20. Ophelia
OPHELIA
The pressure on Ophelia’s lungs is becoming unbearable, but the stakes of taking a breath are too high to justify it.
She squeezes her eyes shut and pinches her wrist, but even then, it’s a losing battle. She’s done for.
She exhales a huge breath and gasps, “Okay, I give up.”
Arete smiles victoriously, maniacally coughing and laughing at once. The bright, mid-afternoon light turns her curls into a halo.
“Zeno never lasts that long! I almost died,” Arete screams once she has enough air back in her lungs.
“Oh, Arete, I am a fantastic breath-holder. You’re only the second person to ever defeat me.”
Arete looks very pleased by that. Hopefully she doesn’t ask who the first person was. Ophelia still can’t talk about Aika without wanting to cry.
“What do you think your sister urgently wanted to speak to me about?” Ophelia asks. Eudoxia ran out to class but told her that they needed to talk and she only uses that tone of voice when she’s thinking about Zeno.
Arete huffs a sigh. “Not sure,” she says, unusually stilted. Ophelia would ask what’s wrong, but Arete immediately follows up. “Did you bring any candy?”
“Did I bring candy?” She rolls her eyes dramatically. “Of course I brought candy, you silly, silly girl. But you don’t get any unless you really show me how much you want it.”
Arete beams at her and climbs up onto the bed.
“Candy! Candy! Candy!” she chants, jumping up and down.
“I don’t know if you’re enthusiastic enough.”
“Caaaandy! This is the candy song. Sweeeet sugar candy song,” she sings, falling into the covers and scrambling back up again.
Ophelia tosses candy in the air so that it rains down on Arete until her giggles are so sweet Ophelia would be remiss not to break down into laughter with her.
Once Arete has candy hoarded in piles around her, she settles down and unwraps her first piece, tapping her chin like she’s thinking.
“What’s on your mind?” Ophelia says because it’s clear Arete wants her to ask.
“I was just thinking that it’s too bad that Xia isn’t here,” she says.
“And why is that?”
“Well, she usually takes me to play on the beach between classes. And look how pretty the sun is!”
Ophelia feels her brows fly upwards.
“What do you mean she takes you to the beach?”
“What, you think I just stay in here all day?” Arete says, laughing. “There’s a door to the ocean in the bottom floor hallway.”
That doesn’t sound right… But Ophelia supposes she’s never here during the daytime.
Just, Eudoxia is usually so protective.
But then again, how else would she know about the door downstairs unless she uses it?
“I guess it is too bad she’s not here,” Ophelia says. She hasn’t been to the beach in ages.
“But I was thinking,” Arete offers, “that you could just take me.”
Her whole air has changed, too sweet. Ophelia shakes her head. “Arete, you know we can’t do anything too risky without your sister here.”
“Xia lets Zeno take me too. She says I’m never allowed to go without an adult, which I wouldn’t. But you’re here and she trusts you as much as she trusts Zeno, right?”
“I know, and I believe you, honey. But we should ask her tonight and then maybe I can slip out of rituals tomorrow too and we can go play.”
Arete’s puppy eyes fill up with tears that don’t quite fall.
Oh, Forms, that is her greatest weakness.
If Eudoxia lets Zeno take her, Ophelia’s confident she’d let her take Arete too. They’ll just have to be extra careful.
Ophelia holds back a grimace at how easy she is to sway. “Fine, fine. Go get some clothes you don’t mind getting sandy.”
Arete’s face breaks into a grin, and she bounds straight to the closet, emerging in a ratty outfit.
She drags Ophelia downstairs, running with reckless abandon. Thank the Forms all of the Auxiliaries are in classes because they’re being very conspicuous.
“Let’s go, let’s go!” Arete cries. When they reach the bottom floor, she sprints to the door at the end of the hallway. Ophelia reaches to open it, and Arete whoops in excitement. These field trips must not be a regular occurrence because she is way too jumpy.
Or, a little voice whispers in Ophelia’s head, she’s using you.
But Arete would never. She might be clever, but she’s not conniving.
The door leads right out to a small sand cove, perfect blue-green waves lapping at the shore. It reminds her of beach picnics with her girls.
