Page 152 of The Thirteenth Child
For one slip of a moment, I could see her panic, her uncertainty. “They won’t?”
“They could, maybe; I don’t know. But what she has isn’t the Shivers, and I won’t—”
“Just fix her!” she demanded, striking the mattress with the thick flesh of her palm, her voice growing high and pitched with desperation.
We stared at each other with wide eyes. Margaux seemed as surprised by her outburst as I was. She let out a small laugh, runningher hand up the side of her neck, fumbling with her neckline, thumbing a chain she wore as she sought to steady herself. Her fingers were trembling.
“I’m so sorry. That was uncalled for,” she murmured, careful to regulate her tone more evenly. She raked her fingers through her hair, mussing the elaborate curls, and the necklace fell free.
A little bronze charm dangled from a matching chain. It sparkled in the room’s candlelight.
My eyes narrowed.
Reverents of the Holy First wore silver. Margaux’s fingers and wrists were covered in it, rings and bracelets all hammered from the finest sterling.
Bronze was the metal of…
The Divided Ones.
“What a pretty necklace,” I said, keeping my voice light and innocent. “I’ve never noticed it before.”
“Oh,” she began, but stopped short, fingering the charm for a moment before tucking the chain away. As she parted the unbuttoned neckline of her robes, I saw a flash of red just under the hollow of her throat.
It was a line, thick and angry, and it looked like a burn or a welt.
Or one of the scars that covered my brother.
My brother, a member of the Fractured.
I glanced over the oracle’s robes with fresh interest. Every inch of skin from the curve of her chin to the knuckles of her fingers to the tips of her boots was covered with layers and layers of thick fabric.
“An old family bauble,” she said, patting at her bodice to make sure the necklace was well and truly covered. “I don’t usually wear it, but since tonight was a special occasion…” She sighed, arrangingher face into a look of contrition. “I’m sorry for yelling earlier. I’m just so worried about Euphemia. We need to—”
Without warning, I launched myself at her, knocking us both from the bed.
We fell in a tangled heap of twisted limbs as I fought against the long layers, trying to find the scar I’d glimpsed.
“Have you lost your mind? Hazel, what are you—” she started, struggling to defend herself.
I knew the instant she realized what I was doing. Her efforts to throw me off her escalated and she lashed out, swiping at me with curved fingers and flailing legs. One of her kicks landed a direct shot in my stomach and I doubled over, clutching my abdomen with one arm. When she tried again, I caught hold of her foot and hung on, flinging aside layers of gauze and brocade, ripping them in my attempt to reveal a long swath of bare leg.
I couldn’t suppress my gasp.
Margaux’s calf was broken into a dozen segments of mutilated flesh. Scars, thick and angry, crisscrossed her skin from ankle to thigh. The cuts were cruel and jagged, carved by hands that had been too small and too young to wield a blade so large.
“Oh, Margaux,” I murmured, reaching out to her with sympathy even as I realized what the scars meant.
She flopped backward, trying to cover herself, but the scars could not be unseen.
“You’re not an oracle,” I said slowly. “Not for the Holy First. You’re…”
“Fractured,” she confirmed after a long, tense moment. She let out a curse, growling darkly.
I leaned back against the side of Euphemia’s bed, suddenly exhausted. “You’ve been lying this whole time.”
“No,” she hurried to disagree, but then stopped short, looking lost and without a script to follow. Whatever her plan had been, it had not included this. “I mean…it looks that way, yes. But…I’m not Fractured. Not anymore…” She offered me a small smile, as if that confession was enough to regain my trust, to show me that we were on the same side.
I wasn’t falling for it.
