Angel’s POV
I couldn’t move.
That was the first thing - the absolute, bewildering inability to move. My feet had stopped working. My lungs had stopped working. The corridor, the walls, the guards, Kane, Terrell standing next to - all of it had ceased to exist in any aningful way, because the only thing that existed right now was the face in front of .
That face.
I knew that face.
I had grown up beside that face. I had argued with it and laughed with it and cried into it and morized every line of it over the course of an entire lifeti, and then I had spent weeks telling myself I would never see it again, that it was gone, that the fire had taken it along with everything else...
Agnes.
My sister.
My sister, standing in the corridor of Black Wolf Castle, in the grip of Kane’s hand, with tear-bright eyes and a face that looked like it was trying to decide whether I was real.
Is this a dream?
The thought moved through with terror - not the terror of sothing frightening but the terror of sothing too good, the dread of a person who has learned that the things they want most tend not to be real. I was terrified to blink. Terrified to breathe too hard. Terrified that if I made one wrong movent, the whole thing would dissolve the way dreams did - edges first, then the middle, then nothing.
Agnes.
Alive.
Alive.
I started walking toward her.
I didn’t decide to. My body simply began moving. Everything else fell away completely. There was only the distance between us and the need to close it.
I kept my eyes on her face.
I was afraid that if I looked away, even for a second, she would be gone.
She was watching co toward her with an expression I had never seen on Agnes’s face before - not in all the years I had known her. My sister was the bold one. The loud one. The one who walked into rooms like she had already decided to own them. I had never seen Agnes look fragile.
She looked fragile now.
She looked like she was holding herself together with both hands.
I reached her.
I lifted my hand and touched her face - just my fingertips, against her cheek - and the feeling of her skin, warm and real and solid and there, sent sothing crashing through so hard that my knees nearly went.
Not a ghost.
She was not a ghost.
"Agnes," I breathed.
And then I couldn’t say anything else because I was crying, and she was crying, and her arms had wrenched free of Kane’s grip with a violence that he clearly hadn’t anticipated, and then she had both arms around and I had both arms around her and we were holding each other in the middle of a castle corridor like nothing in the world existed except this.
She was shaking. Or I was shaking. I couldn’t tell anymore where she ended and I began - it had always been like that between us, even when we were children, this particular closeness that confused people from the outside.
"Angel." Her voice broke on my na. "Angel, Angel, I never... I didn’t think... I never thought I’d..."
"I know," I managed. The words ca out fractured. "I know, I know..."
"I thought you were dead." The sound that ca out of her then was not quite a sob and not quite a word. It was the sound of sothing that had been held too long and too tightly finally releasing. "I thought... I thought... the nuns wouldn’t tell of your whereabouts. I assud..."
"I thought you were dead." I pulled back just far enough to look at her face, needing to see it, needing to confirm again that it was real and present and not about to dissolve. "Agnes, I thought you were gone. They said everyone in the village was murdered. No one made it out alive."
"I’m here." She grabbed my face in both her hands, the way she used to do when we were children and she was trying to make pay attention. Her palms were warm and her grip was fierce and she pressed her forehead to mine. "I’m here. I’m right here."
We stood like that for a mont.
Then I pulled back.
I looked at her face, and the questions that had been waiting underneath the shock began to surface.
"Mama," I said.
The word landed between us like sothing dropped.
Agnes’s eyes shifted.
Just slightly. Just enough.
A small movent - her gaze moving fractionally to the side, away from mine, with the movent of soone who has been asked a question they do not want to answer. I had known my sister my entire life. I knew every expression she owned.
I recognized this one.
My stomach dropped.
"Agnes."
She didn’t answer.
"Agnes, where is... what about mama and papa, and the baby..." My voice was climbing in pitch without my permission. "Tell . Please tell . Tell sothing..."
Her gaze moved past my shoulder.
Not to Kane. Not to the guards.
To Terrell.
She said his na the way you said the na of sothing that had poisoned you. Quiet, cold. Not a curse - sothing worse than a curse.
"Terrell."
The sound of it hit sowhere I wasn’t prepared for.
I didn’t turn around.
I couldn’t.
If I turned around right now and looked at his face, I didn’t know what would happen. I had spent a long ti running away from him, only to find myself coming back to him. But seeing Agnes right now, seeing my sister alive, has resurrected that fury again, and I didn’t know how I’ll handle it I turned.
I had accepted it. I had co to terms with it, the way you ca to terms with things that could not be changed. He had destroyed my family. He had taken everything.
I focused my attention on my sister.
Agnes grabbed my shoulders. Hard. "Angel." Her voice had changed again. "What are you doing here? Why are you in this place? Are you... did they take you? Are you here against your will, because if they’ve..."
"Agnes..."
"We need to leave." She grabbed my hand and was already turning, already moving toward the corridor’s far end with the certainty of a woman who had decided what was happening. "Right now. Co on. We need to get out before..."
"Agnes, stop..."
"I am not standing in this man’s castle for one more second, Angel, co on..."
"Stop." I planted my feet. "Please. Please just... stop."
She stopped.
She looked at .
"What is going on?" Her voice had gone quiet, which was sohow worse than the volu. "Why are you here? You know who he is, don’t you? You know what he..." She stopped. Her eyes moved over my face with the focus of soone reading sothing they hadn’t expected to find. "Angel."
I couldn’t look at her.
"Angel, why are you in his castle."
"It’s... complicated..."
"Why are you in his castle."
Behind , I heard Terrell’s voice - low and flat: "Kane. Take the woman away."
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