Chapter 17
Rose followed Thorn into the tiny cottage.
Charming, with its gingerbread eaves and multipaned windows, but small and oh so rustic.
She imagined in the summertime, with the garden in full bloom, it was a lovely retreat.
Still, so remote, here in the middle of the Aswad Woods.
It was nothing short of a miracle—or some sorcerous or other conspiratorial coincidence, which Rose hadn’t yet ruled out—that Sebastien had happened past here.
Leaving Sebastien still in deep sleep and dreaming perhaps a little easier, Rose had dressed to the nines to meet her potentially evil twin, prepared for a magical duel or possibly a trap.
She hadn’t been at all sure what she’d find, as the possibility for trickery still existed.
Still, she hadn’t expected this awkward, painfully earnest, completely unvarnished girl of a woman.
Nor had she unexpected the deep feeling of recognition.
Thorn was Lily, no doubt remained in Rose’s mind.
And meeting this twin of hers unbalanced Rose far more than she could have predicted.
Looking at Thorn was like looking in a mirror, albeit of the antique variety that introduced subtle distortions.
Thorn possessed a luminous health that no doubt came of country living, or perhaps that mythical creature, the clean conscience.
For, though Thorn had committed serious crimes, she’d somehow done so without criminal intent.
And Rose had no idea what to do now. Beneath all her other tumult of emotions and indecision boiled a steady rage at her parents. Surely they knew about Thorn. They had to. But why … Rose couldn’t think about it rationally yet.
“Um, have a seat,” Thorn said, gesturing to the two wooden chairs on either side of a well-worn kitchen table, wiping her eyes, her nose red and dripping from her tears. She didn’t think Thorn was acting, either. She seemed far too artless for that.
“Please, take a moment to compose yourself,” Rose said, feeling more and more like a monster who kicked kittens for fun. When Thorn stared at her, clearly bewildered, she added, “Blow your nose, wash your face, and so forth. Go. I can wait.”
Thorn nodded, started to leave the room, but hesitated, perhaps ill at ease with leaving Rose unsupervised in her home. At least she wasn’t a complete idiot. “I’ll abide by guest rules,” Rose told her. “That means I promise to do you no harm while I’m here and you promise me the same.”
“Oh,” Thorn said, her voice watery. “I’d never heard of that.”
Rose suspected there were a great many things Thorn had never heard of. During Thorn’s absence, Rose took stock of the place. She wouldn’t violate guest rules by poking into anything—or even leaving her chair—but she could observe a great deal from where she sat.
Her impression of the exterior continued to hold true.
Small, but charming. The many windows looked onto the garden, bringing in light, the forbidding forest with its dense shadows a comfortable distance away.
Bread rose on the counter under a cloth, near a magically fueled oven.
Now that was interesting—a fairly expensive magical convenience for an otherwise plebeian setup.
As she scrutinized the kitchen, she identified other conveniences, such as one would find in a much wealthier household. One more riddle on top of the fundamental one: How had her supposedly deceased twin ended up here, alive, if not terribly well?
When Thorn returned, more quickly than Rose expected, she’d changed her clothes and brushed her hair, rebraiding it instead of leaving it loose.
Her garments were clean, but worn. In fact, if Rose squinted, the simple gown reminded her of the fashions from a decade or more before, though stripped of embellishments.
“Do you live here alone?” Rose asked, needing answers, but also to help the clearly nervous girl relax.
“Yes,” Thorn answered. “Well, no. Not exactly.” She knotted her newly cleaned fingers together. “It’s kind of a story.”
“Perhaps you can tell it to me over tea,” Rose suggested, not unkindly. Thorn was awfully timid for someone who’d brazenly committed the level of destruction ascribed to her by rumor.
Thorn at least stopped hovering uncertainly in the doorway as if Rose might attack at any moment, and slipped into the kitchen, making a wider-than-necessary circle around Rose.
That’s what Rose got for kicking the kitten, she supposed.
Thorn lit a fire under the teakettle. She used magic to do it, Rose noted, unselfconsciously employing the simple trick that came easily to most magic-workers, but was hardly common outside that rarefied circle.
“I should’ve put the kettle on before I went to change clothes,” Thorn said, turning back to Rose, her face a picture of anxiety in an expression Rose doubted her own face had ever worn. “I didn’t think and now you have to wait for your tea.”
“I don’t mind waiting,” Rose said mildly. “Why don’t you sit while we wait for the water to boil?”
“I should put the bread in the oven…”
“Would you be more comfortable being busy while we chat?” Rose asked. “Rather than having to sit.”
“Yes.” Thorn nearly sagged with relief, her smile going brilliant, reminding Rose unexpectedly of Sebastien and his easy happiness. “How did you know?”
“I do, too, and we’re apparently the same person,” Rose answered wryly. She felt world-weary and far too cynical compared to this unspoiled ray of sunshine.
“Are we the same person?” Thorn asked, eyes wide over her shoulder where she readied the bread dough by apparently punching it. Rose thought it might be an expression of upset, but Thorn seemed practiced and peaceful at the task. What Rose didn’t know about baking bread could fill a bucket.
“I don’t know exactly what’s going on here, but I can tell you that I believe we are identical twins, separated at birth.”
“Twins?” Thorn echoed, clearly astonished, her gaze roving over Rose in patent disbelief.
“Surely you’re aware of the concept.” Rose was being too sarcastic, but she clung to that dry humor anyway.
“Yes. Of course,” Thorn hastened to add. “I’m not wholly uneducated. Just surprised. And … this is a lot to absorb.”
