Page 71 of The Wicked Lies of Habren Faire
“I got the truth out of Neirin,” I say. “I understand that you couldn’t tell me everything because of fealty or whatever it is he holds over you: I saw his court, how they bend for him.”How I almost did the same.I grind the heels of my palms into my eyes. “But now I know. Please, just tell me everything. Ceridwen had a plan to leave, didn’t she? A real plan. I know she went to Neirin’s court at some point.”
“Of course she had a plan. She’s been coming here since she was fifteen. Ceridwen has been to Neirin’s court more times that I can count. Taking her there was probably my first mistake, but she wanted to go so badly.” Morgen’s voice shakes. “She wanted to know if a real ball would be like the ones in her books.”
Yes, that sounds like Ceridwen.
Morgen takes a slow breath. “She just… enchanted them. You remember what she was like before she got sick. She’s everything.” Her words are warm and soft as syrup.
I look at her, at how her eyes shine when she speaks of my sister. She loves Ceridwen. Loves her as anyone would want their sister to be loved.
“I don’t know when Neirin offered her the bargain, only that it happened under my nose, and I failed to stop her. The day I met youshe told me what she intended to do, that she had tricked Neirin for the information, and ran.” Her eyes are tired. “She’s been so close to death before, and now immortality is within her grasp. What was she supposed to do?”
I shrug petulantly. “Oh, I don’t know, maybe say, ‘Sabrina, I’m off to Fairyland, which, incidentally, I’ve always been able to see and you haven’t. Stay at home, I don’t need you.’”
“You’re behaving like a child,” Morgen snaps.
“So isshe. Running away like that, abandoning us instead of helping, forcing me to come after her—”
“She didn’t force you—”
“By virtue of being my sister she did!” I bark.
Morgen’s mouth sets into a firm line, and she stares at me, waiting for the rest.
“Why her?” My breath comes short and shallow. “Why her and not me? I was so miserable, so lonely. All I wanted was an out, for something to come and take me from my life, but she was fine—”
“Don’t say that,” Morgen interjects.
“She was! She was fine, and yet she still got everything!”
“Ceridwen was dying!” Morgen lashes an arm toward me, flicking drops of water in my face. “You’re so jealous that you truly forgot how sick she was. Do you have any idea what those months were like when she and your mother were ill, and she couldn’t come to me, and I couldn’t get any closer than the stream? Would you have let me in, Sabrina, if I had staggered up to your door on fresh legs and told you that I loved your sister?”
I choke on my excuses, but Morgen doesn’t let me speak.
“Of course you wouldn’t. The day she finally limped back into the woods, hardly able to talk, was the best day of my life. The moment she took a breath of our air, she got better. The rattle in her chest disappeared. But she had to go back. Foryou. Always for you. I begged her to stay. Every time she went home she came back sicker,but she wouldn’t stop, not until she knew you were all right. She never told me how she felt about your mother dying, only that you didn’t take it well and neither did your father. You were both acting recklessly, picking fights you couldn’t win with anyone who looked at you, and just as it was all calming down and she was ready to leave, your father picks the biggest fight anyone could imagine.”
I draw my arms around myself, shivering. Maybe I became angrier after Mam died, and maybe I lashed out at anyone I could reach, but maybe I deserved a bit of understanding, too. Some of the care that Ceridwen had found in Morgen—and I had found in Ceridwen. Weak as she was, she was there for me, and now I know she stayed even though it was making her worse, when allthiswas waiting for her. I can’t tell if it’s guilt or love smothering me. Maybe it’s both. Maybe they cannot be separated from each other.
“Every day that she stayed in your world she drew closer to death,” Morgen says plainly. “She’s free here. And she didn’t want to leave you, but she knew if she stayed in your world she’d have to marry a man, and that would kill her as certainly as any disease.”
My face contorts in confusion. “What?”
“That was your plan, wasn’t it? To marry her to a rich man? With no regard for how she feels, for how those village boys make her skin crawl.”
“But…” I search for the words. “That’s just how it is. You marry a man.”
Morgen looks at me as if I’m simple. “It doesn’t have to be, and it won’t always be. Ceridwen was born too early, and if she doesn’t come with me, your plans and the rules of your world won’t just kill her, they will snuff out the light at the very core of her. You’d do that, Sabrina, and you wouldn’t even think twice.”
“I didn’t know she felt that way. I… didn’t know it was possible.”
“What?”
I search for the words. My sister loves. She’s loved me dearly, andGran, and our parents. She loves Morgen now, too. And without knowing it, I wanted to take that away. To force Ceridwen into a gilded cage, just as Neirin would do to me. Horror churns in my gut at the thought. All along, I was convinced that Ceridwen was safest at home, in her bed. I was wrong. She was probably more terrified there, stuck in our room, than she’s ever been in Eu gwlad.
“The months when she couldn’t get out of bed must have been frightening for you,” I say as gently as I can.
“I’d never been scared before that,” Morgen says. “I imagine you felt the same—twofold, for your mother as well. I couldn’t fathom beingmorefrightened, until Ceridwen told me she was going down to Y Lle Tywyll and that she was doing it for me. I never asked her to, please believe me, Sabrina.”
And I do. I believe her wholly.
