Page 79 of Those Fatal Flowers

“And Sybil…” Margaret says, looking to Wenefrid with large, sad eyes. “What other choice did she have but to flee into the woods? If she’d stayed, they would’ve certainly killed her.”

I hate them,they take turns saying.I hate them, I hate them, I hate them.I feel the truth to their words, the weight of the years they have spent straining beneath this society’s cruelty, and beneath the other women’s indifference to it. A seed of rage forms in the pit of my stomach, and it grows with each story that’s shared. Suddenly, everything that seemed so morally nebulous is now simple. I can’t speak to all men, but I don’t have to. I need only to judge the ones before me, and the verdict is painfully clear.

These men are thieves.

These men are rapists.

These men are murderers.

These men will receive the punishment they deserve.

However, Cora’s confession adds a new wrinkle to the original plan. If they intend to resettle on Scopuli, women and children will be aboard the return ship, too. How do I keep them safe?

An idea crystallizes on the edge of my mind. Before I can overthink it, I let my thoughts come tumbling out.

“So you hate them,” I say slowly. They turn to look at me, their eyes inflamed with the same rage that I’ve seen reflected at me in Raidne’s and Pisinoe’s stares, that I have felt burning in my own. “All of them?”

They nod, and I take a deep breath before speaking the words that will change everything.

“Then will you help me?”

19

Before

My wings are heavy, too heavy, and their weight drags me down into my sticky, dark vomit. But even pressed against the cool floor of the cave, every part of me burns as if it were my body placed upon the pyre. Pisinoe strokes my back, but her hand recoils in terror. Black feathers stick to her fingers—my feathers. I wail. Each twist of my body tears more away.

Darkness gathers in the corners of my vision. I try to blink it back, but it descends with the same intensity as the pain, narrowing my world to only agony and shadow. “Raidne? Pisinoe?”

“We’re here, Thelxiope!” Pisinoe’s voice is strained. I hear the horror of this scene inside it, and it brings more vomit up my throat. We were never beautiful creatures, some terrible combination of woman and raptor, but there was a dignity in our ferocious appearance. That’s gone now.

The muscles in my legs and my wings constrict so tightly that they’re sure to snap, but the sensation doesn’t relent. It’s as if they’re retracting inside of me, called back to my core by some unseen force.

It’s too much. Were Raidne and Pisinoe right to questionmy connection with Proserpina? Was her voice no more than the manifestation of a guilty conscience, and now I’m suffering Ceres’s wrath for keeping Jaquob as long as I did? For dedicating him to someone else?

Or worse—is this punishment from Proserpina herself, overdue vengeance for the part I played in her abduction?

All I know for certain is that I’m dying.

Raidne’s hand cups my face. I picture her assuring me that I’m fine, but I see nothing in the blackness and hear nothing over the sound of my screams.

“What’s happening to me?” I reach to touch my featherless wings. The limbs, once the span of two men, are now as small as a hawk’s. They’re shrinking, swallowed away between my scapulae.

The shadows abate long enough for me to see scales fall from my talons. Beneath them, there’s skin. Human skin. As my claws recede, understanding emerges from the blinding pain.

The monster I was is gone.

“Raidne…” Pisinoe gasps. “She’s…”

Raidne’s palms shift to slide me into her lap. I tremble as her hands trace down my spine, unencumbered by the large appendages that once rested there. Sweat plasters the fallen feathers to my skin, and I struggle to breathe. But the cutting pain begins to lessen, and the tears that now grace my cheeks are from relief. Raidne gently wipes the sweat from my brow.

“She’s human,” Raidne finishes, but I can’t tell if the words are real or if I’ve imagined them, because the world once again dissolves into darkness.

My sisters carry me from the cave, an arm slung over each oftheir shoulders, my body hanging limp between them. Itdoesn’t take long to reach the cabin. They’re used to carrying the weight of men; my frail frame poses no challenge.

Once we’re inside, Raidne lays me down gently on my pallet and Pisinoe warms a pot of water over the fire. When it’s ready, she cleans the mixture of tears, sweat, vomit, and feathers from my skin.

The room is foggy, as if I’m looking through a lens of milky glass. Every part of me aches, and I toss and turn, unable to find a position on the straw-stuffed mattress that doesn’t irritate my raw skin. It’s still flushed, hot to the touch, and fresh beads of sweat stream from my pores faster than Pisinoe can wipe them away.

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