“Cute,” Sophia said in a cold voice. “I would guess you’d want me even less now, except you already went so far as to fake your death to get away from me.”
Julian startled. “What? No—Soph, believe me, it had nothing to do with you—”
“I don’t want your excuses,” she said. “I want to know why you’re here now, and what you’re doing with her.”
“I went to the Thorns,” he said quickly, “which was a rotten idea all around. They despised me and I slept every night with one eye open—oh God—I heard the words leave my mouth and I couldn’t stop them, Soph—”
Something dark bobbed at the edge of her sight, just past Sophia’s shoulder. Everything was in harsh relief here, from the icy sky and feathery clouds to the browning moss that covered the black mountains and cliffs like flaking skin.
But there was another person there with them. In her dark cloak, with her dark hair, the land seemed to claim her as its own. Etta might not have noticed her at all if she hadn’t moved.
Recognition linked with memory.
“You.”
She was dressed differently from the last time Etta had seen her, in San Francisco. Her soft silk suit had been replaced by a linen tunic and baggy trousers, both held in place by a tightly knotted leather belt weighed down with scabbards and pouches.
There were a number of things about her great-aunt Winifred that Etta had willed herself to forget. Her penchant for vile turns of phrase wasn’t one of them.
That creature you insist on working with is here to make her report.
Sophia turned, looking between her and Li Min. “What are you doing? Get over here before they spot you from the beach.”
The girl did not move.
“You were wrong after all,” Sophia said. “This is Etta Linden; not so dead, it seems.”
Li Min was watching Etta, her head already bowed in resignation. Guilt was its own beast, Etta had learned. It took up residence beneath your skin and moved you to things you never thought possible, all to try to appease the discomfort it caused. Etta saw how they had all converged on this place. Fury leaped through her like a bow skidding off the strings of a violin.
Etta understood now.
“Funny that you told her I was dead, considering I saw you less than a week ago in San Francisco,” Etta said coldly. “Did you finish your job for my father, or have you been working for Sophia this whole time to undermine him?” Another thought, almost more terrible, arose. “Did he tell you to keep us all apart?”
“Working for me? You’re not making sense, as usual, Linden,” Sophia said. But Li Min remained impossibly still. She couldn’t tell if the other girl was breathing.
“Oh, cripes!” Julian figured it out a moment later, his brows shooting up to his hairline. “Li Min, you are one naughty little dame. I was wondering how the two of you ever would have met.”
“What is going on?” Sophia demanded, an edge to her voice.
“What job is this, exactly?” Etta continued. “Have you been reporting back to her on the Thorns? Or did my father send you to watch her, on the off chance she found the astrolabe first?”
To her credit, the girl didn’t retreat into silence to protect herself, as a coward would.
“I was hired by Hemlock,” Li Min said, “to take the astrolabe, if either she or Nicholas Carter reached it first. Report back any useful information.” She turned, meeting Etta’s gaze. “He did not give me explicit orders to keep you apart, only to use my judgment in what would keep you safest. In the end, that was keeping your paths separate.”
“What?” The word was so faint as it escaped Sophia, Etta wasn’t sure it could be considered a whisper.
“You have to understand,” Li Min said to her, a small, pleading note in her voice. “The Hemlocks found me again, after I escaped the Shadows, after I finished my training with Ching Shih. Her father is the head of my own family’s line, yes, but, more than that, he believed in me. He arranged for jobs that helped to build my reputation. He provided whatever resources I needed to live my life on my terms, and he has never once asked for anything in return. I could never be one of them, not the way he hoped for—I could not tell him the things I told you. I was…afraid. Set in my ways. But I owed him a debt that demanded to be repaid. I offered to do this job for him and would not have committed to it for anything less than that; you must believe me.”
“You—” Sophia stood, her feet carrying her toward the girl. She reached for the long knife at her side, yanking it from the hilt strapped to her leg. “Believe you? After everything else you’ve said and done was a lie?”
Etta understood that Li Min had perpetuated her father’s lie and inserted herself into Sophia’s life under false pretenses, but…Sophia wasn’t just furious. Etta had seen fury in her before. She was shaking.
“Not everything,” Li Min swore. “Not everything was a lie.”
“The Thorns—the ones who beat me and left me for dead in the middle of the desert?” Sophia continued, stopping just short of the other girl. “You must have had a laugh, telling me all of that mystical nonsense about revenge. All the while, you were going to stop me.”
“Not stop you, join you,” Li Min said, her serene expression finally breaking. “I only—it—it all got rather complicated, you see—”
“It’s not complicated at all,” Sophia said, drawing the freezing air to her, turning her words to ice. “You showed me exactly who you were from the moment we met: a thief and a con artist. You were right. You are not my friend. You are nothing. Get out of my sight. Leave! Otherwise this time I really will kill you.”