Snip.

Jerking away, Levana turned just in time to see Channary toss a lock of brown hair into the flames. As the lock curled like springs, blackened, and dissolved, Channary giggled.

Levana reached for the back of her head, found the chunk that Channary had cut nearly to her scalp. Tears sprung into her eyes.

She made to scramble to her feet, but Channary was fast, grabbing her skirt in big handfuls. With a pull, Channary yanked Levana back onto the floor. She screamed and crashed to her knees, barely catching herself before her face could hit the floor too.

Even as Levana tried to roll away, Channary was catching the hem of Levana’s dress between the scissor blades, and the sound of ripping fabric tore at Levana’s eardrums.

“Stop it!” she screamed. When Channary kept a firm hold on her skirt and the tear escalated all the way to Levana’s thighs, Levana locked her teeth, grabbed up as much of the fabric as she could, and yanked it out of Channary’s grip.

A large shred of material was torn away and Channary cried out and fell backward into the fire. Shrieking, she quickly pulled herself out of the hearth, her face twisted in pain.

Levana gaped at her sister, horrified. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to. Are you all right?”

It was clear that Channary was not all right. Her lips were snarling, her gaze darkened with a fury Levana had never seen—and she had seen her sister’s anger many, many times. She shrank back, her fists still gripping her skirt.

“I’m sorry,” she stammered again.

Ignoring her, Channary reached a trembling hand for the back of her shoulder, and turned so that Levana could see her back. It had happened so quickly. The top part of her dress was charred, but nothing had caught fire. What Levana could see of her sister’s neck was bright red and there were already small blisters forming above the dress’s neckline.

“I’ll call for the doctor,” said Levana, climbing to her feet. “You should get water … or ice, or…”

“I was trying to save you.”

Levana paused. Tears of pain were glistening in her sister’s eyes, but they were overshadowed by the crazed look, glowing with fury. “What?”

“Remember, baby sister? Remember how I came in here and found you playing with a real fire in the fireplace? Remember how you fell in, thinking it wouldn’t hurt you, just like the holograph? Remember how I got burned while trying to rescue you?”

Blinking, Levana tried to take a step back, but her feet were rooted to the carpet. Not from fear or uncertainty—Channary was controlling her limbs now. She was too young, too weak to get away.

Horror crept down her spine, covering her skin in gooseflesh.

“S-sister,” she stammered. “We should put ice on your burns. Before … before they get any worse.”

But Channary’s expression was changing again. The fury was contorting into something cruel and sadistic, hungry and curious.

“Come here, baby sister,” she whispered, and despite the terror twisting inside Levana’s stomach, her feet obeyed. “I want to show you something.”

*   *   *

Levana couldn’t stop crying, no matter how hard she tried. The sobs were merciless and painful, coming so fast she felt faint from an inability to breathe as her lungs convulsed. She crumpled over her knees, rocking and trembling. She wanted to stop crying. So badly she wanted to stop crying, in no small part because she knew that Evret, in his own private chambers down the hall, could probably hear her. And at first she’d dreamed that he would take pity on her, that the sound of her tears would soften his heart and bring him to her side. That he would comfort her and hold her and finally, finally realize that he’d loved her all along.

But she’d been crying long enough now, with no sign of her husband, to know that it wasn’t going to happen. Just one more fantasy that wouldn’t come true. Just one more lie she’d constructed for herself to escape into, never realizing she was welding the bars of her own cage.

Finally, the tears began to slow, the pain began to dull.

When she could breathe again, and thought she could stand without collapsing, she took hold of a bedpost and hauled herself to her feet. Her legs were weak, but they held. Without the strength to reinstate her glamour, she tore off one of the sheer drapes that hung from the bed’s canopy and draped it over her head. She would look like a ghost wandering the palace halls, but that was fine. She felt like a ghost. No more than a figment of a girl.

Hugging the makeshift veil around her body, she stumbled out of her bedroom. Two guards were posted outside the royal chambers, at silent attention as she emerged. If they were surprised at the fabric draped over her head, their expressions gave nothing away, and they fell into a march at a respectful distance behind her.

Despite the care she took to conceal herself, she passed no one else as she wandered through the palace. Even the servants were asleep this late at night.

She didn’t know where she was going until, minutes later, she found herself standing outside her sister’s bedroom, or what had been her sister’s bedroom during her short reign as queen, nearly eight years ago. Levana could have taken these chambers as her own—larger and more lavish than the room she was currently in—but at the time she’d enjoyed the quaintness of her rooms shared with Evret and Winter. She’d liked the idea that she was a queen who did not need riches and luxuries, only the love of her family to surround her.

She wondered if the people of the court had been laughing behind her back all this time. Was she the only one who had never recognized just how false her marriage, her family, really was?