Chapter 28 - Sisters

  Felicia turned to face her sister standing in the doorway, more than a little surprised.

  She knew her oldest sister was studying here at the academy, but it had nearly slipped her mind completely. Between learning magic sight, escaping her brothers, and traveling to Novanny with Daniel, her sister's existence had become just another piece of background information, filed away and forgotten.

  And she certainly hadn't expected her to be the personal assistant of the head teacher.

  “What are you doing here?” Lily asked, looking far more surprised than Felicia felt. Surprised and cautious, especially as her eyes turned to Daniel. “And who is this?”

  Before Felicia could respond, Daniel moved. One moment he'd been beside her, the next he was between them, shielding her from Lily's line of sight.

  "I am her teacher," Daniel replied, clearly on edge. "Who are you?"

  “She’s my sister, Danny. There’s no need to get between—”

  “There’s no better reason to get between you.”

  As strange as that statement sounded, Felicia realized in her case it was true. Her own brothers had blinded her, tried to have her killed. And although those two stood out as particularly terrible, the rest of her siblings weren’t significantly better. All except for Lily, that was.

  “...Right. But she’s not like the others.”

  Daniel's posture didn't relax, but she saw the slight tilt of his head. He was listening.

  “The others?” Lily asked, glancing between the two of them with a confused look. “Did something happen at home?”

  “Yes. But let’s… Danny, you can go ahead. I’ll talk to Lily alone.”

  She felt Daniel's hesitation even before he spoke. “Are you sure?”

  “She never hurt me.”

  It was true, as far as it went. Lily had never spilled boiling tea on her, never ‘accidentally’ handed her scorching metal, never stabbed her teddy bear. She'd simply... not been there.

  But absence of cruelty wasn't the same as kindness, and they both knew it.

  “Fine. But I’ll keep the index ready.” Daniel moved back, stepping closer to the confused Quill. “Lead the way, Quill.”

  “Right. Yes, right away!” Quill moved over to the bookshelf again, and without any visible interaction, it opened to reveal a passage going up. Dust fell from the moving shelf, indicating it was rarely opened.

  After Quill disappeared into the passage, Daniel turned back to her again. “I’ll send you a message if you can come up after us, Fillie.”

  “Sure. I’ll wait here.”

  Then he was gone, and the doorway closed behind them.

  Felicia stood there for a moment, listening to the silence. She could hear Lily's breathing—quick and shallow, like she was trying to process too much information at once.

  She turned to face Lily fully, studying her sister for the first time in seven years. Golden hair like her own, though Lily's was longer, pulled back in an intricate style that probably took half an hour to arrange. Her features were sharper than Felicia remembered, more angular—or maybe that was just the years of stress showing through.

  But despite the change, and the seven years passing, she had recognized her instantly.

  "Let's have a seat, shall we?" Felicia gestured toward the chairs standing in front of the desk.

  “Wait, can you see me?”

  “Yes,” Felicia replied, circling one of the chairs and turning it to face the other. “I learned magic sight from Daniel shortly after taking him as my teacher. It’s only been a—”

  “That’s so great! Congratulations, Felicia!”

  The sudden joy in her sister's voice was so foreign and unexpected that Felicia actually took a step back, hitting the edge of Quill's desk.

  Lily had never shown much care for her before. Had barely acknowledged her existence beyond the minimum required by etiquette. But now her face was bright with genuine happiness, on her behalf.

  Did she change after leaving the family four years ago? Or is it something else?

  "Thank you?" It came out as more of a question than a statement.

  Lily's smile was radiant, transforming her face into something Felicia barely recognized. "But how did you escape? I'm certain Grandmother wouldn't let you leave so easily."

  Escape. Such a telling word choice. As if they were both prisoners who'd managed to break free.

  "She didn't, no. But my teacher talked to Father, and he gave his permission."

  “That simple? I had to fight for years to leave…”

  Bitterness crept into Lily's voice on those last words. Years of fighting. Years of struggling for permission that should have been freely given. Felicia had known her sister left, but she'd never considered what it might have cost her.

  “Right, they said you hated the family.”

  Norton and Frank told her that Lily had used the same words as her, saying she wanted to leave and never come back. Though they had interpreted it as a ruse to gain more influence away from the family, out of their reach.

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  Of course they were wrong.

  “They told you that? Who, exactly?” Something sharp entered Lily's voice. Not quite dangerous, but getting there.

  “Your two oldest brothers. They said that’s what you told them before you left.”

  “...I take it the distinction of not calling them ‘our’ two oldest brothers is intentional?”

  "Well, a lot of stuff happened. Originally, a few days ago, I was to be married off to the Caldimores, but then Daniel, my teacher, intervened and stopped that. So then Norton and Frank had me kidnapped."

  She said it like she was recounting a trip to the market. But she watched Lily carefully as she spoke, tracking every minute shift in her sister's expression and mana signature.

  "...What?"

  Felicia sat down, smoothing her dress over her knees with careful movements. "They gave me the choice between leaving to marry the man from Caldimore, or death. Then Norton talked about how he should have been more careful when he blinded me seven years ago, to make it look less intentional."

  The words came out easier than she expected. Strange, how matter-of-fact she could be about it now. Like these horrors had happened to someone else, some other girl in some other life.

  An intense heat suddenly radiated from her side, turning the side of her face uncomfortably warm.

  Lily’s arms had turned a bright white color. Heat, so intense that it went past all the stages of red, orange, and yellow, and straight to white-hot. Heat radiated outward in visible waves, making the magical formations on the walls flicker and pulse in response.

