the bread, her unease melted away. I offered the open bundle to her and she pulled a braided roll from the small pile.
She held it in front of her, tearing a section away with one hand, and then stopped. “I’m sorry,” she muttered.
“For what?”
She rolled her eyes in a gesture much like the one Brianna had displayed earlier. They were very much alike, she and her sister, but not indistinguishable. Emily’s hair was sun-streaked, less orderly. Her eyes were not quite so wide, or at least, I thought, didn’t seem so against fuller cheeks and decisive expression.
“It doesn’t mean anything,” I said. “It’s just a little less conspicuous than calling them humans.”
She bit her lip, not wanting to ask the obvious question.
I sighed and sat the napkin on the bedside table. “We are all human, Emily. There is very little of that other in us now. It’s just an expression. Old habits die hard, is all.” It wasn’t entirely true. Many of the eldest refused to believe we were anything like the humans. But I didn’t need to tell her that now.
“Brianna and me,” she said, “are we… other?”
“I don’t know,” I said truthfully. She put down her uneaten bread and I took her hands. “We may never know how you tie into our lines, Emily. Your mother wanted it that way. If she was a prophet, then she had good reason.” I stared into her green eyes. “But you have to know, whatever you are, you are special.”
“I think that came out way cornier than you meant it,” she said. When I didn’t respond, she swallowed hard, and pulled her hands free of mine. “I just can’t do this,” she said. “I can’t sit there playing nice while one of them might be the one who wants to kill Brianna.”
I sat back in my chair. She was right. But until Morgan was contained, the Division was the only safe place for Brianna. I had to leave her here, but I couldn’t expect Emily to abandon her.
“Two days,” I said. “Give me two days and you can take Brianna and run.” Take Brianna and run? Was I so sure of my failure? So certain of the prophecy?
“What happens in two days?” she asked.
I shook my head. “Eat. We will talk about it later.” When I figured it out myself.
Several hours later, we’d fallen back into our former locations on the bed. I couldn’t be sure how it had happened exactly, but we both seemed to migrate toward it, that comfort that waited where she lay in my arms and rested her head on my chest. We talked softly of her sister, Emily’s stories reinforcing my first impression of the girl.
“What does she think of Brendan?” I asked, certain there was a good story there. If I’d had to describe Brianna before seeing them together, it would have been with words like “meek” and “unassuming,” but the way she’d spoken to Brendan had me questioning my assessment. But, in truth, Brendan wasn’t exactly himself around her, either. Something about Brianna set his teeth on edge.
Emily laughed and I knew I wasn’t the only one to notice. “I suppose she’ll let me know when she figures it out,” she said. “She knows you don’t trust him, but she likes to form her own opinions.”
“Fair enough,” I said.
“And what does Brendan think of her?” she asked.
I smiled. “He keeps his opinions to himself.” I hesitated, remembering his concerns. “Does Brianna have any visitors, anyone bringing her messages?”
She tilted her head up to look at me. “That’s what he thinks? That she’s got a spy on the inside?”
I shrugged. “I’m not sure what he thinks, but apparently it involves your sister knowing things.”
Her head fell back to its earlier position as she stared across the room. “That’s just Brianna. She always knows things.”
We were quiet for a while, both of us lost in thought, and Emily’s gaze fell upon my forearm where it rested on my abdomen. She reached tentatively out to touch the place my scars had been, the once-jagged knife wounds that were now smooth skin. Her index finger rose slightly as her middle finger traced delicately over the skin. Her touch was so light, so perfect as it trailed over me, it became unbearable not to touch her in return. And touching her was so wrong.
I swallowed against a dry throat, shifting slightly beneath her, and brought up the one topic that would keep me from acting. “Is Brianna well?”
Emily’s hand