Page 39 of Those Fatal Flowers

“Your voice is beautiful.”

The words shatter my cocoon of sea and song, and I whirl around to face the tangled mess of trees behind me. Cora emerges from them, a lantern raised in one hand.

“You frightened me!” I scold, and though I’m grateful to see her, my hands still tremble. “What are you doing here?”

“I could ask the same of you,” she murmurs, drawing in close. “I come here sometimes. To think.”

“I thought it was dangerous?”

“It is, so I usually have the beach to myself. What were you singing? I couldn’t understand the words.”

I shrug, looking back to the waves. “I don’t know, really. It just poured out of me.”

“It sounded sad.”

My eyes flick back to find Cora’s emerald stare locked on me. She holds her bottom lip between her teeth, and now I know for certain that my song’s magic is gone. Cora doesn’t look like a woman enraptured; she looks like she’s seen a ghost.

“It was about my sisters,” I offer. “I miss them terribly.”

“Then it’s a good thing you’ll see them soon. Do you know when exactly you’ll be leaving us?”

My chest tightens—of course she wants me to go. How can I blame her for that, after what she’s shared about her future? The one that my presence threatens. “In a few days. Once the ship is loaded with supplies.”

“I think Will might try for your hand.”

I force myself to keep my expression blank. I hope she’s wrong, and I don’t want Cora to see that truth written across my face. Regardless of how I feel for him, Cora clearly loves him. How could I keep him from returning with me to Scopuli if he were to be my husband?

“Would you like it if he did?” she asks.

“Your brother is a kind man. I’d be lucky if he won.”

“Is that all?”

“What do you mean?”

“I catch you watching him sometimes,” she says softly. Her expression is unreadable.

“He looks like someone I loved once.” I leave out the second part of that thought—that so does she, and even though they both share features with Proserpina, it’s Cora’s I search for in Will.

Her desire to ask me more is written in the crease of her brow, but instead she says, “If I was a good person, I’d want him to win for you. But I’m terrified by the idea of him leaving me behind. Of being alone here.”

“It wouldn’t be forever.” Speaking the lie feels like pushing glass through my throat. “You’d join us as soon as the scouting party returned. And until then, you’ll still have your friends. And Thomas.”

“Will I?”

“What do you mean?”

“He’s planning something, Thelia. Please don’t make a fool of me and pretend you haven’t noticed. Has he told you if he means to compete?”

My hand reaches instinctively for hers, just like it did that first night, but this time, Cora doesn’t pull away. How easily our fingers lace together. It makes me want to tell her that I’ve been falling asleep to the imagined sound of her voice, that I hold the image of her smiling like a treasured secret pressed to my heart. That being near her feels like being with Proserpina again, and that in my weakest moments, I wonder if kissing her feels the same, too. If it feels better.

But I say none of those things. Instead of a confession, what falls from my lips is another lie. “Cora, of course not.”

Those spring-ripened eyes search mine for what feels like hours before she eventually nods. Only then does her focus fall to our hands, still clasped.

“Do you believe in fate?” I whisper, and when Cora nods, I squeeze her hand in mine. “You’re going to be all right. Fate is on your side.”

“How can you possibly know that?” she asks, but for the first time tonight, the ghost of a smile crosses her lips.

---