Chapter 13: Two Days Left

"Two days," said Odile.

She stood in the Gate House with one palm flat on the cold white pillar.

The light between the stones was no wider than a ribbon.

"At dawn on the second morning the opening will be too narrow for a body to pass."

"And after that?" Hinata asked.

"After that, a voice may carry through it for a while. Nothing else."

Mai folded her mother's letter into quarters, and then into eighths, because her hands needed a job.

"Then Hinata goes home," she said.

Hinata turned her head so fast her hair whipped her cheek.

"What?"

"Your father is standing at that gate every night. The shrine is yours. Your degree is yours."

"Mai."

"You go through on the second morning, and I stay here and finish what's left of your promise."

Odile looked at the ceiling with great interest.

Hinata said nothing at all until they were back in the Saint's House with the door bolted.

Then she said it very quietly.

"You decided that without me."

"I decided it for you. It's different."

"It is not different. It's worse."

Mai took her glasses off and pinched the bridge of her nose.

"Your life is there, Hinata. Mine is a pharmacy counter and an empty apartment."

"Mai..."

"If one of us has to lose the road home, it should be me."

"You think I'd leave you in a herb shed with a debt and a Chancellor?"

"I think you're twenty-two and you shouldn't be a saint for my sake."

"I'm not here for your sake. I'm here because you are."

Hinata's voice cracked on the last word.

She crossed the room in three strides and slapped her hand flat on the wall beside Mai's head.

Her eyes were wet and furious.

"Say you want me to go," she said. "Look at me and say it."

Mai looked at her.

Hinata's hair was a wild chestnut tangle, and her dimples were gone, and her mouth was shaking.

"I want you to go," Mai said.

"You're lying."

"I'm not."

"You are. Your ears go red when you lie. They always have."

Keep reading free with an account. Start The Stepsister Who Followed Me Through the Shrine Gate from Chapter 1, then sign up free to read the rest of this chapter.