Page 76

“Ugh. Give me the wine.” I was too tired to argue. Too emotionally exhausted to deal with one more thing.

Morgana smiled gleefully as she danced to Meera’s night table and poured me a glass.

“I just want you to have fun,” she said coyly. “You’ve been so serious lately and working so hard.”

“I have fun,” I said, pouting.

I moved behind Meera and took over curling duties, wrapping her long ash-brown hair around the next curler and pinning it to her scalp.

Morgana placed the glass beside me on the dresser. “Drink up. It’s Days of Shadows, ladies!”

I picked up my glass, as did Meera, though I’d never seen her take more than two sips of anything in her life.

“We need to toast,” Morgana said, holding out her newly filled glass to us.

Meera gave me an exasperated look from the side, and we clinked our glasses together.

“Rapatayim!” Morgana cheered, the glass already halfway to her lips, one hand waving in the air.

“Rapatayim,” Meera repeated calmly.

“To your feet,” I said, deadpan.

Morgana groaned. “Why do you always do that?”

I took a sip of the wine. Sweet, which was good. “Because that’s literally what you’re cheering every time you toast!” Rapatayim was the traditional toast in Lumeria, a shortened version of an old Lumerian blessing:La ra patayim vrata al mar.Basically, it meant “may your feet always walk above the water.” Most likely, the saying had originated after the Drowning. But toasts had shortened it to rapatayim—your feet. I’d found this hilarious ever since I’d learned it.

“Drink your feet wine, then,” Morgana said, taking another sip. I followed suit and then set my glass down to add another curler to Meera’s hair. Pretending to focus on organizing the remaining curlers and pins for her, I thought,Morgs, pull your hair into a ponytail if you call truce.

She rolled her eyes at me in the mirror but swept her raven locks up, gathering it on top of her head in one hand before letting it fall back down her back. She held her hand open, her fingers tensed, before she leaned forward, staring up at me, an expression that clearly meant, What do you want?

How is she doing? Any changes?

She shook her head. I smoothed out a new section of Meera’s hair to roll. Meera watched me in the reflection, a hurt, accusatory look in her eyes.

I glanced away, feeling guilty for talking about her in secret—right under her nose. My gaze caught the painting she’d created of the vision she’d had on my birthday three months earlier.

The painting on her wall, one of many that had turned the once plain white room into a clash of colorful murals, was a depiction of me. Meera had perfectly painted my nose, my chin. My hair was red as if I were in the sun. The more disturbing part of the painting showed my arms sprouting into black seraphim wings—my entire body transforming into a seraphim. A black seraphim. The symbol of the Emartis.

“Wait!” Morgana sat forward, her wine sloshing in her glass. “Fuck!”

I whirled around to face her. “What? What did you hear?”

“How your fucking night went? Shit—Lyr. I didn’t know. I never would have…Gods! In your bed!”

Meera turned around, too, her eyes wide. “What happened in Lyr’s bed?”

Morgana pulled the whole story of the Emartis break-in out of my head to share with Meera, down to every last grotesque detail. All three of us ended up cuddled on top of Meera’s bedcovers. Apparently, the escort team at Cresthaven—while doubled—hadn’t bothered to inform their heirs of the threat faced by the youngest one—me. As Aemon had said, I was the target, not Cresthaven, not Meera nor Morgana.

Because I was easier to get to.

I marched back to Meera’s dresser and downed my wine, holding the glass out for Morgana to refill. She raised one eyebrow, then both, her eyes widening as she filled my goblet to the brim.

“Drink up,” she demanded. “That’s an order from your older sister.”

I did, after finishing Meera’s hair to perfection. But before I could start on Morgana’s hair, she wrapped her arms around my waist and hauled me from the bedroom, down the hall, and into my room where she practically threw me onto the bed and slammed the door. She pressed her back to it like she was trying to keep someone from getting in.

“What in Lumeria?” I demanded, trying to roll off my back into a seat. I ended up splayed across my bed. Maybe I was a little drunk already.