  Oh.

  This was what her sister looked like when she stopped pretending. This was Lily's true power, no longer hidden behind politeness and professional courtesy.

  "Those fucking bastards!"

  The words exploded from Lily's mouth with such venom that Felicia flinched in her seat. She watched, fascinated and a little frightened, as Lily's mana continued to surge.

  The temperature in the office was rising noticeably now, and beads of sweat began to form on Felicia's forehead. The papers on Quill's desk were beginning to curl at the edges.

  She's going to set something on fire if she's not careful.

  “Lily, I understand how you feel, but calm down, please. They got what they deserved.”

  “What they deserve?! They deserve to burn! To have their hearts slowly ripped to shreds!”

  The specific nature of that threat made Felicia's stomach clench. Lily had clearly spent time imagining exactly what she'd like to do to their brothers.

  How long has she been carrying this rage?

  "Well, probably." Felicia kept her voice steady. Someone had to be the reasonable one. "But instead, I had them blinded and muted."

  Lily’s eyes darted to her, wide with surprise. Her arms cooled slightly, fading to a warm red hue. The temperature in the room began to drop, though the air still felt heavy.

  "...You really went that far?"

  There was a hint of awe in her sister's voice. Awe and approval.

  "I would have loved to kill them right there, but I… I wanted them to suffer. To have them live through losing all their support and all chances at achieving their dreams."

  To know exactly what they'd done to me. To understand what it felt like to be helpless.

  "Good." Lily's expression matched her own—sharp and satisfied. "It's exactly what they deserve."

  "Like I said."

  They sat in the cooling office, both savoring the thought of Norton and Frank's suffering. It probably said something terrible about them both that they could find such satisfaction in revenge. But Felicia couldn't bring herself to care.

  “...But how did you escape them?”

  “My teacher is strong.”

  Such a simple statement. And such a massive understatement.

  “Oh, right. I’ve never seen Master Quill so nervous before a guest. Who is he?”

  “You wouldn’t believe me if I told you. But what’s up with you?”

  Lily's eyebrow arched at the obvious deflection.

  "That's not a very sneaky change of subject." A wry smile touched Lily's lips. "But fine—me, I did my best trying to study and make a good impression here at the academy. I want to stay here permanently, and to achieve that, I needed to earn myself a position as an assistant. And here I am. But I feel like we skipped over a lot of what happened."

  She wants to stay here permanently.

  Lily wasn't planning to return to the Harrowbloom estate ever again, if she could help it. Felicia understood that completely.

  "Well, not much after that." She tried to think of anything else worth mentioning. "We went to the hospital. Liz was hurt during the kidnapping, but she'll be fine. Father had to deal with the aftermath, and I don't know any more after that. Then we took an airship here yesterday."

  A whole lifetime of change compressed into a few sentences.

  But really, what else was there to say? The details felt less important than the outcome—she was here, she was free, she could see.

  "...Who cares what happens up there?"

  The bitterness in Lily's voice was unmistakable.

  "I think we both do."

  Lily let out a sharp and humorless laugh. "...Yeah. But you know as well as I do how it feels to have all your siblings envy your position. As the youngest, of course, it hit you harder."

  Oh. That’s why she was so cold to me.

  Lily had expected Felicia to treat her just like her other siblings did. Had probably been waiting for the backstabbing and the casual cruelty that seemed to define the Harrowbloom children. So she'd kept her distance, built her walls, protected herself the only way she knew how.

  She'd been just as lonely as Felicia was.

  The realization made something ache in her chest. All those years, both of them suffering in parallel, both of them thinking they were alone.

  …Would I have treated her the same way as the others did if they didn’t see me as a threat?

  That was an intensely unpleasant thought. Surely she would be better.

  "No wonder you left…" Felicia's voice was soft. "Luckily, you had the power to decide that on your own."

  Unlike her, who'd needed rescue. Who'd been too weak, too blind, too helpless to save herself.

  "...I'm sorry, Felicia."

  Lily's voice cracked on her name. When Felicia looked up, she saw tears beginning to form in her sister's eyes. "It took me too long to realize your position."

  "I don't blame you at all, Lily. You did what you had to do to survive." Felicia managed a small smile, feeling the truth of it settle in her chest. "And things are fine now."

  They sat in silence for a while, taking in the moment. Despite everything, they had survived.

  Felicia watched dust motes dance in the air, still marveling at the simple fact that she could see them. Such small things, these everyday miracles that everyone else took for granted.

  "Will you be staying in Novanny from now on?"

  Lily's question broke the comfortable silence. Her voice had lost that earlier brittleness, softening into something more genuine.

  “I think so. At least primarily.”

  "Then, if you ever need an older sister…" Lily hesitated. "I think we have a lot to catch up on."

  Felicia felt that crack in her armor widen a little more. "I'd like that."

  Daniel couldn’t help but notice how they were walking through corridors that shouldn’t exist. From the outside, the head teacher’s office should be at the top of the academy. But they were ascending further still.

  An invisibility formation? Or some kind of spatial bending?

  Daniel didn’t know, and for the first time, he was nervous to look through the walls. This meeting had to go well.

  Soon, they reached a door at the top of the stairway. Like the environment, it was humble in appearance, with nothing but a simple wooden sign to indicate who it belonged to.

  ‘The Headmaster,’ it read.

  “Ready?” Quill asked without turning back, ready to knock.

  Daniel nodded. “Go ahead.”