Page 66 of Thornlight

Don’t be too nice.

Don’t let them see you cry.

Don’t let them see you get angry.

Not even when your blood is boiling black with magic.

Celestyna hurried upstairs. A lopsided weight tugged at her legs. She had the unshakable feeling that if she glanced over her shoulder, she would see the Fetterwitch’s corpse being dragged along behind her, chained to her ankles and smearing red across the polished floor.

She did not look back.

“And then Lady Valestia took me to the rose market,” Orelia said, burrowing into her nest of pillows, “and we picked out new bouquets for the evening hall, and they’re so pretty, Tyna! We bought the speckled tea-moss kind you like so much, and west hill sunnies too, the blue-and-yellow ones.”

Celestyna tucked blankets around Orelia, barely listening. It was difficult to concentrate with this strange new pain lodged in her throat—like she needed to swallow past a lump of sickness, but couldn’t.

She turned her face into her silk-gloved left hand and coughed. Nothing came up.

Restlessly, she sat on the cushioned chair beside Orelia’s bed.

Orelia had started a new book in her piano lessons.

Orelia had practiced her figures for two straight hours yesterday, and had even managed to stump Madame Berrie with a particularly challenging equation.

Orelia had explored the gardens and discovered a strange yellow toad with blue eyes, which now lived in her room. She named him Thonk, for that was the sound he made when he hopped about her carpet.

Celestyna couldn’t get comfortable. Every bone in her body jabbed toothily into the next. She stretched, her joints popping and cracking in ways they had never popped and cracked before.

Then Orelia fixed Celestyna with a keen look. She crawled out of bed, put her ear to the door, and turned down all the lamps.

When she returned to her bed, she said, “All right, I’ve been talking for nearly an hour. Everyone must have gone to bed by now. We can speak freely.” Orelia leaned closer, her brow furrowed. “You look awful. Where the thunder did you go? What happened to you?”

Celestyna blinked at her sister. “I beg your pardon?”

“You ran away, and you didn’t tell me where you were going, or why.” Orelia’s jaw was set, but her eyes were bright. “Do you not trust me? We’ve kept secrets from everyone before, and I’ve never said a word, not to anyone. Tyna.” Orelia’s face was grave. “I wouldn’t even tell Thonk.”

For a moment, Celestyna considered it. She could tell Orelia everything—the Fetterwitch, the curse, the real reason their parents had gotten sick.

And how they had actually died.

Immediately, the curse awoke. It reared up, ravenous. If a curse could have a mouth, this one would have opened wide, tongue wagging.

Yes,it hissed.You could tell her. Such a burden to bear alone. Let her take it from you.

Celestyna’s heart thundered like the storms her people wished for every day.

The curse was an old thing.

It was so old that it had grown a mind of its own, and it was endlessly hungry.

For years it had been bound to an old, crusty witch, and now it was bound to a young, not-crusty queen, but what was younger and even not-crustier than a queen?

A princess.

The curse stretched and purred in Celestyna’s blood, and as it stretched, it whispered a word.

Orelia.

Celestyna sat very still, hardly breathing. Orelia was speaking, but Celestyna could only hear the curse’s whispers.

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