”
“I can sew a decent dress.”
“You are the worst seamstress Baalboden’s ever seen. And possibly the worst cook as well.”
“I can cook when I have to,” I say, and return her smile.
“Well, you don’t have to. We need someone who knows how to use weapons and win a fight, and you’re the best girl for the job. I’ll never forget the way you launched yourself into that mess on the Claiming stage. I thought you were going to die.”
“So did I.” I should be trembling at the memory of being surrounded by the Brute Squad and held at the Commander’s mercy, but the ashes of my fury lie cold and silent within me.
She shakes her head. “No, you knew exactly what to do. How to stand up for yourself and win. It was terrifying and amazing.”
“Terrifying.”
“And amazing. Who knew a girl could kill a grown man?”
In the back of my mind, Melkin’s dark eyes beg me to save him as his blood flows hot and sticky over my hands. I shake my head and walk faster. Sylph matches my pace.
After a moment, she says, “I felt foolish, Rachel. All those years of friendship, and I had no idea what you were capable of. You could’ve told me.”
“You would’ve told your mother.” I squeeze her closer to me to take away the sting of remembering her mother’s death. “Not on purpose, but you would’ve told her.”
Her voice catches on a rasp of grief. “Maybe. She could always get the truth out of me.”
I think of the way we used to walk behind her father in the market, whispering our secrets. Whispering her secrets. Most of mine were too dangerous to share. “I’m sorry.”
“For what?”
For still having secrets. For being unable to open up and let her in anymore. For pretending to feel the things I know I should be feeling because inside of me there’s nothing but darkness and the faint voices of those whose blood is on my hands.
“I’m sorry about your family,” I say.
She leans her cheek against my shoulder as we step around a woman whose small child has stopped to chase a shower of flower petals teased from the branches by the late afternoon breeze. “And I’m sorry about your family, too. But I have Smithson, and you have Logan. We have more than most.”
The bouncing, irrepressible Sylph of my childhood is gone. In her place, forged out of fire and loss, is a woman-girl with steady eyes and clear vision. Talking to her is like coming home and finding the furniture in every room rearranged. The same pieces are there, the same sense of comfort, but nothing is exactly where you’d expect.
Ahead of us, a woman struggles up the hill alone, her gait unsteady and her steps slow. Sylph and I lean against each other the way we used to as children when we’d walk through Lower Market, plotting how to get extra sticky buns from Oliver or how to get Corbin Smythe, the cutest boy our age, to notice us.
More apple blossoms whirl through the air as we approach the woman who can barely manage the hill. I’m about to remind Sylph of the time we bribed Corbin to eat lunch with us by promising to give him an entire loaf of raisin bread, but the words shrivel in my mouth as we flank the woman, and I look in her face.
It’s Melkin’s wife, Eloise, waddling slowly up the hill, her hands cupped beneath her swollen belly as if to keep the baby safe inside of her for just a little longer. Her thin brown hair falls down her shoulders in limp strands, and her eyes are puffy with exhaustion or tears. Probably both.
“Let us help you,” Sylph says, and gently wraps her arm around Eloise’s waist.
“Thank you.” Eloise’s voice is a timid, caged thing hovering uncertainly in the air before drifting away. Everything about her seems washed-out and weary. Everything but her eyes.
Her eyes are full of misery and knowing. I look away, my cheeks burning as if she’d slapped me.
“Rachel, put your arm around her and help me,” Sylph says.
I can’t touch her with the hands that ripped her husband away from her. I can’t.
She looks at me with her tired eyes as if waiting for me to tell her something she already knows, but I can’t speak.
“It’s okay,” Eloise says in her pale, whispery voice. “I know you tried to save him.”
Who told her that lie? I shake my head and try to find the words to contradict her, but my lips stay closed, protecting my secrets even as they rise up to choke me with bloody fingers.
“Rachel?” Sylph sounds baffled. Maybe worried. I can’t look at her to see which is true. I can’t look at either of them.
Melkin’s dark eyes burning with fury, his knife pointed at the ground. The rage that blistered through me when I knew he wanted to take the device and leave me with nothing—no way to destroy the Commander and make my father’s sacrifice count. The flash of silver as I attacked him. A confusion of blows. And Melkin dropping toward me, his face a murderous mask, his sword arm hidden.
My knife. His chest. Blood covering me as I sat horrified. As I let him believe I was Eloise. As I pretended he’d saved her, when neither of us had saved anyone.
“Rachel!” Sylph’s voice cuts through the memory, and something tugs on my arm.
