CHAPTER 33 GIGI
GIGI
In the garden, Gigi let Savannah take the lead. Old habits died hard, and Gigi’s mind was spinning with what they had managed to glean, with talk of Candidates and potential, spiders and webs.
The two of them passed under one ivy-covered arch and onto the next, down the twisting path. Savannah didn’t so much as look at Gigi.
“Are you mad at me?” Gigi asked. The garden had looked manicured from the parlor, but the deeper they went, the wilder it grew.
“The most frustrating thing about being your sister is that it is nearly impossible to be mad at you,” Savannah replied, and then she came to a sudden halt.
Something’s wrong. Gigi’s hand went automatically to Slate’s knife at her back, then she saw what Savannah had seen on the path: a kitten. To Gigi’s shock, her twin bent to pick it up.
“Rohan?” Savannah called. The path was lit, but the world farther out was dark.
There was no reply.
After a long moment, Savannah turned the full force of her attention back to Gigi. “You’re going to say no,” Savannah declared. “If an invitation is issued, if anyone asks you to disappear and test your potential—you’re going to say no.”
“Why wouldn’t I?” Gigi’s voice came out smaller than she’d meant for it to.
You’d never survive.
Run away, little girl.
“I forgive you for keeping what happened to Dad from me.” Savannah’s voice cracked on those words. “I forgive you, Gigi. For Dad. But I will never forgive you if you disappear the way Avery did. You have my word on that.”
Both of Gigi’s siblings lived by their word. I wouldn’t say yes anyway. I wouldn’t even want to. Gigi tried to convince herself of that. Why would I?
Without warning, Savannah’s left hand flew to her neck.
“Are you okay?” Gigi asked her sister.
The kitten leapt down as Savannah collapsed. Gigi lunged forward, kneeling next to Savannah, frantically trying to figure out what had happened. A dart. Not even the size of a needle. Gigi pulled it from Savannah’s neck, felt for her sister’s pulse.
Survive, Gigi thought suddenly, Nora’s warning coming back to her. You’d never—
“Tell me, Juliet Grayson.” A voice spoke from the darkness. “Does your twin sister speak for you?”
Calla. Gigi found Savannah’s pulse. Faint—but there. “What did you do to her?” Gigi demanded, refusing to allow her voice to quiver as she stood and put herself between her sister and the voice.
“Your sister will be fine. The question you should be more concerned with is whether or not you will be anything at all.”
Gigi thought about Rohan calling her Savannah’s biggest weakness, about Nora calling her a little girl, and her hand crept back toward Slate’s knife.
If you’re going to hesitate, she could hear him telling her, don’t.
Gigi locked her fingers around the handle. “You’ve come here to make me an offer.” An invitation, an ask. Gigi hesitated only a split second before forcing herself to continue. “My answer is no.”
“No, you will not take up the mantle? You will not allow yourself to become what you could be? You’ll stay instead in your sister’s shadow, forever amounting to nothing, doing nothing?”
For a moment, just one, Gigi wanted—but Savannah would never forgive her.
So Gigi unsheathed the knife. She saw a flash of red out of the corner of her eye and whirled, but there was no one there.
“Ask me,” the voice said, seeming to come at Gigi from all directions, “what you really want to know.”
“Why me?” Gigi hadn’t meant that to sound so raw. She tried to course correct. “Why Avery?”
As metal is forged, Helena Thorp had said, so potential must be tested.
“I don’t want to talk about Avery Grambs.” The Woman in Red stepped onto the garden path. “But you—perhaps I think you could be great.” Red cloak. Red hood. Red gloves. Her eyes weren’t visible at all. “Haven’t you ever wanted more?”
Gigi refused to even think about that question.
“He’s different with you,” the Woman in Red said. “You matter to him.”
“Knox?” Gigi held Slate’s knife out in front of her. “That’s what this is about?” Calla had broken Knox’s heart. Where did she get off objecting to even the tiniest bit of mending?
“We have ways of taking care of messes, Juliet Grayson, but immunities can be bargained for—when one says yes.”
Gigi thought about Nora telling Brady that certain knowledge could be a death sentence for a man.
And then she thought about Zella and her warning that pressure might be brought to bear, but that even if it was, Gigi still had a choice.
That, even if it seemed like there wasn’t any other option, there was.
“Haven’t you ever wanted to be the strong one?” The Woman in Red stepped right over Savannah’s body. “To prove the world wrong? Haven’t you ever… just… wanted?”
Gigi wanted. She wanted and she wanted and she wanted, but she knew what happened when she tried to play protector, when she tried to be something she wasn’t. I forgive you, Gigi. For Dad. But I will never—
Gigi knew then that Nora was right. It’s not going to be me.
“My answer,” Gigi whispered, “is no.”
Let’s play a game, Mattias Slater said somewhere in her mind. It’s called You Don’t Need to Prove a Damn Thing. To anyone. It’s called You’re Already Strong.
Gigi tightened her grip on Slate’s knife and lunged.
“Pity.” The Woman in Red caught Gigi’s hand at the wrist. An arm locked around Gigi’s neck. Gloved fingers trailed over Gigi’s skin, fingers that had been coated in something.
A tidal wave of darkness hit Gigi. Not again.
“Tell him I miss him,” the Woman in Red whispered. “And if you manage to remember any of this when you wake up, tell him that we call ourselves the Gilded Blade.”