Diamond & Dawn by Lyra Selene

Author:Lyra Selene
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Scholastic Inc.
Published: 2019-01-15T16:00:00+00:00

I battered on Lullaby’s door, the sound louder than necessary in the hush of Lys Wing.

“Mirage?” Lullaby’s voice sounded strange through her cracked door. “It’s third Nocturne. Is everything all right?”

“Not really,” I choked out.

Lullaby pushed the door wider. She glanced around and raised a quizzical eyebrow. “No Suicide Twin entourage today? Did you assume the Red Masks would stop trying to kill you now you challenged their favored Sun Heir to a glorified duel?”

“You’re still angry with me.”

“Less than I was.” Lullaby cracked a half-hearted smile. “Why aren’t you exploring the Oubliettes, before they’re overrun by advisors and courtiers and commoners and Gavin? It’s soon to be a badly kept secret.”

“I was about to,” I admitted, “except that place scares the stuffing out of me. Will you join me?”

“Are you sure you want me to?”

I thought I heard a bare hint of pleading in her voice.

“Of course I do,” I said, vehement. “Don’t you know how much I’ve missed you?”

She relented, and we trotted down the hall in silence for a few minutes. There was only one wolf guarding the dungeons. I cast a ragged but passable illusion of invisibility over the pair of us so we could sneak to the entrance.

Lullaby waited until we were through the portal in the Oubliettes before speaking again.

“When you challenged Gavin—I was surprised.”

“You didn’t think I’d do it?”

“Not so soon, at least. I think I knew it would eventually happen—these Ordeals sing a song that sounds like destiny.”

My Relic throbbed.

“Do you believe Arsenault?” she asked. “About Severine going mad over the Ordeals and killing Seneca for his Relic?”

“I don’t know.” Our voices echoed strangely in the halls. My arm smarted as I reopened Oleander’s wound and smeared my blood on the sunburst door. It hissed open, and we reentered the labyrinth. “The story he tells is the one I believed a week ago. But it contradicts Severine’s own explanation. And part of me—” I gnawed on a lip. “I know it doesn’t make sense, but I want to believe Severine. She killed our father, she killed countless half siblings, she tried to kill me. And yet, I want to believe she had a reason beyond pure power to do the things she did. It doesn’t excuse her crimes—not by a mile—but if she did what she did for Seneca, for the love of a brother? I want to believe that kind of love exists.”

Unexpectedly, Lullaby nodded. “Sometimes I feel that way about Colette—about my mother. If I can find an explanation for the things she does, the ways she uses me, that will soften the hurt. If I can understand why—why the things that I am traded for are so important to her—that might make her actions acceptable.”

Her voice wavered on the last word, and I remembered her awful story: Being your friend feels like that name day.

“Oh, Lullaby,” I whispered. “You’re not talking about Colette anymore, are you?”

Her face fell like shatterglass. My heart twisted hot and dark in my chest.

“Why him?” she asked violently.

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