“I am in total agreement there.” Rose essayed a reassuring smile, pretty sure it came out wobbly. “I knew I had a twin, but I was told she died at birth. On the day we were born, anyway.”
“Oh.” Thorn looked stricken, as if she had indeed been struck down and just now heard the news. “I think I’m not dead.”
Rose cocked her head, uncertain if she’d heard correctly. “You’re not sure?”
Thorn gave a rueful smile. “I sometimes feel like a ghost. I live this half life, where no one even knows I exist.”
“You’re alive, Thorn,” Rose told her emphatically. “I know you exist.”
“Thank you.” Tears welled in Thorn’s eyes and she dashed them away, smearing flour on her cheeks. “I cry all the time these last couple of days. It’s not normal for me. Or it didn’t used to be.” The teakettle whistled and Thorn whirled gratefully, busying herself with the kettle.
Though she really wanted to hear what had happened with Sebastien, Rose decided to start with less fraught subjects. “How long have you lived here?”
“All my life,” Thorn answered with a shrug.
“But not really alone. My guardian and mentor, Jada, lives here. Usually. She’s been gone awhile.
She might still come back at any moment.
I don’t know.” Thorn’s shoulders hunched, and she paled, looking apprehensively out the window.
“She would be very angry to find you here.”
“It’s not as if you invited me,” Rose replied, surprised to find herself annoyed on Thorn’s behalf.
Who was this Jada who clearly treated Thorn unkindly enough that the girl lived in terror of her?
Woman, Rose mentally corrected herself. She needed to stop thinking of Thorn as younger.
“If this Jada does return, I’ll deal with her. ”
“Oh, would you?” Thorn beamed at her, then sobered, worrying her lip. “Can you?”
“I’m a powerful sorceress,” Rose assured her. “And I have rank.” Not a lot of rank, not yet, but almost certainly more than this Jada.
“I see,” Thorn replied, clearly not understanding. She set a plate before Rose. “Some toasted bread from yesterday’s baking. And honey. What kind of tea do you like?”
“What are my options?”
“There’s a shelf of teas in the pantry there, if you don’t mind looking for yourself.”
Rose didn’t mind at all, as she’d been feeling increasingly uncomfortable having Thorn wait on her like she was a lady to Thorn’s maidservant.
She surveyed the contents of the pantry with considerable surprise.
For a rustic cottage in the deep woods, far from the nearest center of civilization, they enjoyed a wide array of luxury items. Exotic teas from distant lands.
Sugar in glass jars. Expensive and rare truffles.
A wrapped packet of chocolate cookies imported from the equatorial islands.
Rose spotted her favorite tea, one even the academy didn’t carry, and pulled it out. “Ooh, let’s do this one.” She handed the tin to Thorn, who took it and held it gingerly, as if it were too hot to handle.
“This is Jada’s tea,” Thorn offered tentatively. “I’m not supposed to drink it.”
Rose was beginning to loathe this Jada. “Well,” she said with a grin, “Jada isn’t here, is she? We’ll both have it.”
Thorn smiled back tentatively, watery sun peeking through a ten-day overcast. “You are wicked.” Then she clapped a hand over her mouth. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean—I shouldn’t have said that.”
Rose laughed and snagged the expensive packet of imported chocolate cookies. “You’re not wrong. I am occasionally wicked, and there is a place for wickedness in this world, especially if the alternative is being a doormat.”
Thorn was staring at the packet of cookies Rose was gleefully tearing open. “Those are—”
“Let me guess. The absent Jada’s personal, special cookies.”
Thorn nodded and Rose offered the open package. “Have one.”
“Oh, I couldn’t.”
“Well, I’m going to. Are you going to watch me devour them all without even tasting one for yourself?”
A worried line between her brows, Thorn glanced out the window again, then squared her shoulders and delicately plucked out a single cookie.
Watching Rose like a fawn that might bolt if she moved the tiniest bit, Thorn nibbled at the cookie, her dark eyes going wide and soft, her face a picture of sheer ecstasy.
“It’s so good,” she marveled, her mouth full of another bite.
“Told you.” Rose took one for herself and set the packet on the table. “Now, how can I help? I warn you, I’m not much use in the kitchen.”
“Oh, no. I’d much rather that you sit.”
“Because I’d be in the way that much?”
“Yes. I mean, no. That is, I’m used to doing things this way. If you don’t mind.”
With a resigned shrug, Rose sat, parceling out the remaining cookies evenly between their plates, saving them for later, then taking a bite of the honeyed bread. She closed her eyes in delight. It might be the best bread she’d ever had. “This is delicious. You do all your own baking?”
“There’s not anyone else to do it,” Thorn pointed out with a smile, a bit more of a wry tone in there than Rose would expect of the earnest young woman.
“This Jada never helps? You do all the cooking, gardening, housework.”
“Yes, since I was old enough to take over the chores. Jada spent enough of her time and life energy on taking care of me when I was little. It was the least I could do to repay her, taking over those tasks.”
The recitation smacked of something this Jada must have told Thorn over and over. “I think,” Rose said carefully, trying not to upset the kitten further, “that you have been told many things that aren’t true.”
Far from dissolving again, Thorn instead hardened. “I think so, too.”
Rose poured tea for them from the steeping pot. Sipping the tea helped. So did eating one of the exquisitely good cookies. She raised her brows at Thorn, who hadn’t moved. “I think it’s time you sat, sister, dear. This is going to be a long conversation.”