Chapter 6: Sisters

"I remember," I said.

The words felt strange in my mouth after nine days of not saying them.

Lyra's chin trembled once, then steadied.

"Say all of it," she said.

"I died at thirty. I was in bed. Dorian had brought me tea."

For a moment my sister only looked at me.

Then she laughed, short and sharp, and the laugh cracked in the middle.

"You died in a mansion, Calla."

"I died in a bedroom with a lock on the outside."

"You wore diamonds to every party."

"They were his."

"You had a husband who adored you!"

"Everyone said so."

She was shaking now, white around the mouth.

Her mind was a storm, and I caught it in pieces.

The cold house. The fisherman's cough.

A photograph of Calla at the winter gala, glittering, and Lyra in a borrowed coat on the sidewalk outside.

"I stood outside that gala," Lyra said. "Do you know that?"

"I stood in the snow, and you looked right through the window and smiled at me."

"I never saw you."

"You had everything."

"I had a tea tray," I said.

She flinched.

"I smiled because he was standing behind me."

"If I didn't smile, there would be a doctor in the morning, and the word nerves, and one more lock."

"You never told me."

"You never asked. And I never said, because you'd have gone to Father, and Father would have believed him."

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