“But my mother—”
“Your mother was desperate and she took a dangerous gamble. She risked everything, including her own life, for the chance to make sure you were safe. And even then, with all that risk, it wasn’t your mother controlling the magic—it was a centuries-old sorceress trapped in the body of a housecat. A sorceress who is no longer with us.”
I sat down at the dressing table and took off my crown, dropping it into the heavy wooden box where I stored it. The box slammed shut the second my fingers were clear of the lid, and I heard the ominous sound of its magical locks clicking into place.
“What you said before was the truth, Your Majesty, no matter how much you don’t want to accept it. If you try to send Mercedes back there is a very real chance that you could kill her.”
“I know. It’s just that Mercedes has always believed that someday, somehow, we were going to find a way home. She’s never given up hope that we would go back to the families we left behind.”
“They’ve forgotten that you existed.” Kitsuna leaned against the door to my closet. “Why would you risk your lives to return to a world where you don’t exist? Why mourn over families that have forgotten you?”
“I don’t know.” I grabbed my braid and tugged on it, frustrated. “Because it’s not like they chose to forget us. It’s a spell. They were forced to forget us but we still remember them. We still remember what being loved was like.”
“And that’s enough to risk dying for? The memories of families that forgot you?”
“Yes! No! I don’t know, but I think deep down that Mercedes believes her family could love her enough to beat the spell. That somehow that love would keep her in her family’s mind. She wants their love to be stronger than anything else—even magic.”
“Nothing, not even love, can stand against magic,” Kitsuna said.
“She doesn’t want to believe that. She wants to be loved enough that even if they can’t remember her, they instinctively know that something’s missing with her gone. If I could give her that, I would. ”
“What about you?” Kitsuna asked. “Do you feel the same way? Do you want to be someone’s missing piece?”
“No.” I opened my jewelry box and started to search through it, not meeting her eyes. “The only person who loved me that way is trapped inside her own mind. The Fate Maker put her there, and there’s nothing I can do to change that. Just like I can’t change the fact that we’re trapped here in Nerissette.”
“What about your Gran Mosely?” Kitsuna asked. “You don’t think your foster mother loved you enough that her heart isn’t complete without you?”
“I don’t know. Maybe she misses me. Maybe she’s happier with the life that she has. Either way, you’re right. The minute we came here, any real chance I had of getting back to her was gone. They’re as lost to us as they would be if they were all dead. And I refuse to let my best friend die chasing the ghosts of what might have been. No matter how much she hates me for that.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Yeah, me, too.” I sniffed once and then wiped at my eyes with the back of my hand before turning back to the jewelry box.
“So what are you going to do?” Kitsuna asked, standing just outside the wardrobe.
I turned to her. “We’re going to find that bracelet, wherever it is, and then we’re going to destroy it.” I spied the necklace with the heavy crystal on it that the other Rose had been wearing in the picture and put it on for good luck. Maybe it was linked to the tear somehow. Maybe they’d be able to feel each other and the tear would show itself. Or maybe I was finally losing it from the stress.
“Yes, Your Majesty.” Kitsuna scurried into the closet as I began to carefully pick through the jumble of jewelry in front of me.
Somewhere in this room was a relic that needed to be destroyed, and I was going to find it.
“I’ve found it!” Kitsuna yelled from deep inside my closet two hours later.
“What?” I sat up from where I had been slumped over the dressing table, picking through a pile of overly fancy rings.
“I’ve found it.” Kitsuna rushed out of the closet, the bracelet clasped in her hand, high above her head. “I found it, I found it, I found it.”
“Are you sure?”
She brandished the bracelet at me again. “Dragons biting each other on the butt.” She set the bracelet down on the dressing table in front of me. “Right here.”
I picked up the bracelet, waiting for something magical to happen. It was supposed to be a relic. Why didn’t it feel magical? Shouldn’t it at least feel tingly or powerful or something?
“Your Majesty?” Kitsuna asked. “Is everything okay?”
“I don’t know.” I shook my head, still staring at the bracelet, waiting to feel something. Anything. Maybe I needed to turn it on? Or was there supposed to be some sort of spell to zap it back to life?
“We have it now, so let’s go back to the library and find out how to destroy it,” Kitsuna said quickly. “You destroy it and then we use our army to beat the Fate Maker.”
“Okay, right.” I hesitated. “But the thing is, it doesn’t feel magical. It just feels like a bracelet.”
“There’s no power in it?” Kitsuna asked.
“No.”
“Not filled with awesome world-bending power?”
“Nope.”
“Maybe even just a little enchanted?”
“No.” I widened my eyes. “I mean, I feel something but I don’t know what it is. It doesn’t feel like touching the Mirror of Nerissette did.”
“But it’s not the mirror,” Kitsuna pointed out. “Maybe they aren’t meant to feel the same.”
“Maybe,” I said dubiously.
“Let’s take it down to Darinda in the library and see what she says,” Kitsuna suggested. “She’ll be able to do some sort of dryad magic to tell us if it’s the right relic, won’t she?”
I bit my lower lip. “I wouldn’t think so if it only responds to the Rose, but maybe…”
“So let’s go.” Kitsuna motioned to the door. “We’ll get Darinda and figure out how to destroy this thing. Even if it is sort of pretty.”
“Yeah, it actually is.” I held the bracelet up and studied it. Shiny gold with intricately carved dragons. I could see the individual scales on each dragon. Every one of them slightly different from the rest, their eyes were made of tiny, precious jewels. It was a beautiful piece of jewelry…if you ignored the fact that it apparently could be used as a weapon to destroy our entire world.
Chapter Ten
Halfway down the stairs I felt a shiver run along my spine. The back of my neck started to tingle and my stomach knotted. Something in my head was screaming, something primal telling me to run. To run as far and as fast as I could. There was a niggling spark in the back of my brain telling me not to go to Darinda. To avoid the library. To hide myself somewhere that no one would be able to find me. Apparently all the bracelet had needed to wake up was the threat of its own imminent destruction.
“We—” I brought my hands up in front of me, the hand with the bracelet on it running along the chain of my necklace. I rubbed my other hand over the wrist that I had the bracelet on, tugging at the clasp. I wanted it off. Hidden somewhere no one could find it, touch it, take it away from me. Somewhere that Darinda couldn’t find it. Couldn’t use her magic against it.
“Your Majesty?” Kitsuna touched my arm. “Are you okay?”
“No.” I shook my head quickly as nausea rolled through my stomach. “No, I’m really not.”
“What’s wrong?”
“I don’t know.” My stomach clenched again. “There’s just this feeling of wrong.”