Page 81 of Those Fatal Flowers

“You won’t.”

Her words are claws to my heart, and she repeats them over and over until even her voice fades into shadow.

The rest of my sleep is as cold and dreamless as a tomb.

I wake to my sisters’ relieved faces. Pisinoe tells me with a trembling voice that I slept for three days, twisting with fever the entire time. My temperature broke only shortly before I rose, and even Raidne looks shaken as she brings water to my lips.

I tell them about my dream, about Proserpina’s plan to save us from Scopuli. Pisinoe is elated at the news, and Raidne is as well, though her jubilation is more subdued. At one point, I think I catch her wiping tears from her eyes, but I can’t be certain that it’s not my recently fevered mind playing tricks on me.

“It’s settled, then,” Raidne says, always the one to make the final decision. “You must go.”

On the day I’m set to depart, I make my way to the meadow where wildflowers enchanted me all summer. The first frost has already come and gone, so I don’t expect to find any blooms waiting for me. But Proserpina has sent one last message.

The pasture is overflowing with lilies. Their orange crowns stretch proudly toward the sun despite the ice that coats their stems. I kneel before one of the regal blossoms, its delicate petals gilded in hoarfrost. The sunlight bounces off each gracile stalk, each thin leaf, each vibrant petal, radiating thousands of beams of light across the field, thousands of diamonds shimmering for me, wishing me luck, saying goodbye.

The crunch of ice beneath talons signals I’m not alone.Raidne appears from the woods, wringing her hands with nerves. But when she sees the lilies, awe overtakes her. We stand in silence for a few moments and bask in the sight.

“Everything’s ready,” she offers slowly. She doesn’t know how to tell me it’s time to leave, doesn’t know how to send me away.

I look down at my hands, suddenly petrified. This rocky island is our prison, but it’s also our home. A part of me is afraid to leave it behind. Raidne slides in close and places a thin golden circlet on my head. She beams at the result and nestles her face into my shoulder.

“Whatever happens, this is for the best, Thelxiope. I know you have no choice but to go, but this gives Pisinoe and me something to hope for. I never thought we’d have that again.”

I reach for her hand and squeeze it gently. “Walk me to the beach?”

She nods.

I feel like I’m watching from above as we stroll side by side, arms linked, down the path that leads to the skiff that will carry me away: two women—one human, one myth—moving toward something greater than themselves.

Pisinoe waits for us on the same stretch of sand that brought me Jaquob. She’s filled the tiny boat with necklaces, jewels, gold and silver coins, weaponry, anything that can conceivably count as wealth. It’s an impressive hoard. Perhaps I’ll find my way into legend again, this time as someone who redeems herself, not only as a monster who tears men apart. Then Raidne hands me the letter we spent hours crafting together, my new history inked across its surface. I press it to my chest, reveling in the fact that these past centuries won’t be my only story. This single piece of paper is proof of that.

Their eyes well with tears as they help me climb intoJaquob’s vessel and push me into the surf. I’ll head south out of the archipelago, and then it’s up to the Fates where I land.

The water today is calm, and I raise the sail. Wind rushes to fill it, and then I’m off, coasting on the surface of the waves. I turn back to look at the shore.

Raidne and Pisinoe have ascended into the sky to follow me until the curse forbids them from going any farther. Like this, they’re magnificent—with their wings spread wide, with the wind blowing through their hair. But it’s what happens next that steals my breath.

A song floats down from the heavens. Their voices are so beautiful that tears blur their forms, and only now do I understand the overwhelming desire to follow its notes wherever they may lead me. It contains everything that Raidne and Pisinoe feel right now: There’s the sadness at losing me and the jealousy of being left behind. But more important are the notes that overpower those: the hope for a new beginning, joy at the end of the monotony, and, more than anything else, love.

Our song spins promises of the future, and for the first time that I can remember, I have no idea what mine holds. But with the sea unfurling before me, their voices sing the answer, as clear as Scopuli’s waters.

In them, I hear salvation.

20

Now

“Of course we’ll help you, Thelia,” Cora answers. There’s a sharpness to her voice that takes me a moment to place. Hurt. She thinks I question her willingness to protect me. “We’ll take you back to Sybil’s. If she’s still in contact with the Croatoans, perhaps they can be convinced to take you to the mainland—”

“No. I’m going back to Scopuli.”

“My lady, you can’t!” Margery clasps her hands together so tightly that her knuckles shine white. “The Council voted to seize Scopuli by force! If it’s mostly women on the island…”

“There are almost a hundred single men here eager for their company,” Emme answers when Margery’s voice trails off, a dark expression settling over her usually soft features. “And nearly all of them would like the opportunity to change that, though the spoils of raiding aren’t often made into wives.”

I think of the Iroquoian women on Jaquob’s ship. Gifts, he called them. “I know what they’d do if given the chance. But the only other women on Scopuli are my sisters, andthey expect me to return with men—men with treacherous hearts.”

Confusion pinches Cora’s features, and that soft red mouth I’ve dreamt of kissing for weeks falls open with surprise.

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