“Peony…” Lucas’s voice is gentler than I ever remember hearing it. “Do you want to start?”
I shake my head rapidly, feeling my heart crack like fine porcelain. I feel tears wetting my fists, but I refuse to drop my hands. I’m nothing if not stubborn, and I’ll go to hell before I let another tear fall.
“Peony, maybe you should—”
I cut Karsyn off, still refusing to lift my head. “I’m so fucking sorry.”
Silence descends, almost as if the world itself is holding its breath.
My tongue snakes out to lick my upper lip as I think about what to say, how to articulately express how sorry I truly am.
“We say that to each other a lot, don’t we?” I chuckle darkly. “Apologize. It seems as if we can never stop hurting one another.”
“It’s not your fucking fault—” Cassian begins.
“But it is!” I finally drop my hands and lift my head, clenching and unclenching my fists. Every muscle in my body coils tight, ready to spring at a moment’s notice. “I put you guys through hell because of what you did to me, and come to find out, it wasn’t even your fault.” I release another dry, humorless laugh. Even to my own ears, it doesn’t quite sound right. It’s too…broken.
Is that what I am? Broken? I always knew I would lose myself in this quest for vengeance, but never like this. It feels as if I’m missing too many pieces for the puzzle to ever be complete.
“I felt like shit for the things I did,” I confess, scratching absently at my arm. And then, when licks of pain shoot across my skin, I relish in it, digging my nails in even harder. “And I had more planned. A lot more. I wanted you all to pay for everything you did to me. And now I’m sitting here in front of you, feeling fucking broken and empty, and I don’t even know if I want your forgiveness. Well…” Blood begins to well on my arm. “That’s a lie. I do want your forgiveness, but I don’t deserve it.”
“We feel the exact same way, princess,” Karsyn says gently from somewhere behind me on the bed. “We now understand the reasoning for our…extreme rage towards you.” Hatred laces his tone, and I know it’s directed at my mother, not me. He’s no doubt thinking about everything he put me through, every scar on my skin. For years, I blamed the four men sitting in this room, but now I know where that blame truly lies. It’s maddening and confusing and frustrating. My head swirls with thousands of thoughts, but trying to grasp only one is like telling an ocean wave that it can’t return to the shore. “Despite everything, we’re still the ones who put you through that hell. We’re still to blame.”
“No.” I squeeze my eyelids shut. “It’s never been you. I did horrible things to you—”
“And we did the same to you,” Cassian cuts in seriously. “Why can’t we call a fucking truce and put this behind us?”
“Peony.” Lucas is suddenly in front of my face, gently dislodging my fingernails from my arm. Pain dances within those blue depths as he stares at the visible scars on my arm where my sweater has risen up, but he doesn’t comment on them. Instead, he takes my cheeks in both of his hands and holds my face steady. “We forgive you. But now we need you to forgive us.”
“What?” I whisper, blinking to dispel the copious amount of tears hanging suspended on my lashes.
“Forgive us,” Lucas breathes. “And forgive yourself.”
“I…I…” A thought occurring to me, I pry Lucas’s hands off of my face and crawl towards the chest. Using my magic, I pop the lid open before rifling through the contacts, searching…
“What are you doing, baby?” Cassian asks, leaning over the edge of the bed to peek inside.
My probing fingers finally find what I’ve been looking for, and I remove the brown doll with a triumphant smile.
“What the hell are you doing?” Karsyn demands as I rip a strand of my hair from my head and tie it around the doll’s neck. I begin to chant quietly in Latin, ignoring Lucas’s hand shaking my shoulder. Once the spell is completed, I thrust the doll at Cassian, who stares at it as if it’s a live scorpion crawling up his arm.
“Hurt me,” I demand, and his eyes widen.
“What?” he sputters.
“Hurt me and then we can be even.” An immense ball of yarn sits inside