She can’t help but whoop right back to Arete and stumble into the water, perfectly warm and clear.
“This is the best day ever,” Arete laughs.
Ophelia giggles as she falls back into the surf like she always did with Dora and Aika. “Best day ever!”
For the first time, she thinks of them with fondness instead of with grief.
They loved the sea, her girls.
It takes everything Ophelia has to not be swayed by Arete’s puppy eyes for the second time today. But they have to leave the beach before dinner ends, or else Eudoxia will come back to an empty room and lose her mind. The last thing Ophelia wants is to break her trust.
“Come on, honey. We can’t be back after your sister. She doesn’t know where we’ve gone,” Ophelia says, drying Arete’s hair with her robes before putting them back on.
“But I’m sure she won’t mind,” Arete whines.
“Do you even know your sister? She’s stressed when nothing is wrong; can you imagine how she’ll feel if you’re not home when she gets there?”
Arete kicks up some sand and crosses her arms. “I guess.”
“You don’t want to put her through that, right?” Ophelia says, shepherding Arete to the door and reaching over her shoulder to open it. “We need to be thoughtful and kind, especially to the people we love.”
Arete is dead silent on the walk up the stairs.
Ophelia boops her nose to get a smile, but all Arete does is turn to her with a grave face.
“Ophelia, I did something bad—” Arete starts, before—oh, Forms—a pair of footsteps sounds loudly, coming down the steps.
She snatches Arete’s hand and pulls her out of the spiral stairwell, walking swiftly along Eudoxia’s hallway. The footsteps still echo, foreboding.
Please, Forms, say this person isn’t on Eudoxia’s floor. Please, please, please—
“Ophelia,” a voice shouts after her, and it’s far too familiar. Ophelia breaks into a jog, trying to keep Arete hidden from the Auxiliary in pursuit of them.
“Ophelia.”
The voice reverberates across the hall, getting closer until a hand wraps around her bicep and spins her around to face away from Eudoxia’s door.
Kleitos’ face is a picture of childish frustration, but his expression melts into curiosity when he notices Arete standing behind her.
“What do you want, Kleitos.”
He ignores her. “Who could this be?” he asks rhetorically. Eudoxia and Arete’s personalities are different enough that Ophelia forgets how similar they actually look.
“You lost, little one?” he continues. “Looking for your brother?”
Arete’s face turns to stone. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Really? You don’t?” he asks, sickly sweet. He tries to take a step closer, but Ophelia pushes him aside and takes Arete’s hand.
“She’s a Priestess,” Ophelia says. “I was just showing her the dorms because she was curious.”
Kleitos smiles, looking very unconvinced. “Mhm. Well, I should go start studying—calculus exam tomorrow,” he says before spinning on his heel and entering his room.
Ophelia just watches him go. What else is she meant to do?
Really. What is she meant to do?
Arete covers her mouth, and her crying is far from the puppy eyes she was giving Ophelia earlier today. “Xia’s going to be so mad at me,” she whispers.
Ophelia scrubs at her face and starts again toward Eudoxia’s door. “No, she won’t, sweetheart. This was my fault. I’m the adult.”
“No, but—”
“We were doing something that you do all the time. The only difference is that I was the leader, and I wasn’t careful enough. But it’s going to be okay,” she says, but she doesn’t believe it. Eudoxia will forgive Arete, but her?
“Ophelia—”
Arete’s tears break her heart, the sound of them unbearably sorrowful.
When she pushes the door open, she expects an empty room—dinner hasn’t ended yet, after all—but she’s surprised to hear a relieved gasp. Eudoxia jumps off the bed toward both of them, picking up Arete in her arms and wrapping a hand over Ophelia’s shoulders.
“Forms, I thought—” She hiccups, “I thought something happened. I—” She pauses in confusion, looking them both up and down. “Why do you smell like seawater?”
Ophelia examines Eudoxia’s face, committing it to memory. Once she learns what happened, Ophelia might never see it again.
“Arete told me about that door you guys take to go to the beach downstairs, so we went, and it was fine, Xia, I promise. But then something happened on the way back, and—”
“The what?” Eudoxia says, voice low but not calm.
