Page 190 of Kingdom of the Two Moons

“You are brutes,” Aurora sighs theatrically.

Blair bares her teeth at both of them, Sofya flashing her an innocent grin in return.

Aurora says, “At least youcoulddo better, Blair. It’s not like I didn’t try to teach yousomemanners.”There we go.

“That would imply that Iwantto do better,” Blair retorts dryly, struggling to keep a treacherous smile from her face despite her anger.

“If it were up to you, Aurora, Blair would run around with a patrician countenance, demanding powdered pearls and kelpie-caviar.” Sofya swipes to her aid, ruffling Blair’s hair before she plucks another piece of meat from the bone.

Aurora rolls her eyes in playful annoyance.“Good then that you taught her how to roll in the dirt to camouflage her scent.”

“I like to think that I balanced all those lessons in decorum and grace. And—that was definitely one of her favorites. I remember how she came home one day, covered from head to toe in boar shit,” Sofya says, a vicious smile on her face at the memory of it. “And how she screamed like a skewered pig because you put her straight into the bathtub and scrubbed it off.”

“I didn’t scream like a skewered pig,” Blair mutters under her breath.

“Oh yes, you did. It took forever to get it out of your hair. We used up all the lavender soap,” Aurora reminds her sourly, crossing her trained arms.

“Oh, that precious lavender soap. Aurora will never forgive you this, Blair.”

Blair grumbles, “Soap’s overrated anyway.”

But the witches no longer listen. When Blair looks up, she catches Sofya and Aurora sharing a long, warm look. Lost in memories. Blair tries to swallow the lump in her stomach, heavy as lead and burning like acid. How she missed this—moments like this, just the three of them being together like a normal family. As they had been back then in that hut in the woods where they’d lived when Blair was still a child. Before they had to return to Gatilla’s court.

“What about another round of ale to patch things up?” Blair asks. Not expecting an answer, she gets up to fetch some more honey-sweetened and cinnamon-spiced beer. A handful of moments later she returns, putting the three jugs on the table before she slides back onto the bench.

Aurora and Sofya seem to have finished eating, so she helps herself to the bone, sucking the meat off it before cracking it open.

“I remember it took three baths a day for a week to get the scent off her and out of that hut,” Aurora adds with a sigh, picking up the conversation after taking a hearty swallow of her ale.

“I was so proud. No one could smell me,” Blair retorts, still chewing.

“No, Blair. Because you were a moving pile of feces,” Aurora chides.

“Old gods help me, I still remember that dwarf walking past her on that market one day and muttering that she smelled like an arsewipe,” Sofya burst out, laughing so hard she barely gets the words out. Almost spitting her ale all over the table.

Blair joins in and both sit there, tears running down their cheeks from laughing so hard. When Blair almost slides off the bench, even Aurora can’t hold back her smile.

Blair tries to memorize their faces then. Every line and expression, frozen in smiles, their eyes glistening.

How long had it been since they laughed like this? Bantered like this? This is how she wants to remember them.

It might be the last time she sees them, and she wants to keep them in her heart.

Forever. Shining.

Because someone has to die, and it won’t be her mothers. She would make sure of that.

***

After Aurora and Sofya go to the room they rented upstairs—a simple thing with filthy sheets that stink of rancid, unwashed low folk and simple elves—Blair returns downstairs to give them, and herself, a moment of privacy.

She hasn’t spent this much time alone with Aurora and Sofya since she was a child. It felt good, in a way, to say goodbye like this. Although it breaks her heart. A heart she’s not supposed to have.

But since she made her decision, her mind feels clearer. She is more focused.

She steps out to look up into the night sky, sipping listlessly from some too-sweet, mulled wine, wondering whether the seer might have been purposely vague. About Caryan and Melody coming here. Andwhen.Blair would give it another two days before she tried to get more information. Tried to find out whether something might have changed Caryan’s course of action. Went back to that scrawny seer and dragged her through the dirt until she gave her a better answer.

If Caryan still wants to go to the holy mountain Silas, the only path is right through Calianthe’s murderous forest. Blair hasn’t told her mothers, though—about Silas. She’s been vague about their mission, just mentioning that Caryan wants to find the relics and that they are somewhere around the Emerald Forest.

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