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“Could have what? Come up with a huge lie as to what exactly has been going on?”

She stopped pacing and met my gaze. “I’m going to tell them the truth. Tessa deserves to know.”

I admired her honesty, I really did. But telling her younger sister the truth about the prophecy wasn’t going to help anything.

“Is she still frightened?” I asked, keeping my voice low.

Jade crossed her arms. “Of you? Yes.”

I deserved that. “And what about you?”

I watched as Jade’s chest rose and fell slowly with a long breath of air. “It’s not me she’s afraid of,” Jade said. Her voice shook slightly, but she continued anyway. “It’s…it’s the things I’ve done.”

I waited a few seconds before asking, “And what have you done that is so terrible?”

Jade looked at me as if I had said something ridiculous, but the fact that she thought she did anything wrong was ridiculous to me. Jade was a victim. She was dragged here and thrown into this world with no say. All she wanted to do was protect her sister.

And now she was the peacemaker with a massive target on her back.

Yet her only family made her feelguiltyfor surviving?

I wasn’t going to sit around and listen to this.

“I’ve done so many terrible things,” Jade said. Her eyes were wandering around my bedroom, but I knew she was lost in thought.

Lost in the demons of memory.

“You did what you had to do to survive,” I reminded her. “You have nothing to be sorry for, Jade. You have nothing to apologize for. Especially not to your family. You did this for them.”

“Tessa won’t understand,” she continued. “Humans and fae…I shouldn’t have been…I mean…”

“She expects you to hate us all,” I finished for her.

“Yes,” Jade admitted. “She does.”

I stood from my bed, very aware of the fact that the thin trousers were the only thing I wore. Jade’s eyes didn’t leave mine.

Although I noticed the way she stiffened when I stepped toward her.

“Are you saying youdon’thate us all?” I pushed.

Jade swallowed once. “I didn’t say that.”

“No,” I said, taking another step forward. I half-expected Jade to back up, but she didn’t.

Stubborn girl.

“You said Tessa expected you to hate us all. And somehow that’s a problem.” It was risky, but I reached out and picked up a piece of her shiny hair, letting it slip through my fingers. “Because even though you want to, even though you try, you can’t hate us. You can’t hate me.”

Anger flashed across her face, drawing her eyebrows together. “I never said I don’t hate you,” she spat.

“But you’re not disagreeing with me,” I pushed.

I knew I should have stopped. I should have given Jade space. That was what she needed. That was what she wanted.

But with every agonizing day that passed, I missed her more and more. Eventually, I wouldn’t be able to stay away.

“I should hate you,” she said. “I should hate you for what you did.”