“The beach that you guys go to,” Ophelia barrels on. “The one you take her between classes. But that’s not the problem. We were—”
“Arete,” Eudoxia growls.
“What?” Arete asks, over-defensive.
But Ophelia hasn’t even gotten to the bad part yet. Unless—
Oh. Oh, Forms.
“Arete, you didn’t,” Ophelia says, but when she sees Arete’s face, there’s no room for doubt. The worried crease of her little, round brows is a confession in itself, compounded by the guilty turn of her lips.
“Arete, did you lie to Ophelia?”
“I only did it because—”
“No!” Eudoxia yells so loudly it makes Ophelia jump. “I asked you a question. Did you lie to Ophelia?”
Arete’s eyes widen in fear. “Yes.”
How could Ophelia have been so stupid? Why did she just blindly trust a ten-year-old child? A child who Ophelia knows is smarter than she lets on.
“And did you think, for a second, about how selfish that was?” Eudoxia asks, voice rising again.
Arete’s eyes don’t leave the floor.
“You can be mad at me all you want, Arete. You can throw tantrums and leave trash and yell and scream at me, but you cannot do things that you know will jeopardize your safety. And you cannot sacrifice other people to do them.”
“Eudoxia,” Ophelia interrupts. She needs to explain the worst of it.
Before she can say anything, a note that says ‘Xos’ slips under the door. She knows the handwriting from party invites—Kleitos.
Eudoxia reaches down, but Ophelia holds her back.
“Let me explain first, okay? Something happened on the way back. We ran into someone.” Ophelia winces when Eudoxia turns from a lion to a rabbit.
“What do you mean you ran into someone?” she whispers.
“On the way back. We were being careful; I timed it so we wouldn’t leave until dinner when everyone should have been out of the dorms.”
“And?”
“And someone came back early.”
Eudoxia covers her face. “Can you tell me what they look like? If I beg, they might keep quiet.”
“It was Kleitos.”
Eudoxia’s eyes snap to hers like maybe she’ll take it back.
Ophelia wishes she could.
“Kleitos?”
“Yes.”
“Forms.”
Eudoxia’s breath shortens until it’s shallow and ragged.
Ophelia chances a glance at Arete to see that she’s come to the same conclusion as her.
Strong, beautiful, impenetrable Eudoxia is about to cry.
Arete puts her hands to her ears like she doesn’t want to have to hear it. “Forms, Ophelia, what are we going to—”
“We’ll read the note and decide from there. Let’s open it outside, okay?” Ophelia asks.
She’s angry at Arete. Of course she is. But she’ll always adore her, and no good can come from Arete watching Eudoxia break down or her hearing whatever Kleitos has written.
Eudoxia nods, slipping outside. Ophelia sweeps up the note and follows her out, shutting the door behind her.
“I’m sorry, Xia. This is all my fault.”
Eudoxia puts a hand out to shush her and shakes her head. “Arete has always been too smart for her own good.”
“She gets that from you,” Ophelia tries to joke, but all she’s met with is a sad, hopeless smile in return. “It’s still my fault,” she repeats.
Eudoxia doesn’t acknowledge her, shaking her head in frantic frustration. “I always think she’s learned her lesson and then she always proves me wrong. Why does she always prove me wrong?” Eudoxia begs.
“I’m so sorry, Xia.”
“I don’t blame you. I don’t even blame her.
Everything about this—all of these stupid Forms-cursed years—it’s all been too much for me and her and I just—” Eudoxia inhales sharply.
“Whatever’s in that note… Arete and I are done for.
I’m too scared to be mad, so stop apologizing.
I just need you to— I just need you, okay? I don’t care whose fault it was.”
Ophelia is selfishly grateful that Eudoxia is too devastated to push her away, and yes, she knows it’s awful of her, but she doesn’t have time to feel bad about it now.
Ophelia opens her arms, and Eudoxia melts into them, hiding from the world in the crook between her shoulder and her neck.
After a few minutes, Ophelia says gently, “We’re going to need to open that thing at some point.”
She feels Eudoxia’s sigh on her shoulder. “I know. Just… not yet.”
“Yeah, okay.” Ophelia squeezes her tighter. “Not yet.”