Chapter 39
I begin running. The sounds of Arina’s screams tear through me, echoing louder and louder the deeper I go. Each scream is a dagger. Every other thought I have bleeds out.
My sister needs me.
I throw open the door to her apartments and dart right for her room. Gregor is there on one side, two Worldkeepers I don’t recognize on the other. But my focus narrows on her.
Arina thrashes. Her arms—still heartbreakingly thin—pull so hard against the leather straps they’ve tried to restrain her with that they’re cutting into her skin.
The few inches of brown hair that’s grown back is now a tangled crown.
Her gaunt face is as pale as bone, and her wide, glassy eyes dart around the room as if she’s living a thousand nightmares at once.
“Arina!” I try to scream over her.
“Don’t touch me! Don’t touch me!” She thrashes as anyone tries to draw near. The Worldkeepers fling healing cards that don’t do anything. Even a Four of Cups barely sedates her for more than a second.
The first words I’ve heard her speak, and it’s like this. My heart shatters and I don’t even have time to pick up the pieces.
“Arina, I’m here.” I step forward, and everyone else stops, looking to me, as if I have the answer—as if I know what to do.
“Who are you? Who are you?” She stares at me with pupils so wide they nearly eclipse her irises.
My knees threaten to give out. She…she saw me after. She seemed to know it was me when I came to visit. But her mind does not belong to her right now; it belongs to her trauma. “Arina, it’s me, Clara.”
“You are not her.” She’s practically foaming at the mouth. “Clara is dead. I…I slept next to her corpse!”
The fuck did Ravin do? The only thing stopping me from burning everything down is knowing that the last thing my sister needs right now is more violence.
“I don’t know who that was, but it wasn’t me.
I’m your sister, just with a slightly different face.
” I slowly approach the edge of her bed and hover, unsure if sitting would help or send her spiraling further.
I can see deep gouges in her flesh—claw marks left behind from her brittle nails and hand-shaped bruises from the attempts to subdue her.
“I’m the same sister who let you stay up past your bedtime to watch until we saw Mother’s boots through the window.
The same who then helped settle the covers over you so she wouldn’t know. ”
“Clara…I can’t…” She looks up at me with tear-streaked cheeks. “Make it stop. Please, make it stop.” She sobs. “Someone, please.”
My heart shatters.
I sit on the edge of the bed and reach out to cup her cheek. She flinches but then—for a moment—relaxes. For a breath, I see her in there.
“Arina, it’s okay,” I whisper. “I’m here. You’re safe. And I will never let them hurt you again.”
“I will never be safe. He will always be here, within me…” The words quiver at the end, almost like a laugh. “I will never—never…” She grips her head. “Let me die. Let me die already!” She’s screaming again.
I try to hold her. Try to throw my arms around her shoulders to embrace her—as if I could somehow steady her and ground her in this reality. She bites my ear, taking a chunk, and thrashes.
Jolting away, I stare down at her, gritting my teeth against the pain. Gregor heals me—I see his card from the corner of my eye. I barely mumble a “thank you.” My eyes are locked on my sister.
I will never let them hurt her again…But what good is that vow when they keep hurting her over and over—when Ravin’s torture is not just mapped on her skin in the scars she bears but underneath it?
I grit my teeth, and a card rises from my deck. The Four of Cups washes over her, and she goes limp. But her eyes are still open. Tears still stream from them as pained wheezes escape her slightly parted lips.
“Another.” I hold out my hand. One of the Worldkeepers gives me one from their deck. I cast it again. This time, Arina’s eyelids grow heavy and close.
I gesture to the others to leave. The two Worldkeepers step out ahead of me.
But I stop, staring at the wall by the door.
At the tiny, pale scratch marks, lined with blood.
In an instant, I can see her, scratching at the door.
I think of what I told Gregor as I left last time: Lock the door… it’ll be fine.
This is my fault.
