Unraveled by Gennifer Albin

Author:Gennifer Albin
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
ISBN: 9780374316464
Publisher: Farrar Straus Giroux
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

SIXTEEN

AMIE MILLS ABOUT MY QUARTERS WHILE SERVANTS bustle in and out, packing my trunks in preparation for the wedding, which will take place in the Northern Sector. She does a good job of looking excited, but the joy doesn’t reach her eyes. Immediately after I returned from the engagement gala, Cormac sent her a telebound with the news that she wouldn’t be coming to the wedding, leaving me to deal with her disappointment for the past two days. His message explained she was too young to attend a political function.

For once, he’s calling something as it is. Our engagement is politics, after all.

“You aren’t missing anything,” I tell her. “A bunch of snooty ministers and their wives, each vying to be the biggest suck-up.”

“Oh, I know,” she says, but her words are punctuated with sighs. “I can watch on the Stream. You’ll be on the purple carpet. Cormac promised the whole event will be filmed.”

Admiration colors her words and I cringe. I’m no longer the girl who watched the purple carpet with glee in her living room. Now I know about balancing on heels and fending off drunk ministers with grabby hands. But one look at Amie’s face, and I suddenly wish I could enjoy it. I pretend to be giddy—if only to cheer her up for a moment.

“What if I trip?” I ask, dropping onto my bed and widening my eyes for effect.

“You should practice.” Amie plucks a pair of heels from a loaded rack and tosses them next to me. “Show me how it’s done.”

I slip them onto my feet, left foot first. I watch for some sign that Amie has noticed this old ritual of our mother and grandmothers, but there’s no recognition on her face.

“Gloves?” She holds up a pair of petite white gloves.

“They’re back in fashion,” I say in a tight voice.

“I’ll have to get some,” she says as she lays them back on my bed.

I bite my lip so hard I taste iron on my tongue. Cormac’s orders were clear. As soon as I leave the walls of the Coventry, I am to wear them. There’s been no more mention of the permanent solution that will forever cripple my abilities, and for now I can only hope the gloves will pacify him. Either way, after I leave here, I will never touch again. Not really. He’ll rob me of my strongest sense—with a pair of gloves or an alteration. All I will have is the memory of the weave tingling across my fingertips and of the hot pressure of Erik’s fingers threaded through mine.

“Will you return here?” she asks, drawing me back to this moment.

“Cormac expects me to live with him in the Northern Sector,” I tell her as I blink back tears.

“Oh.” Amie deflates a bit in front of me and I grab her hand.

“You can stay with us as soon as this wedding nonsense is over.”

“Promise?”

“I do.” I mean it. If I go through with this, maybe I can rebuild my family

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