“Things will be different once we get to the glass kingdom,” Nell said, her eyes fixed on some distant point Mia couldn’t see. “I’ll be different.”
“How do you mean?”
“You’ll see. There’s a reason I left home.”
“But you won’t tell us what it is,” griped Pilar. “Or why you’re dragging us back. All we know is that we’re going to Pembuk.”
“You really haven’t put two and two together?” Nell laughed her husky laugh. “It’ll all become clear soon enough. We’re going to a sacred place where the greatest minds have gathered since the beginning of time: people who have learned how to heal not just the world around us, but our own hearts and minds.”
“Great, more riddles,” Pilar groaned. One thing Mia had learned from a month on the sea: her sister was keen on groaning.
Sister. The word still felt strange and out of place, like a blackberry drupelet stuck between her teeth. She still had trouble reconciling the fact that, after seventeen years, she’d lost one sister and inherited another.
“Mia.” Nell nodded toward the lateen sail. “The luff—that’s the edge closest to the mast—is a little loose. Can you help me reroute the halyard?”
“Yes,” Mia said, although “probably not” would have been a more honest answer.
Pilar dropped from the stern, landing evenly on both feet. “Need a hand?”
“I’m fine.”
“There’s no shame in it.”
Mia was caught off guard—in part because Pilar was being kind, in part because she had invoked shame. Shouldn’t Mia be the one telling her big sister not to feel ashamed? She’d tried so many times to initiate a conversation about their night under the snow palace; the more Mia replayed her own words, the more tweaks she wanted to make. She should have done a better job offering both comfort and support. Every time Pilar lobbed a sarcastic barb in her direction, Mia reminded herself that this was simply a means of self-protection. She knew she could make things better for Pilar, easier, if she could just say the right thing.
But whenever Mia offered an olive branch, Pil crushed it.
Now Mia met her sister’s eyes. Compassion welled inside her. This was the moment.
“Pilar,” she began. “I want you to know you can—”
She gasped as Pilar stripped off her shirt—and jumped overboard.
Chapter 3
Another Kind of Sweat
PILAR WAS BETTER OFF alone. Why did she keep forgetting? Her so-called half sister was the perfect reminder. For weeks Mia had tried to force her to talk about things she didn’t want to talk about. Didn’t need to talk about. Pilar had offered to help reroute the halyard, not have a heart-to-heart sob fest with Mia Rose.
The only escape was to go overboard.
“Pilar!”
She dunked her head under, drowning Mia out. The water was bracing. Much better. A jolt of cold ocean to slurp her down.
Her head broke the surface, eyes stinging with salt. Just in time to hear Mia say to Nelladine: “. . . going to get herself killed. Can’t you do something?”
“Actually, there is one thing,” Nell said, and then she was pulling off her shirt, too, and plunging into the water.
Pilar crowed with delight. A moment later, Nell resurfaced, triumphant. Beads of water clung to her thin black braids.
A panicked Mia leaned over the boat’s edge.
“I can’t sail, Nell!”
“Maysha will be fine for a few minutes. There’s no wind.”
“But what if . . .” Mia motioned helplessly toward the water.
“It’s the ocean, Mia, it doesn’t bite.”
“Except for the thousands of aquatic species that literally bite.”
Nell splashed the side of the boat. Mia did not look amused.
“Didn’t you grow up on a river?” Pilar asked.
“Not on a river,” Mia said. “Close to one.”
“Why does the water scare you?”
“It doesn’t scare me.”
“Why do you hate it?”
“Because there are infinite unknowns lurking beneath the surface.”
“You don’t like that you can’t control it,” Pilar said. She jerked a thumb toward the sinking sun. “You can’t control a sunset. Does that scare you, too?”
She didn’t wait to hear Mia’s answer. She paddled farther out, blading her hands through the water. Filled her lungs with air. Floated on her back, starfishing her arms and legs. It felt nice to swim, to let her muscles stretch and thrum. You could only bend your body so many ways on a boat. Sit. Stand. Crouch. Lie down—until someone stepped on you.
Mia Rose was that someone. Four weeks and the girl still didn’t have her sea legs. Typical.
Pilar had noticed something since they’d set sail. Whenever she thought about what had happened to her beneath the snow palace—trapped in her own Reflections, forced to relive her worst nightmare—she didn’t feel a sense of closure. If anything, she felt more exposed.
Mia had seen everything. She’d watched as Orry, Pilar’s fight teacher, raped her over and over in his cottage by the lake.
To Mia’s credit, she’d said comforting things.
You didn’t deserve what happened. It wasn’t your fault.
At the time, Pilar had felt seen.
The problem was, sometimes being seen wasn’t a good thing. Mia had also seen how desperately Pilar wanted to be loved. At night, trying to snatch a few hours of sleep on the tiny boat, Pilar would remember what Morígna, Orry’s wife, had said the day she turned the entire Dujia sisterhood against her. There will always be girls so starved for attention they must lie to get it. Girls who pretend to be victims when they are anything but.
Mia had seen that part, too. It gave Pilar a sick feeling. Like she’d sliced open her chest and let Mia Rose root around the slimy guts.
Honestly, Rose would probably enjoy it. She was always yammering on about fibula this and ventricle that.
Pilar hated the feeling of being vulnerable. Needy. Worst of all: weak. She hated the word rape, hated everything about it. Raped. She didn’t recognize herself in those five letters. But she could see them in Mia’s eyes every time she looked at her.
Pilar felt herself sealing off again. The same way cuts on her knuckles turned to white-slash scars after a fight. She’d always healed quickly, even when she didn’t use magic to speed things along. Her wounds scabbed over within a day or two. The skin scarred up. Got tougher.
Maybe hearts did that, too. Slit them open and they closed up tougher than before. The deeper the cut, the thicker the scar—and the more unlikely the heart would break again.
“You’re a strong swimmer,” said Nelladine, who’d come up beside her. Pilar stayed on her back, puffing out her chest to keep afloat.
“I did grow up on an island. No shortage of ocean to swim in.”
“You all right out there?” Mia yelled from the boat.
“Are you all right?” Nell yelled back.
“Yes! I think so?”
Nell shot Pilar a sly look. “To tell the truth, if I had to leave Maysha with anyone? Mia wouldn’t be my top pick.”