Page 67 of Those Fatal Flowers

My cheek erupts with a bright bloom of pain at the same time a loudcrackfills the air, and it takes me a few moments to understand that she’s slapped me across the face, hard. My fingers reach gingerly for the site of the impact, and I wince when I find it. The initial contact was sharp, painful, but its prolonged stinging hurts more. The weight of Pisinoe’s anger truly sinks in, and tears pool in the corners of my eyes. In my life, this is the second most unforgivable thing that I’ve done, but I never had to face Proserpina after I betrayed her.

“Kill him?Kill him?” She growls the words, leaning in close to me. “He doesn’t belong to us, Thelxiope! He belongs to Ceres.”

Anger flares inside my chest, and without thinking, I shove her away. Pisinoe stumbles back, her own ire waning in the sudden eruption of mine. There was no way for her to knowthat her words were the exact wrong thing to say, that while my guilt at hiding Jaquob grew, my resolve that he would never be Ceres’s only strengthened. “Mark my words, Pisinoe. I’ll never give that woman another sacrifice. She isn’t listening, so why should we keep groveling at her feet?”

She throws her head back and laughs. The sound is cruel, and my feathers quiver beneath it. There was a part of me that thought Pisinoe would agree with me, and it feels like a fool now.

“Why? Are you serious? Do I need to remind you that it was our fault her daughter was kidnapped? That we’ll never get off this island unless it’s with her blessing?” And then her eyes are on me, filled with a malice I didn’t know she was capable of feeling. “You should know that better than any of us.”

The words are an intentional blow, and they extinguish the fury in my belly that roared mere moments ago. I recoil from them, from her, and suck in a breath with surprise. Only then does she recognize the boundary that she’s broken.

“And you think I don’t? Ibetrayedher, Pisinoe. How many times did I tell her I loved her, and yet, she was takenbecause of me.And instead of returning to us, she bound herself to that infernal place—”

Confusion softens the fury in Pisinoe’s eyes. “What are you saying, exactly? You believe she chose to stay?”

“Maybe!” My voice cracks. “What if, as she held those cursed seeds in her palm, she decided she never wanted to see me again?”

“Then why send the lilies? The ships?”

I scoff. “You never believed that she did.”

Pity crumbles Pisinoe’s remaining anger away, which somehow feels worse. “Raidne should be here.”

“Pisinoe…” Desperation weaves into my voice, and awave of self-loathing crashes over me. I’m still too weak, just like all those years ago. How can I explain to her what I haven’t been able to fully articulate even to myself? That even after all these years, there’s nothing I wouldn’t do to hear her voice again.

That if she truly forsakes me for good, I’ll never be able to ask her why she did it.

“I’m sorry, Thelxiope. It’ll be better for you if we tell her together.”

Pisinoe might as well have me pinned against a tree, the bite of its bark tearing into my back. And it’s as true as it was then: There’s no stopping the inevitable.

My body quakes as the elder sister leads the younger to face her fate.

The trek back to our cottage feels like it takes hours, though I admittedly do my best to slow it down. But Pisinoe doesn’t let me dawdle for long, and soon enough she digs her nails into the soft flesh of my arm and pulls me to the sky, intent on delivering me. When we land on Scopuli’s cliffs, Raidne stands waiting, a silhouette in our doorway.

At first, she doesn’t see us. She’s facing Scopuli’s woods, her black hair spilling over her shoulders. She thinks I’ve been hiding in the meadow these past months. It’s not until we’re closer that her attention wanders toward the cliffs. She raises a hand in a wave, and then her face crumples as our expressions begin to register. Her eyes implore Pisinoe’s as we approach, rapidly growing alarmed.

“What is it?” she asks. “Another lily? Another sign?”

Pisinoe pushes me forward to stand between them. “Tell her.”

My breath catches in my throat, and I shake my head.

“Tell her, or I will.”

Raidne turns to me, her muscles tense with worry. “Thelxiope?”

I lift my chin to face her, this woman who raised and sheltered me as best she could. Determination lifts me to stand straighter, to show her that I’m a woman now, too. That I have been for centuries. That I get to decide what happens.

“I found a man.”

Raidne’s lips purse, as if I’ve spoken one of the countless unknown languages from the book pages she collects. She raises a questioning eyebrow at Pisinoe, who has suddenly become very preoccupied with her feet.

“A live man. The day after the wreck.”

I watch as her mind clicks the pieces of the puzzle into place, clasping my hands behind my back so she can’t see how badly they tremble. Raidne’s dark brows crinkle together, her confusion deepening.

“That’s not all!” Pisinoe interjects. Despite her insistence that I bear the news, it seems she can no longer stand to carry my secret. “He’s still alive—she hid him from us. On Rotunda.”

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