Sylph smiles. “You aren’t unfeminine. You just stink at setting a nice table or sewing a decent dress.”
“I can sew a decent dress.”
“You are the worst seamstress Baalboden’s ever seen. And possibly the worst cook as well.”
“I can cook when I have to,” I say, and return her smile.
“Well, you don’t have to. We need someone who knows how to use weapons and win a fight, and you’re the best girl for the job. I’ll never forget the way you launched yourself into that mess on the Claiming stage. I thought you were going to die.”
“So did I.” I should be trembling at the memory of being surrounded by the Brute Squad and held at the Commander’s mercy, but the ashes of my fury lie cold and silent within me.
She shakes her head. “No, you knew exactly what to do. How to stand up for yourself and win. It was terrifying and amazing.”
“Terrifying.”
“And amazing. Who knew a girl could kill a grown man?”
In the back of my mind, Melkin’s dark eyes beg me to save him as his blood flows hot and sticky over my hands. I shake my head and walk faster. Sylph matches my pace.
After a moment, she says, “I felt foolish, Rachel. All those years of friendship, and I had no idea what you were capable of. You could’ve told me.”
“You would’ve told your mother.” I squeeze her closer to me to take away the sting of remembering her mother’s death. “Not on purpose, but you would’ve told her.”
Her voice catches on a rasp of grief. “Maybe. She could always get the truth out of me.”
I think of the way we used to walk behind her father in the market, whispering our secrets. Whispering her secrets. Most of mine were too dangerous to share. “I’m sorry.”
“For what?”
For still having secrets. For being unable to open up and let her in anymore. For pretending to feel the things I know I should be feeling because inside of me there’s nothing but darkness and the faint voices of those whose blood is on my hands.
“I’m sorry about your family,” I say.
She leans her cheek against my shoulder as we step around a woman whose small child has stopped to chase a shower of flower petals teased from the branches by the late afternoon breeze. “And I’m sorry about your family, too. But I have Smithson, and you have Logan. We have more than most.”
The bouncing, irrepressible Sylph of my childhood is gone. In her place, forged out of fire and loss, is a woman-girl with steady eyes and clear vision. Talking to her is like coming home and finding the furniture in every room rearranged. The same pieces are there, the same sense of comfort, but nothing is exactly where you’d expect.
Ahead of us, a woman struggles up the hill alone, her gait unsteady and her steps slow. Sylph and I lean against each other the way we used to as children when we’d walk through Lower Market, plotting how to get extra sticky buns from Oliver or how to get Corbin Smythe, the cutest boy our age, to notice us.
More apple blossoms whirl through the air as we approach the woman who can barely manage the hill. I’m about to remind Sylph of the time we bribed Corbin to eat lunch with us by promising to give him an entire loaf of raisin bread, but the words shrivel in my mouth as we flank the woman, and I look in her face.
It’s Melkin’s wife, Eloise, waddling slowly up the hill, her hands cupped beneath her swollen belly as if to keep the baby safe inside of her for just a little longer. Her thin brown hair falls down her shoulders in limp strands, and her eyes are puffy with exhaustion or tears. Probably both.
“Let us help you,” Sylph says, and gently wraps her arm around Eloise’s waist.
“Thank you.” Eloise’s voice is a timid, caged thing hovering uncertainly in the air before drifting away. Everything about her seems washed-out and weary. Everything but her eyes.
Her eyes are full of misery and knowing. I look away, my cheeks burning as if she’d slapped me.
“Rachel, put your arm around her and help me,” Sylph says.
I can’t touch her with the hands that ripped her husband away from her. I can’t.
She looks at me with her tired eyes as if waiting for me to tell her something she already knows, but I can’t speak.
“It’s okay,” Eloise says in her pale, whispery voice. “I know you tried to save him.”
Who told her that lie? I shake my head and try to find the words to contradict her, but my lips stay closed, protecting my secrets even as they rise up to choke me with bloody fingers.
“Rachel?” Sylph sounds baffled. Maybe worried. I can’t look at her to see which is true. I can’t look at either of them.
Melkin’s dark eyes burning with fury, his knife pointed at the ground. The rage that blistered through me when I knew he wanted to take the device and leave me with nothing—no way to destroy the Commander and make my father’s sacrifice count. The flash of silver as I attacked him. A confusion of blows. And Melkin dropping toward me, his face a murderous mask, his sword arm hidden.
My knife. His chest. Blood covering me as I sat horrified. As I let him believe I was Eloise. As I pretended he’d saved her, when neither of us had saved anyone.
“Rachel!” Sylph’s voice cuts through the memory, and something tugs on my arm.
