Page 108 of Unraveled
“What you did just now—no one has to know. I’ll tell Skylar I found you chained in the castle, and that Finley killed Rick and Alan. We can go back to living normal lives,” she says with a wild expression.
Funny how she only mentions whatIdid, not the fact that she cracked her colleague’s skull with her gun. But I keep those thoughts to myself.
Instead, I repeat the words she used the night I met Ash. “Tell me, Irene, did the princess, Nerala, look like the beast that killed Father? Or is that just something you tell yourself to justify the horrors you commit so you can sleep at night?” I narrow my eyes at her as I remember how she played on my grief so I’d use my magic.
I can deal with Finley’s betrayal, but Irene’s... I don’t think I can ever forgive her for this.
As she looks at me, her eyes widen, and she realizes I’m not supporting her in this. The power that’s always present under my skin strains inside me, and the curse seems to have taken a step back.
“But... they’remonsters.” Irene holsters her weapon, lets her arms hang to her sides, and takes another step closer to me. “I understand you’re upset with me. I should’ve told you what we were doing, but Father thought it was better to keep you away. He wanted to shelter you from everything. It was a way to keep you happy, because he knew you felt too deeply.”
She glances back to the scientists sprawled out on the dirt and leaves, and her brows furrow. She sighs deeply. “I told him it was better to tell you about the machine and the fae and how much we needed to keep our city safe from them. And when the monster took you, I?—”
“He isn’t the monster, Irene. You and all those bastards in that scientist building are. Every time you hunt a cursed beast to feed the machine, you murder an innocent fae.”
“Us?” Her voice pitches high. “Have you forgotten all the people they’ve killed?”
“Oh, I haven’t forgotten. At first, I was trying to get back to you so I could help you with that, and then I realized the truth. It’s hardly their fault when they are cursed to be mindless.” I pull the sleeves of my cloak down, hoping to hide the corrupted flesh of my arm. “Did Father tell you about the hybrids?”
“The what—?” She looks confused. “Alan just mentioned hybrids, too, but I don’t understand it.”
“Hybrids are part fae and part human, and they’re the ones running Penumbra under the guise of protecting our people.” I wish I wasn’t so skeptical of everything she said or did. “Can you do magic, with or without an amulet? Was that also a lie?”
“You know well I can’t,” she snarls.
“Mia,” Finley groans from the ground.
I rear my head back as Ash’s words come through my mind.Don’t trust anyone but Naheli.
Did he know something was wrong with Finley? Perhaps his insistence on coming along alerted Ash of something. Perhaps he was wary of how ill I was after drinking that potion. Though, admittedly, I was ill before that too.
Naheli’s growls slip through the air, and I can feel her presence all around me, as if she is the forest itself. My hair lifts with the static of her power.
Irene pales and moves away. “What was that?”
“That’s the spirit that protects the castle,” I say. “She will kill you. It’s better if you go now.”
“What about you? Won’t you come with me?”
“Back to Penumbra?”
“Yes, of course. You always loved the library.”
I remain silent for a few moments before I speak. “I’m going to Penumbra tonight. But not with you.”
Hurt and understanding flash across her face. “You’re going to save him, aren’t you?”
I say nothing, but feeling Naheli behind me after thinking she was gone has pushed some of the hurt away. I take a step in the wolf’s direction, facing my sister in case she decides she’d rather have me dead than helping the fae.
“Why?” she asks.
“Because...” My feelings for him are not something I want to speak out here in this bloodbath with people who betrayed me. “They deserve to live.”
“Do you love him?” Her voice is all but a whisper, yet those words pull at something in my heart. I shouldn’t have stayed. I should have gone with them, even in sickness.
“You lost your right to know who I love the moment you manipulated me.”
“They’ll kill you if they catch you.”
