I glance once more at the closed door before I march to the massive wardrobe that takes up the whole corner to my right. My swan-self still remembers every flavor of the winds, the rain hiding behind the clouds, the frost that sometimes follows the warmer days. If it weren’t for her, I would have ordered my sisters on the road already, doomed them to a grueling journey that might have led us no place better. But as soon as my swan-self announces the weather safe, my sisters and I will depart the house.
I slowly pull open the wardrobe’s door, so that the verdigris-stained hinges don’t make a sound, and move aside the meager collection of clothes hanging there, the dresses that my mother’s sisters once wore, moth-eaten garments with frayed lace hems that used to be in fashion years and years ago. They made alterations in them, though. The deceitful creatures tried to imagine how life in the palaces went on without them. Perhaps they, too, entertained the idea of returning to the place that once was their home.
I do wonder at times how the Summer City has changed in my absence. Has the gagargi torn down the statues representing the past empresses? I am sure he never ordered one to commemorate mother. Has he relocated his horrid machine from his island to the palace’s great hall as he once said he would do? Does he extract the souls of my supporters in public ceremonies, to make examples out of them?
I push the clothes aside, tap the corners of the back panel one after another, in clockwise direction. I wait for the soft click and then slide the panel aside. This is the third secret compartment I found while searching through the areas of the house that are accessible to us. Though I have tapped through every wall and patted every cushion, though I have run my hand over every decorative knob and inlay in search of hidden levers and switches, I didn’t find what I was looking for. It is too well hidden.
In the secret compartment, my collection of supplies rests untouched. It took me weeks to secure the suitable tin boxes. The blue and silver one is already full of biscuits—hard, dry things meant for the guards’ provisions when they travel to the garrison and back. The men don’t like the taste, aren’t hungry enough to touch them, and often leave them carelessly lying around the house. I flip open the lid of the light green box that once held the sewing kit. There is still space for more rye bread. I shall have to grow bolder, though this will increase the risk of someone in addition to Elise noticing me stealing food.
The flint lies on top of the canteen, next to the tin boxes. Yesterday, when Beard chastised Boy for losing them, I was certain they would realize that neither of them was to blame. In the end, they didn’t, but it was too close of a call for my comfort. I will not snatch more equipment from the guards. Praised be my father that, according to my swan soul, the rivers and rivulets are clean here and teeming with fish.
The footsteps are silent, the low screech of the door opening barely audible. But I hear them because I never allow myself to slip too deep in my thoughts.
I am on my knees, half inside the wardrobe. I don’t have time to close the tin box, let alone slide the panel back. I collect myself, though, before I back out and turn and see who has entered the room. For if it is one of the guards…
It is not, the Moon be blessed. Sibilia stands in the doorway, and though she cradles the book of scriptures against her chest, as she so often does, there is something very frightening about her. Gone is the daydreaming, awkward girl. Before me stands a woman whose red-gold hair gleams even though the lamps in the room are unlit. Her face is pale, her freckles like scattered embers. But it is her gray gaze, wide and intense, and it is as if… No, not as if.
My sister sees through me.
“Celestia,” Sibilia says, pushing the door closed behind her. “Tell me the truth.”
For a moment, I am too shocked to speak, let alone get up from the floor. I have kept many secrets from her. I don’t know what truths she has managed to uncover on her own—all of them or only one?
“What do you wish to know?” I ask, for I never expected my sisters forever refrain from asking questions.
Sibilia strides toward me, and there is nothing clumsy in the way she moves. There is but pure determination and unsated hunger as she halts three steps away from me. “Tell me, what happened to Mother’s sisters.”
That one, then. Even though I am not yet the empress, my control over my mind is fitting for one. I rise on my feet, to face my sister. Has Elise told Sibilia about mother’s sisters, about their plans, their fate? If she has, what are her motives?
I meet Sibilia’s sharp, gray gaze. No, even though Elise and Sibilia are close, Elise hasn’t told her about the bullet holes in the cellar. She knows some things have been kept secret for a reason. Sibilia’s thirst for knowledge stems from a different source, from a spell, I sense it now.
“What do you mean?” I need just a little more time to evaluate the best course of action. Where does this spell originate from? Who is behind it? How is it powered? Surely not by a gagargi!
“You know what I mean.” Sibilia advances toward me until nothing separates us but a paper-thin slice of air. Her gaze is almost level with mine. She has grown tall, as if she had stretched during the winter months, and I wonder, what else has come to pass before my eyes without me noticing. And then I know it and chastise myself for not realizing it sooner.
This spell is not of any gagargi’s handiwork. The days my sister has spent with the scriptures, they have yielded fruit. She has learned to read the words unwritten, the spells that the gagargis so jealously guard. A feat I never accomplished, though not for the lack of trying.
“Who are Irina and Olesia?”
I am proud of my sister, but my posture stays unchanged, expression unwavering. For those names… I haven’t seen or heard them said since the day my mother summoned her younger sisters into the sacred observatory, there to hear their feeble pleas only out of kindness before she ordered them exiled and their names obliterated from all official and unofficial records. Now my sister stands before me, demanding to know what I might have done in my mother’s place. But there are benefits in ignorance, pain in knowledge. “Irina and Olesia?”
Sibilia snorts. Her nostrils flare. She senses that I am not telling her everything. This spell of hers, could it really be… Yes, it must be, a truth spell. She will sense if I lie.
I say what is true from every measurable angle. “It is a long time since I last heard those names.”
Sibilia stomps the ground, dissatisfied with the answer. But before I speak more, I must know for certain that there is no one else around. My senses have grown precise indeed in this house. I have trained myself to recognize every creak of the stairs and floor planks, the wail of every hinge. I hearken my senses, but I hear no sounds that would betray someone moving around the drawing room, suppressed sighs that come from holding one’s breath for too long. I don’t like breaking eye contact with Sibilia, but that is what I must do to confirm my conclusion. The guards are still outside, in the sun, as are Elise, Merile, and Alina. Sibilia and I have a moment or two to speak of things that then must not be ever voiced again.
“Shall we take a seat?” I motion toward the bed that we share at nights, when we are close but far apart still. Let my sister agree to sit down with me, for I doubt she knows what she is fueling her spell with. Sooner or later it will abandon her and leave her weak and confused, momentarily drained of a part of her own soul. “No doubt, you have many more questions to ask.”
Sibilia blinks, and a veil of confusion clouds her eyes. Then it is gone, and back is the burning thirst. “A trick, perhaps? No, you wouldn’t trick your own sister. Or would you? I really think not. Yes. Let’s sit down.”