Wicked Like a Wildfire (Hibiscus Daughter #1)(78)
“What about me?” Malina asked quietly.
“As I said, you are already primed to win. But your sister has been fierce like you never have. Where she should learn softness, your challenge will be to grow truly bold; now is the time to shed that meek veneer, show us what truly lies beneath.”
“Can I . . .” Malina’s voice cracked. “I’d like another bedroom, please. If you have one to spare, I mean?”
I could feel my insides splitting, cleaving in two. So this was heartbreak. At least now I knew what that felt like.
TWENTY-FIVE
EVEN WITH THE BONE-DEEP EXHAUSTION OF THE PAST FIVE days turning my marrow into lead, I hadn’t thought I’d sleep at all without Malina breathing beside me. But Shimora had kindly scented me into some semblance of peace, stroking my hair while waves of her perfume lapped me into sleep like some gentle tide. In the early morning, my heart still throbbed like a rotting tooth, but otherwise I felt more awake than I had in days.
We had breakfast in a massive, sunlit dining room, at a polished table so long it could easily have seated fifty people. A row of iron chandeliers swung above, square cages nestled within cages all the way down to the minuscule, metallic birds trapped within each. Shimora sat between me and Malina, like a buffer; there were about thirty others of our family there. I wasn’t even sure what to call them, all these grandmothers so many “greats” removed. Relatives? Kinswomen? “Grandmother” felt jarringly strange when they were all so youthful, that ripe, full bloom of Mama’s age. So many pairs of mothers and daughters, indistinguishable from each other without the telltale indicia of years.
I recognized falling-star Ylessia from the night before, smiling at me as she forked burstingly sweet heirloom tomatoes, brined feta cheese in olive oil, and curls of salty Njegu?i prosciutto onto her plate. All the food was so perfect and simple it tasted lavish, an elegance that made me ache for Mama. Oriell was there too, the teal-haired ballerina, and the Valkyrian bell-ringer named Xenia.
Despite a nearly tangible undercurrent of tension—they all clearly knew that everything depended on us, and that we couldn’t align; it was obvious in the sidelong traded glances, the hushed whispers down the table from us—they all flocked gracefully to us between bites, eager to greet us and skim our cheeks with affectionate hands, as if we belonged naturally to them even after years apart. After so much time with just Lina and Mama, it felt impossibly surreal to be surrounded by these gorgeous, ageless women, so hemmed in and awash in family. I could feel the kinship of their gleam, twining and curling fondly against mine. It was beyond wonderful, a warm web of joy and belonging. It made me wonder again how Mama could have ever snipped herself loose from it.
“Where’s Natalija?” Malina asked. “Naisha, I mean. Shouldn’t she be here?”
Shimora glanced around, brow furrowed. “She wasn’t feeling well earlier this morning, I believe. But yes, she is here. I’m sure she’ll find you later.”
“And where is everyone else?” I asked Shimora as I washed down a bite of oil-soaked, divinely crusty bread with a tangy sip of yogurt. “Four thousand years of us, and never dying—there should be more, shouldn’t there?”
“There are,” she confirmed. “With a new pair of daughters every twenty years or so, we’re over two hundred by now, scattered all over the world. We have other strongholds like this one, though we began here, built this one first for ourselves. There’s also a lovely little palazzo in Venice, and a castle in Spain belongs to us. Quite a few others, too. With so many years to ourselves, why not roam as we please—especially if we can do it together? We have companions, too, of course, for as long as we choose. We live however we like, and we always have each other to return to in our little enclaves.”
“How?” Malina asked quietly. “All this is so . . . grand. Where does the money come from?”
“Clever investments, for one, with so many years to accumulate profit. And we’re consummate performers, exquisite ones. What we do can be easily reframed as a spectacle for the wealthy. As long as we’re careful to keep it in the proper setting, contained within the trappings of mundane entertainment. You can imagine what we can charge, performing together.”
“Like a circus,” I murmured. “Only we’re real.”
“Precisely.” Shimora dabbed daintily at her mouth and rose in one smooth movement. “Now, will you come? Azareen, Xenia will take you.” The freckled Valkyrie from the night before stepped next to her, her smile restrained but warm. “Though everyone else will soon be here, it will take too long to wait for one of our melodic empaths to tutor you today. And you’re already well on your way, besides.”
My stomach clenched into a fist at the throwaway mention of Malina’s greater strength. They all thought that she would win. “And me?”
“Ylessia will teach you. She doesn’t have the infinite bloom—what we call your fractals—but only one other of us has that gleam variant in any case. It’s one of the rarest forms. And . . .” She hesitated for a beat, and I glanced at Malina out of habit for her reaction; she was staring intently at Shimora, her nose slightly wrinkled the way it did when she was listening avidly to someone. “And she’s much too far away. Let us not waste time while Sorai struggles.”