Page 134 of Dance of Thorns

It’s not a bizarre coincidence that Lark’s mental state mirrors my own.

It’sgenetics.

I exhale slowly as I blink away a tear for the twin I lost.

I’ve forced myself to read these final entries one at a time, because they’re often just too heavy to read back to back. But I’m so close to the end, and Ihaveto know how she was just before her death.

I also need to know if she everknew. If Agatha told her the truth about who she was, or if she died not knowing.

That’s why I turn the page with shaking hands to read the next entry. But when I do, my brows knit.

“What the hell?” I blurt out.

Bane, sitting on the other end of the couch with my feet in his lap, looks up from his phone. “What?”

I frown at the book, flipping forward. There’s a bunch of ripped, frayed edges between the passage I just read and the blank pages at the back.

“There are pages missing.”

Bane frowns, but he doesn’t say anything.

“Lark’s diary,” I add, holding it up in case he didn’t realize what I was reading. I no longer have the fake cover on it. “Some of the pages are gone. It looks like they’ve been torn out.”

His brow furrows. “By her?”

“Maybe. Butwhy?”

Bane shrugs. “Baby, I don’t know. I also feel like maybe you’ve gone as far as you should, given that it’s adiary.”

“You’re saying I’m snooping?”

He lifts a brow. “Is that up for debate?”

Fair.

But the thing is, if Lark was going to tear pages out because of bad stuff she wrote, I mean…there’sa lotof other shit she’d have torn out, too.

I don’t mention that to Bane, though. Not that I want to keep secrets from him, but I don’t think I need to tell him how I’ve read all the truly terrible stuff Lark put him through, especially toward the end.

“I’m going to go to my dad’s and look for them. Maybe they fell out.”

Bane shoots me a look. “We're talking over seven years ago,” he says.

“There was plenty of other stuff still in Lark and Agatha’s rooms after so long. Maybe?—”

“I really think you should drop?—”

“She was mysister!” I snap before I can stop myself. Immediately, I wince, my brows pinching. “I’m…I’m sorry. The comedown from some of the meds…”

He nods, rubbing my foot with his hand. “No apology necessary. I get it.” He exhales. “Still, I really do think you should drop it.”

“I get why you might not want me to,” I say gently. “But…I need to do this, and I need you to understand why. I just…” I shrug. “I need toknow, Bane. If she knew about me, about our mom.”

He looks away.

“Look, you stay here. I’ll go?—”

“No.” He nods decisively as he looks back at me. “We’ll go together.”