At seven years old, a little girl shouldn’t have to know when to step in to pull attention. She shouldn’t have to know how to become a new target so her father doesn’t kill the person she loves most in the world.

But I knew.

I knew the rhythm of that moment like a skip in a heartbeat. I knew how to focus my father’s rage on me. At seven, I’d done the math, and I knew what it meant. Eight gates to protect in Lunameade meant our father didn’t need all of us to secure his power. The only way Aidia and I could stay alive was to spread the hurt around.

And now she’s gone and I’m still here. Now the sorrow is trapped inside my chest, an angry shrike slamming against its cage, so desperate for escape it will shred itself to do it.

A sob shakes out of me. Henry wraps his arms around me, and I lose every last shred of composure. I cry so hard that I collapse against him. He sweeps me into his arms and carries me to a bench under a nearby willow.

All the hurt pours out of me, all the guilt and rage and grief that I’ve fought so hard to tuck down deep, bursting free. I cannot master myself. I sob until I’m gasping for air and my heart is pounding and my skin is crusted with salty tears.

Finally, the anguish ebbs enough that I can take a deep, shuddering breath and lean my head on Henry’s shoulder.

“It’s a beautiful spot,” he says.

I glance around the garden. It is beautiful. If she’s going to be remembered, I’m glad it’s here and not at North Hold.

“I thought you were working me,” Henry says, softly rubbing my back. “When Kellan told me, I thought you knew about my sister, so you made up a sister that could be saved to play to that wound. That’s why I was so Divine-damned angry.” He sighs. “I’m sorry. I would have never sprung this on you if I realized it wasn’t a trick.”

He offers me a handkerchief and allows me a moment to compose myself.

“Do you want to tell me what happened?” he asks.

“No.”

Henry barks out a startled laugh. “Fair enough. Still, it might help.”

“Nothing will help. She’s gone,” I rasp.

“But you’ve been seeing her.”

I wipe tears from my cheeks, not nearly as horrified as I should be that I lost my composure in front of him. “How do you know?”

“Because you were talking about her in present tense.”

The mansion looms over us, and I look up at it. I’ve lost track of how many times I dreamed of burning it down. I fantasized about turning my history and pain to ash and watching the ghosts of every old hurt rise in the smoke.

I stare at the rust stains on the circular stone. “When we were young, my father beat us. Aidia because she wouldn’t use her magic for him. She is a glamourist with a blessing from Stellaria. She is—was very talented. Whenever people started complaining about the blood tax, my father would have her transform some men from the poorest neighborhoods in Lunameade into Drained. They wouldn’t actually be Drained, but they would look like them. My father had some arrangement with these men where he would pay their families a large chunk of money. Then he’d have them run through town, and our guards would fight them off, proving to the people how capable my father was of protecting them. But Aidia—” My voice breaks. “She checked up on a couple of the men’s families afterward and found out that our father never delivered on his promise. And then she refused to help him with his game. So my father started beating her. But that just made her more stubborn. So he did the only other thing he could. He beat me, or rather—” The air rushes out of my lungs and it takes three tries to get myself to say it. “Or rather, he would make her beat me.”

When I finally meet Henry’s eyes, he looks violent, but he says nothing, just nodding for me to continue.

Now that I’ve started talking, I can’t seem to stop. “He made me beat her, also. He’d snap his fingers and threaten to burn her with holy fire, and I was pretty sure he was bluffing but never certain. He’d make me whip her until I gave in and tried harder to master my magic. He wasn’t happy that I could only use my lips. He wanted me to be able to poison by touch. I fought hard to keep that secret. I told Aidia because she suffered for it, but I never told anyone else in the family. They didn’t deserve to know.”

Henry squeezes my hand. “And your scar?”

“The stars are a brand that Aidia gave me to cover the marks from her beatings. She has—had the same one.” I run my fingers over my back, feeling the familiar topography through my dress and cloak. “We had this thing we used to say to check in to know if it was too much. One of us would say ‘my heart,’ and the other would respond ‘my bones,’ and then we’d say ‘our blood’ together. Carrenwells are never allowed to be weak. It was just a way to say—” I break into another wrenching sob. “To say that we were okay because we weren’t alone. It was a way to tell her I could take it.”

My chest hurts, my muscles wrung out from sobbing. My head aches viciously, but I press on. “We all knew that her husband was a problem. Rafe Mattingly wanted to marry me, but at the time, my father thought he could use me to get to Marc Beckley. Marc was running for mayor and was wildly popular with the unblessed of Lunameade, and he’d taken a fancy to me.”

Henry smiles sadly. “Popular girl.”

I sigh bitterly. “No, I was a bitch. I made the mistake of embarrassing Marc at a wine tasting my family was hosting. I was just trying to be charming to everyone else, but I caught his eye for making him look stupid. Marc decided then that he wanted to humble me.”

Henry’s jaw ticks. “And Rafe?”

“Rafe wanted someone who would be fun to break. My father knew us well—two sides of the same coin. Aidia, who protested loudly, and me, who picked my silent moments to wage war. Aidia knew how to size up an opponent, and she knew I would survive Marc, so she volunteered for Rafe. Because that’s who she was—the one person who always protected me.”

I rise to my feet and start to pace, remembering the way I’d pleaded with her not to do it. She was so determined, so light and airy and certain that she would break him first. I think she did in her own way. She showed him the only way he could beat her was to take her off the board entirely. So he did.

“Sometimes I wonder if he was so brutal with her because he didn’t get what he wanted,” I say, pausing in front of Henry. “He couldn’t touch me, but he could touch her. It was like our childhood in reverse, and I was weak, Henry. I was so much weaker than Aidia ever was. I don’t know how she weathered it. Every time I saw her bruised. Every time I saw a hint of her spirit breaking…I wanted to kill him.”

“Understandable.”

“But the timing was never right and that day I came to my room and found her in my closet worse than I’d ever seen her, and I said ‘my heart,’ and she was silent. So I did the only sane thing. I packed a bunch of my clothes for her, and I was going to hide her in the city. That had always been the plan, so I just moved it up.”

I press a damp palm to my chest. “But Rafe walked in before we could get out and I wasn’t ready. When he had come to retrieve her before, he’s always waited downstairs. I was so shocked I didn’t have a chance to block him. His magic—Henry, he has such a strong blessing from Polm⁠—”

I watch the understanding and horror dawn on his face.

“I’m a hard person to hook with manipulation. I spent a lot of time making sure of it. But I was so afraid for her, and he knew it. He made Aidia beat me with a fire poker, and then—” I can’t say it.

I’ve spent six months forgetting it happened because I couldn’t face it. I couldn’t live with knowing. The wound is raw, the infection too deep to remove cleanly. Speaking it out loud will shred me. It might be madness alone buried beneath my skin, but the only way to know for sure is to tell him the truth.