musty pile of towels to the floor and picks out two from the bottom. After a sniff, she wrinkles her nose. At least the towels smell old rather than moldy.
Beth hands one to Maddie, and her nose scrunches, but she says nothing.
The acrid fragrance of sulfur fills the space as Beth lights all five candles with matches retrieved from a toiletry drawer.
She opens the cabinet underneath the sink. A small dried-up bar of soap lies in a wicker basket along with a half bottle of shampoo.
She had a full cabinet's worth of both. Before. Perfumed toiletries and the length of her hair were Beth's only concessions to femininity.
“You were a little bit of a hygiene slut,” Maddie admits with a giggle.
Beth smiles. “True.” She gives Maddie a sidelong glance. “Lucky for you.”
Maddie nods. “I actually stretched it as long as I could.”
Beth looks critically at the girl. Maddie’s hair falls to her mid-thigh, longer than the fashion of Papilio. After five years, Beth’s midback-length hair has become too long.
“I know. You did great. I'm surprised without the re-hydrator you didn't starve to death.”
The silence stretches like pulled taffy between them, so many things left unsaid.
Then Beth closes the door, and they strip. Beth dumps the clothes into a pile to throw away.
“I guess I look terrible,” Maddie says in an embarrassed voice.
Beth can count Maddie’s every rib, and the girl’s hipbones stick out like tent poles. She inhales deeply. “No. You look like a woman who survived the unsurvivable. I don't think it matters how you look—only that you're alive.”
Maddie begins to cry, covering her face with her hands.
Beth goes to her and takes her hands. “You're wasting water,” Beth says gently. “We can't help what has happened. All we can do is restore TCH and hope the chaos of the last five years hasn't ruined things beyond fixing.”
Beth dips her head, catching the taller woman’s gaze. “Okay?”
Maddie nods. “I'm not crying because I'm sad, Beth.”
Beth's brows draw together.
“I thought that I'd never see anyone else again, like I was surviving for nothing. I was on the last of my supplies here, worried about Ryan and his fucking goons coming by and nailing me—making me a whore like the others,” she finishes in a whisper.
“Then we appeared,” Beth interjects.
“Yeah,” she says, wiping snot and tears from her filthy face. “Then you guys—you and Jacky—Jeb, walk in like a mirage in the middle of a desert. At first, I thought I'd finally lost it.”
Maddie turns from Beth and walks into the cleanser, where she gives the faucet a hard jerk to the right.
The pipes groan in protest then finally splutter on.
“And then Jacky was there, looking older,” she shakes her head, still looking away. “It doesn't seem real yet. I still feel like I need to hide.” Her voice is soft, and Beth strains to hear her. “I'm still afraid,” she adds.
Maddie turns and faces Beth, eyes large and shining with unshed tears.
The water hisses as it hits the tiles, and steam rises like mist between them.
The large cleanser is so big, both women fit inside easily. Beth holds up a wide-toothed comb of pure bone and makes a twirling motion with her finger. Maddie faces away, letting the spray from the cleanserhead rain down on the front of her.
Beth begins to comb the knots out of the other woman’s matted hair.
“I'm afraid, too,” Beth confesses. “But there's more of us than them.”
“They're like ticks on a dog, Beth. They liked the violence—the control. They had all of Papilio held captive.”
“Not Adlaine,” Beth says with conviction, referencing her own quadrant. There's no way the people she grew up around would listen to a Reflective. Beth grins, thinking about it. Finally, their attitude might have helped.
“Yeah,” Maddie says softly. “They held out until last year. Then Ryan’s men burnt the quadrant to the ground and kidnapped all the women past menstruation age.”
The comb clatters to the tile floor.
Maddie turns back to face Beth. Hot overspray soaks Beth's flesh. She can't swallow—or breathe.
Little girls that were barely women, taken to TCH to work as prostitutes…
“I'll kill them.” Magic seems to build and seethe with her words as though taking on a life of its own, her words holding both power and weight.
Maddie's hand moves through the thickness of Beth's spoken promise, and she touches Beth's shoulder lightly.
“I know.”
Whatever Beth's expression, it causes Maddie to drop her hand and retreat into the falling water.
“Every last one will die by my hand.”
Maddie doesn't look afraid;