And then all at once I recalled the way he’d smiled at you at the revel, in front of Cardan, and how he hadn’t been to see me since. Recalled that you and I are identical twins. He was protecting me, sure. Protecting me by tricking them.
He’d made them think you were his lover.
And the way you’d stood up to them—well, you practically confirmed it.
“No,” I whispered. “She’s my sister. You can’t do that to my sister.”
“You ought not worry. Look,” he said, his gaze lingering admiringly on you, wet and cold and defiant. “She’s strong enough to bear it.”
I am ashamed to say that his words were enough to make my sympathy sour. And though we walked home together and I wept with an excess of horror and guilt, wet and cold and overwhelmed, I would not tell you why. I didn’t tell you anything. I didn’t speak.
Of course, it wasn’t like you said anything to me, either.
That night, shivering before the fire, I plucked the petals from flower heads in a divination I didn’t learn at any palace school.
He loves me.
He loves me not.
Locke still didn’t come.
I woke to Vivi jumping on my mattress, shouting about going to the mortal world. She was in high spirits and would hear no arguments against it. You just seemed exhausted, sagging against your ragwort steed as we flew over the sea. I petted the rough green skin of mine, pressed my cheek against its leafy mane, drank in its grassy smell. I loved Faerie, loved magic. But right then, it was a relief to be leaving it for a while.
I needed to think.
Look, I admit that I was jealous of the way he’d openly admired your defiance.
I tried to tell myself a story. In “The Princess and the Pea,” a girl came to the door of a palace in distress, her gown soaked and muddy, her skin chilled. She was a princess, she said, but her carriage had been turned over and her servants had been separated from her in a rainstorm. She only needed a bed for the night and some food. The queen wasn’t sure if she believed the story. The girl was very beautiful—beautiful enough that the queen’s son was staring at her in a decidedly moonstruck fashion—but was she really a princess? There was only one way to find out. The queen instructed that a pea be placed beneath dozens of mattresses. Only a princess’s skin was sensitive enough for such a small thing to bruise her.
Maybe Locke liked that I was sensitive. He’d protected me, maybe he wanted someone who needed protecting. But I wasn’t sure.
Plus I thought you were mad at me.
I really did. After all, I’d climbed out of the river, leaving you behind. I’d kissed that monster Cardan on both his cheeks.
And, even if you didn’t know it, I was the reason all this had started. “You’re probably mad,” I began.
“I’m sorry,” you blurted out at practically the same time, looking, if anything, more miserable than before. Then, realizing what I’d said, you just looked confused. “At you?”