Nausea rises in my throat. I force myself to breathe slowly so I don’t hyperventilate. Gregor follows me out the door without being asked. Raking my fingers through my hair, I walk to the far window.
“We tried the Four of Cups,” he says, rubbing the back of his neck. “I guess your card was stronger than ours.”
I stare out the window and keep my voice low. “I told you I wanted no one else here with her.”
“Excuse me?”
“You brought Worldkeepers here. You showed them the passage into the academy after I had—”
“Are you listening to yourself? Be serious, Clara,” he interrupts. “Didn’t you see her? You think I could’ve handled that on my own?”
“You could’ve tried.”
“I did.” A low snarl rises up the back of his throat. “I had been trying for days while you were locked up there. But I couldn’t do it alone anymore when I found her halfway out the fucking window trying to jump.”
Everything goes so still I hear the blood rushing through my ears. Jump. Arina…My sister…
I look toward the Worldkeepers helplessly.
“I didn’t know what else to do,” Gregor pleads through his frustration. “Maybe if you had let me get extra help to begin with—”
“I know.” I lean against the wall, unable to support myself any longer.
I bury my face in my palms and draw a shuddering breath.
Should I send her back to be with the Worldkeepers?
Have them stay here? I’m not sure. I’ve been trying to handle it all for weeks now, alone, and what do I have to show for it?
Nothing.
I tilt my head back and stare at the ceiling.
Pull yourself together, Clara, and stop acting like you’re fifteen and think you know everything and can do everything by yourself.
My crew as I knew it is gone. But I can’t take on their roles.
I’m not as diplomatic as Twino, as patient as Ren, or as clever as Jura.
I’m not as charismatic as Gregor. All I have on my side is power. But that alone is a blunt tool.
You trusted the Hierophant, and it worked out. Sorza, too. The enemy of your enemy is your friend…Take the leap.
Pushing away from the wall, I cross to the Worldkeepers and extend a hand.
Even if they get burned down, time and again, I must start building bridges.
I either survive with help or die as an island.
“I’m Clara. Thank you for looking after my sister while Emilia had control of the academy and I couldn’t get to her.
I’d love to discuss what it might look like for you to continue lending a hand, for her sake. ”
The two Worldkeepers exchange a glance, and then a slight smile. They shake my hand one at a time, as if they’ve been waiting all along for this to happen.
“I’m Xora. We have a healer, Ferier. He’s very good,” the taller of the two women says. She wears her long, straight black hair slicked into a tight ponytail. Golden studs line her ears, offset against the rich brown of her skin.
“Vacelle,” the other says. She’s fairer skinned, with intricate bright blue tattoos down her left arm in an identical shade as her long, wavy hair.
“Ferier is training me, and he’s as good as Xora says.
Not a graduate of the academy, but he can use Minor Arcana Ace through Ten with ease.
We could bring him to help tend to her. We’ll let Vaduin know and figure it out. ”
“Please do.” I nod. And hopefully Sorza gets Thal soon, too…
“And don’t be too hard on him.” Vacelle nods in Gregor’s direction. He stares out the window, no doubt a bit sore following our brief confrontation and exhausted from everything he’s been managing these past few days. “He’s doing his best and is a good man.”
“That we can agree on.” I nod. Curiosity strikes. “How is he with the Worldkeepers?”
“Incredible. He’s committed himself to his test and is making progress finding Silas’s family. I expect he’ll be able to take the vow soon.”
“Good,” I murmur. I’m happy for my friend. But why does it feel like I’m losing yet another person? I sigh, cursing how my heart twists sometimes in ways that my better sense can’t unknot.
Bidding my farewells, I make my way to my room and study the powders from the workshop of the Fool as the night deepens.
I wait until the moon is high in the sky and everyone is tucked into bed to ensure there is little chance of accidentally happening upon someone else.
It’s not long before I’m through the bridge and coming up to the entrance in his closet.