Page 56 of Dance of Thorns

“Oh,wow!” Evie murmurs. Her eyes move between me and the picture, then back up to me. “You two looksosimilar.”

I smile quietly. “I know. Her mom was blonde Italian too, like mine. She died giving birth to Lark, which is why she was with her grandmother.” My heart wrenches a little as I look down at the two smiling girls, sitting on the stoop, grinning through missing teeth.

“We always loved how similar we looked.” I laugh softly. “We’d joke about being sisters.”

I can feel the question hanging in the air, so I answer it before she can ask.

“She died.”

Pain stabs into me as I take a deep breath.

Part of me almost wants to tell her about the rest. The night Lark and I snuck out with our fake IDs.

The man at the bar who used to drive for my dad, who offered us a ride home.

The two days of horror and torture and pain that followed, before most of my memories vanished into the ether.

But that’s…too much for someone like Evie.

“It was my fault she died, and Bane blames me for it.”

The short version is bad enough.

“Oh my God, Dove…”

I’m not really a hugger, but I’m grateful for the one Evie gives me after all that comes out. She holds me tightly, my chest shaking as I suck back the tears before they can fall.

“I’m so,sosorry,” she says quietly as she pulls away, her face earnest and raw and real, like she’s truly feeling the same emotions that are rampaging through my heart. She frowns. “So…wait… Bane is doing this for revenge? That’sinsane.”

I nod quietly. “Maybe. Well, partly.”

She shakes her head, frowning. “There’s more to it than that? What do you remember about them dating?”

I decide that spilling my guts to Evie about my addiction is my limit on brutal honesty for the evening.

My amnesia can stay in the same “do not share” pile with the graphic details of Lark's and my abduction.

“Not much,” I shrug. “I mean, it was years ago, and… You know how it is. When she was with Bane, they kind of did their own thing.”

At least, I think they did.

Evie looks down at my phone, still open to the photos of Lark and me.

“Youreallylook similar. I mean, not twins or anything, but…whoa.” Her nose wrinkles as she lifts her eyes to me. “It’s…kinda weird that he wants to marry you, when you and Lark?—”

“Yeah,” I groan, shuddering. “Tell me about it.”

Evie sighs deeply, then looks at me with a soft, kind smile on her face. “Thanks for trusting me with all of that. Seriously. It means a lot.”

I smile back, my lips twisting as I take her hands in mine and give them a squeeze. “Thanks for listening.”

“I won’t tell a soul.” She shakes her head. “And literallynothingabout what you just told me changes how I think of you, or our friendship. I mean that.”

Again, not a hugger. But damn, I don't mind the next one she gives me.

“Evie,” I sigh into her shoulder. “This world does not deserve you.”

Evieand I talk late into the night, basically becoming best friends. I share a little more about my addiction journey, and rehab. She tells me how she worries that everyone treats her with kid gloves. I spill my guts over my mental health issues—some of them, anyway. And she discusses the mixed feelings she has concerning her dad being dethroned and banished to Russia not too long ago.