Page 19 of Sons of Sorrow
That got a bark of laughter out of him. He splashed water in my face. I sputtered, slapped at his hands, but his smile was like seeing sunshine pierce past the clouds on a stormy day. Better. I couldn’t fix this, couldn’t fix everything that was wrong. The most I could do was make him feel better.
When we left the pool, a swirl of petals slipped from the soles of his feet. Maybe cheering him up had worked just a little.
The two of us toweled off — emerald green towels with golden embroidery, naturally, the colors of the Wispwood — and I threw on a shirt to go over my swim trunks. Sylvain, of course, did not, until I reminded him that going topless was cool in the pool, but probably wouldn’t fly in the rest of the castle. He grudgingly slipped on one of those sleeveless hoodies he’d learned to tolerate. Eh, close enough.
“I could use a more thorough rinse,” Sylvain said, rubbing the towel over his hair. “Perhaps a proper bath. Would you care to join me?”
The promise of splashing around with Sylvain in a body of water far smaller than a swimming pool was very, very tempting. In fact, that was how the two of us first did anything sexual together, back in the Oriel of Earth. But I had something else to attend to.
“You go on ahead,” I told him. “I really want to check in on Bruna and Namirah for a bit. It’s my last chance to see them before we enter the Oriel of Fire tomorrow. Neither of them seemed to be doing so hot when we saw them.”
“Please give them my regards.” Sylvain pouted as he draped the towel over his shoulders. “It’s only beginning to set in now, but it seems I might have overexerted somewhat.”
I patted him on the cheek. “Go take your bath, and go get some rest. We’ll need all our strength for the oriel. Tell Satchel to do the same. I’m happy that business is booming, but we need to be in top shape come morning.”
“Consider it done, oh summoner. See you shortly.”
A quick kiss on my cheek and Sylvain was off. And I was off, too, up to Bruna’s office. She’d seemed a little out of sorts when we met up in the Canopy. Hopefully she hadn’t caught what Namirah had come down with, and that was when I stopped in my tracks.
Crap. I couldn’t visit Namirah, either. Loved her to death, but this wasn’t the time for me to be getting sick. We needed the Heart of the Flame from the oriel to complete the medallion for Aphrodite and supposedly earn her nebulous favor. Maybe find a willing subject to read the Withering parchment, to boot.
I couldn’t pull that off if I was delirious with fever. Hell, exposure to the heat of the Oriel of Fire might make me delirious enough. I knew Bruna was tired, but — okay, maybe one last attempt to ask her about that potion of fire resistance. Maybe I’d catch her in a good mood.
Nope. Even from a distance I could tell that something was off. I glimpsed Bruna fumbling with the keys to her office as soon as I crested the stairs to her level. I couldn’t really tell if she was coming or going, but her shoulders had an uncharacteristic roundness to them, her witch’s hat floppy and limp.
Worst of all, she was wearing a cardigan, like something she’d thrown off in a hurry or as an afterthought. No judgement — Bruna was free to dress however she liked. But I knew her, and the lady loved to dress up. Absolutely fucking loved it.
Throwing on wonderful witchy outfits was an important cornerstone of who Bruna was as a person. Her essence. Her Brunessence.
“Bruna,” I called out.
The keys jumped out of her hands, landing in a jingling mess on the floor. She sighed, gave me a small wave, then bent over to collect them.
“Sorry if I surprised you.”
“I’m just — ugh.” Bruna finally found the right key and slipped it into her office door. “I’ve just been on edge. That’s all.”
“Yeah, I get it, what with your best friend being sick, and your other best friend being such a pain in your butt, always hinting about that — what was it now? A potion of fire resistance?”
Bruna pressed her lips tightly together. “Locke, I already told you. I’m very busy right now. I have to attend to my sister.”
“Our sister.” I reached for the back of her hand, clasping it reassuringly. “Look, it’s very sweet that you think of Namirah as a sibling. I do, too. But you’ve done everything you can, and we can always get someone from the infirmary to check in on her. She’s getting better and better, all thanks to you. You did it, Bruna.” I chucked her in the shoulder. “You took care of our sister.”
She slapped my hand away. I yelped, rubbing at the stinging sensation.
“What in the world are you babbling on about, Locke? I was talking about my actual — oh, gods. Don’t look now. Here she comes.”
Heels clicked down the corridor. I turned away from Bruna only to find myself looking at what could have been her mirror image. This doppelgänger had hair that stopped in blunt ends at the clavicles, meticulous bangs framing a face with slightly rounder cheeks. It was like looking back in time, at someone who could have been a younger version of my best friend.
I blinked hard. Everything finally clicked together. Oh. Oh, gods.
Bruna had an actual sister.
9
All the wayback in the Canopy, this was what Bruna had meant all along. She wasn’t talking about Namirah like she was our sister. She was talking about her actual sister — her actual sister who was presently staring her down with a look of open derision.
“Bruna,” the Hernandez clone said, a teasing twist in the corner of her mouth, an unfriendly, mocking lilt in her tone. “I missed you at breakfast. You’re not being a very good host, are you? Leaving your sweet little sister all alone to fend for herself in the big, scary Wispwood?”
