I stiffen at her touch, torn between pulling away and holding on tight.
I care for her so much—so, so much—but I don’t care for what she’s saying. There’s no shortage of reasons, but this one is stupidly, ridiculously selfish.
Love is selfish, sometimes, I suppose.
But that doesn’t mean I’ve given up on saving her, even if it turns out the two of us can never be anything but friends.
Or…family? Ugh.
“If you’re right,” I say, loosely threading my fingers through hers, trying not to notice the way it makes my skin feel more alive than it has all day. “Does that mean we’re related in some way? Cousins or something?”
She blinks. “Oh. I don’t know. I was grown with my sisters, five of us all tangled together. Until I was cut away it was like… Like we shared the same skin.”
I wince. “That sounds painful.”
“It was.” She lifts a shoulder and lets it fall. “But it was a long time ago. I can barely remember the feel of the knife now. It’s one of the least clear parts of the memory.”
“No, I meant losing your sisters. But yes, the knife, too,” I stammer, feeling a fool. She’s suffered so much. My odd, isolated boyhood seems like the poshest of upbringings in comparison. “I’m sorry that happened to you.”
“Thank you, but I don’t think it’s the same as losing human sisters,” she says softly. “I used to think it was. I used to think we were closer than human siblings could ever be, but…” She nibbles her lip, her brow furrowing. “But it wasn’t a choice for us. To be so close. We were planted that way. We weren’t aware of our separateness or that there was such a thing, really. Not until I was harvested that night.” She glances over my shoulder to where our friends are waiting. “It wasn’t like Adrina and Timon.”
“How so?” I ask, though I think I know.
“They could walk away from each other at any time,” she says, softly, reverently. “But they choose to stay, to love each other, to hold each other close even though the world is brutal and filled with things that could tear them apart. Break their hearts…”
I tighten my grip on her hand. “It’s worth the risk. It’s why we’re here. To be close. To love each other.”
Her gaze meets mine, her eyes open in a way I’ve never seen them before. “Yes. I think you’re right. I’m sorry I didn’t understand before.”
“It’s fine. It’s hard to understand what you’ve never seen—or felt. It doesn’t seem like you’ve had much experience with love. Your mother sounds like a bleeding nightmare.”
Foxglove’s lips quirk up on one side. “No, she’s a witch. I’m the nightmare.”
I squeeze her fingers tight. “No, you aren’t. Not anymore. There has to be a way out, and I bet my father knows it. If he stole me from your mother’s garden or…however I came to be his son, he’s kept my feet firm on the ground for seventeen years. I haven’t been giving anyone nightmares. I’ve lived like a normal boy. And you lived like a normal girl while you were inside the wards.”
She shakes her head, but there’s hope in her expression when she says, “But I felt sick on the island. My head was all wrong.”
“Maybe Da can do something about that. Modify the spell or something.” I refuse to give up. “At the very least we can buy you some time to figure this out. You’ll be safe on the island. Your mother can’t force you to do anything when you’re protected by someone else’s magic.”
Her lips part and a soft “oh” of discovery whispers out. “What if that’s it? What if your father grew you in his garden? What if he’s a witch, too? I’ve never known a male witch, but—”
“No, that can’t be it.” I shake my head, rejecting the thought outright, no matter how nice it would be to be sure Foxglove and I aren’t related by blood. Or…soil. Or however things work in a witch’s garden. “My father’s a man of God. And he doesn’t work magic to steal from people, only to protect them.”
“My mother thinks she’s protecting people, too,” she challenges, pulling her hand from mine when I scoff in response. “No. Truly. She does. She cried when she cut me away from my sisters and cast me out. She didn’t want to do it. She felt like she had to send me out to spell, to keep human women from suffering the way she’d suffered.”
Scowling, I ask, “How had she suffered? Sounds like she’s the one doling out the pain.”
Foxglove wraps her arms around herself. “I think a man broke her heart. Badly.”
I fight the urge to roll my eyes. “Well, loads of people have their hearts broken every day. But we don’t go around scrambling other peoples’ brains to pieces because of it.”