Page 89 of The Wicked Lies of Habren Faire
“Were you happy?” The question falls from my lips like a stone through water.
She runs her hand once more over my hair. “I had your father and this house. I had you and your sister. The end was sudden, but next to everything that came before, it’s dust. I couldn’t have been happier.”
She was only forty when she died. There were lives she still had left to live.
And there are so many things I can be, too.
I tell her I love her and amputate myself from her lap. I don’t dare look back until I’m at the door and I know I won’t run to her again. Mam stays there, her sewing in her lap, smiling at me. Exactly where she will always be.
Exactly where I’ll find her someday.
I take the stairs slowly and walk into our room like I’ve just come home from work. And there Ceridwen is, sitting on her battered chair by the window, staring out at the empty blackness of the cave. Even in the misery of the mine, she practically glows.
The door slams shut. Ceridwen leaps up, seizing a discarded,blood-crusted dagger from the floor. She brandishes it at me. The blade looks absurdly old. Her clothes are torn and dirty, and her face is stained with a mix of blood and coal. Her hair is matted, but the sunset shines through.
“You stink,” I tell her. “They don’t have baths down here?
She narrows her eyes, twins of my own. “And you don’t. How?”
“I’ve only been down here a few hours.”
“You got here inhours?”
I shrug. “I was always faster than you.”
She lowers the dagger. “You’re real, then.”
“What gave it away?” I ask.
“You would never miss the chance to brag.” Her lip curls into a wry smile.
My mouth twists to match. “I missed you.”
She launches at me with a newfound speed, and it’s clear how right Morgen was. Living in our world was killing Ceridwen almost as much as the sickness. Even filthy and worn to the bone, she’s so vibrant here, so alive, that I find all that resentment and jealousy I nurtured on my journey slipping to the floor like an old coat.
“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you,” she says into my hair.
I rest my cheek against her shoulder and find I don’t care at all. “I’m sorry I made you believe that you couldn’t.”
“Let’s go home,” she tells me. “It will be easier to get out together.”
I shake my head and hold her at arm’s length. Our eyes lock.
“I’ve not come this far to give up,” I say. “You want to stay here with Morgen, and so you will.”
“I’m the eldest,” Ceridwen counters. “I’m supposed to protect you.”
I roll my eyes. “We’re supposed to protect each other. You were doing badly, and so was I. But now you’ve made your choice, and I’ll not let you go back on it.”
Ceridwen lets out a tired breath. “All right, it was always pointless trying to keep—Is that my ring?”
I start, hiding my hand in my pocket. “No.”
“Why are you lying? I saw it!” She tuts. “Duw, I should’ve known you took it. You really are the absolute limit—”
Despite everything, I laugh. Only sisters would stand in the depths of the very earth and argue about stolen property. I set aside my sword and remove the iron ring, holding it out to her.
Ceridwen shrugs. “I made it this far without it.”
