Pilar righted herself in the water. “She’d die if she heard you say that.”
“That’s why I’m only saying it to you.”
Why did Pilar feel suddenly protective? She’d done nothing but heap scorn on Mia’s bad sailing for weeks, widening the gap between them.
But then she would remember how it had felt to stand beside Mia in their Reflections, hand in hand. The way some torn part of her had begun to knit itself back together. It scared her, how much she wanted to feel that again.
Starved for attention.
In the past her own hunger had made her vulnerable. When you opened yourself up like that, people hurt you.
And then she thought of Quin. Pilar had offered him her body and a good chunk of her heart. He’d offered her the same. But his body and heart were never his to give. Angelyne had broken him, scraped him clean of everything good and gentle.
Pilar saw now what she couldn’t see then. She and Quin had never been destined for some epic love affair. He was happiest writing dramatic monologues and correcting her grammar. She was happiest pounding sandbags. They’d found one another because they were desperate, and because there was no one else.
But they had meant something to each other. That part was true. Sometimes when she replayed their history, she felt searing guilt that she hadn’t known—or hadn’t wanted to know—how much he was hurting.
And then she thought of the night underneath the palace. Quin would have burned her alive. She knew it in her core. What a fool she’d been. Still that needy girl, starved for attention. It had almost killed her.
“The water gets warmer the closer we get to Pata Pacha,” Nell was saying. “By the time you’re in the cove it’s practically bathing water. You’ll see whole shoals of melonfish.”
“Melonfish?”
“They look like halves of orange melons with long trailing lappets, and they’re luminous, they create their own light. They’re really quite beautiful. My brother caught one once, tried to keep it as a pet. But they don’t last long in fresh water.”
“Tell me about him. Hardly any girls had brothers on Refúj.”
Nell smiled. “He was terrific, such a sweet soul. He looked up to me. He looked up to everyone, honestly, he opened his heart so easily. I worried about him constantly. He trusted anyone who paid him the tiniest bit of attention. He wanted so much to be loved.”
Pilar thought about how much she had wanted to be loved. By her mother. By Orry.
“He loved his fight lessons,” Nell continued. “They made him so happy. He had a teacher from the river kingdom whom he absolutely adored.”
Pilar froze. She felt herself start to sink. Surely Orry hadn’t . . .
“My brother was so sad when she left for Prisma. He locked himself in his room for days.”
Pilar let out her breath. Relieved.
A female fight teacher. She liked the sound of that.
“You talk about your brother like he’s dead.”
“Great sands, no! I don’t mean it like that. He was only eleven when I left Pembuk, and then he was lost to me, just like everyone else. Sometimes it feels like a whole separate life.”
Nell’s head sank an inch lower, chin disappearing beneath the surface.
“My brother wasn’t just sad about his fight teacher. He was sad a lot of the time, for reasons none of us—including him—understood. Even as a little boy, he was sad.”
The water slapped soft against their arms.
“I wish I’d taken him with me,” Nell said. “I did what I had to do, don’t get me wrong. I felt like I would die if I stayed, like I was being crushed from all sides. But I’ve never stopped feeling guilty for leaving him behind.”
They were silent a moment. Pilar watched Mia on the boat, swaying unsteadily. Poor girl with her scientific theories and library books wasn’t cut out for sailing the open sea. Despite the multiple daily healings and Nell’s fancy fish cream, Rose’s white skin continued to turn the color of an actual rose.
Look on the bright side, Pilar had told her. At least you can’t feel the sunburn!
She was beginning to wonder if her humor could use a little fine-tuning.
“Mia likes you, you know,” Pilar said. It was obvious from the way Rose looked at Nell. The way she begged to be touched every day. Even if Mia wouldn’t admit it—might not even be aware of it—she clearly felt something for Nelladine.
Nell sighed.
“She thinks she does, yes, I know. She wants me to be the one to save her, to fix all her broken parts. And I’ll do everything I can to help her. I think Mia is used to fixing things—her sister, her family, her own body. She doesn’t understand some things aren’t meant to be fixed. But she’s not alone in wanting that. It’s why so many people go to Prisma. They’d rather see themselves as who they could be, instead of who they are.”
“I just wish she’d stop trying to fix me.”
Nell shielded her eyes from the sun. “I understand. Believe me, I do.”
Pilar gargled salt water. Spat it back into the ocean. It wasn’t the first time she’d thought of telling Nell what had happened on Refúj. But whenever she imagined dragging herself back to that dark place, fatigue punched her in the gut. She was tired. Talking about it cost too much. Pilar hated that this was now part of her story. Hated that everyone she would ever meet, for the rest of her life, would fall into one of two categories: those she’d told, and those she hadn’t.
“I want you to promise me something,” Nell said, keeping her voice low as they drifted closer to the boat. “When we get to Pembuk, will you look out for Mia?”
“Why don’t you?”
“I want to. It’s just, once we get there, things will change.”
After growing up with a mother who spoke in riddles, Pilar could read between the lines. Nell was going to leave once she dumped them with the Shadowess. Mia would probably trail after her, abandoning the sisterhood she and Pilar had begun to forge. Proving that even the people who promised to love her always left her in the end.
But Pilar had always been curious about Pembuk. She didn’t know much about it—lots of sand, glass cities, ugly animals with humps. And so on. What interested her was that not a single Pembuka had ever come to Refúj. Clearly, the Dujia of the glass kingdom hadn’t managed to escape. Or maybe they hadn’t needed to.
She set her jaw. She would meet the Shadowess. After that, she made no promises.
As for Mia? Pilar owed her nothing. Rose might be her half sister by blood, but at the end of the day, blood was just another kind of sweat. It leaked out of you in a fight, but you never missed it.
Pilar hardened her voice.
“So what happens after you ditch us in Pembuk? Will you slug some ale in your old haunts? Or turn tail to Luumia so you can make more clay pots?”
Nell was quiet. She treaded water, watching Pilar.
“You don’t have to make my life sound small. I’ve made a home in the snow kingdom. Friends.”
“Friends like Ville?”
As soon as the words came out, Pilar regretted them. They had explained to Nell how her friend Ville had never been Ville at all, but Lord Kristoffin Dove, the Snow Queen’s uncle, who abducted and enslaved children, wrenching power from their deepest pain.