Becky


    This was such a foolhardy idea, Becky thought she must have fallen, cracked her head, and slipped into a deep sleep. A bad sleep with some very bad choices.


    Including knocking on the door of the healer’s quarters, but it was toote to turn back when Tatianna gently pushed it open. “Hello?” Becky said.


    “Come in, Rebecka!” Tatianna called. “Evie and I are just finishing packing up a few essentials for the journey.”


    Becky wrung her hands and straightened her spine. “Are you taking Fluffy?”


    Evie put another jar into the medicine bag. “No. We all agreed we can’t risk being spotted by Benedict’s men or anyone else. We’ll go by horseback.” Evie smiled at her, still an oddity Rebecka had not grown used to.


    “Oh. Right.” Becky licked her lips and pretended she had something stuck to her skirt.


    “Rebecka, are you all right?” Tatianna asked, striding over toy the back of her hand against Becky’s forehead. “Are you feeling ill? You look flushed.”


    “I’m not sick!” She pushed Tatianna’s hands away. “I just wanted to ask your opinions on something…delicate.” She swallowed.


    The two women waited expectantly.


    “I’ve only ever had my brothers for reference points when ites to speaking with, um, with…”


    “Men?” Evie asked with far too much interest forfort.


    Rebecka paused, then said, “Never mind.” She spun and attempted escape.


    It was toote. Evie was already barring the door with a maniacal grin. “Now, Becky, we are all friends here. Do tell us anything that’s on your mind.”


    “No.” She scowled.


    Evie pouted, looking like a grown version of Lyssa. “Why?”


    “Because you’re far too excited about it.”


    Evie deted with a re.


    Tatianna chuckled and slid over to the closed door next to Evie. “We will keep your confidence, Rebecka. I swear it. Say what you need to say.”


    Horrific, foolish idea. “I think that I am infatuated with…with de.” There. She’d said it, the sky hadn’t fallen, and all her limbs were still intact. For now.


    Evie jumped and pped. “I knew it! You have a crush! This is marvelous!”


    “Stop jumping, you one-woman circus show,” Becky growled, pointing a warning finger at her.


    Evie stopped, looking properly chastised. Tatianna was observing, a serene smile on her face that was almost worse than Evie’s zealous excitement. “I do not have a crush. I have an infatuation—they are entirely different things.”


    Tatianna blinked. “In what respect?”


    “Crushes are for children.”


    “I have crushes all the time,” Evie objected.


    Becky waved a hand at her. “See.”


    Tatiannaughed, and Evie stuck her tongue out.


    “Real mature, Evie.”


    Evie dipped into a mock curtsy. “My goal is never maturity. I’m not that jaded yet.”


    Becky put her hands over her face. “Oh, gods, I don’t even know why I bothered to ask.”


    Tatianna pulled her hands away from her face. “Rebecka, are you perhaps trying to seek counsel on how to pursue your…infatuation?”


    “No,” she said firmly.


    Evie lifted a brow. “No?”


    “No!” Rebecka yelled and then went silent.


    One second passed, then two, then three.


    Evie clicked her tongue. “Yes?”


    Becky threw her hands up and then back down. “Yes! Are you happy? I can’t speak to Rnd about this because then he will tell Reid, who will then tell Raphael, and then I will have to move kingdoms and change names.” Her eyes widened when it hit her. “Again!”


    Tatianna poured tea into a small teacup and handed it to her. It was still magically warm despite it not sitting anywhere near a stove. “Before you im another alias, why don’t we have a friendly chat and see if it helps?”


    “Shirley,” Evie said, tapping her chin.


    Tatianna and Becky both stared at her. “What?” they asked in unison.


    Evie looked between them. “Shirley would be a fun alias. It means meadow… Never mind, go on.” She smiled sheepishly, and Becky was gued with an annoying level of tender feelings of friendship for the human cannonball.


    “I’ve worked hard to make myself strong enough tobat my brothers, tobat the men in the office who doubted my caliber when I assumed my position. I’ve made myself so imprable to affection, I’m afraid that I’ve forgotten how to receive it. Or…how to give it.”


    Evie’s eyes softened. “Oh, Becky. You haven’t.”


    “What do you mean? How can you be so sure?”


    “Look at your hands.”


    Becky squinted down at them, turning her hands palm up and back around. There was nothing but a pink flower that had been painted on her by Lyssa earlier that morning while Becky was sorting through paperwork. “What? The paint?”


    Evie gave her a look that suggested Becky’s hopelessness, but instead of admitting to it, she merely picked up Becky’s hand and made her look at the flower again. “Aside from me, you’ve been kinder to my little sister than any other adult in her life. She adores you.”


    Becky felt her cheeks heat and hated the burst of tion at thepliment. “Lyssa is an easy audience.”


    Tatianna scoffed. “She locked re and me in a cupboard! I’d hardly call her easy.”


    Becky pped a hand over her mouth to trap the inappropriateughter. “She, um, she should not have done that, certainly.”


    The healer picked up another potion bottle, one in a funny shape and the color of melted gold. It nged against the others as she ced it into a bag. “I admire her audacity, and I am not without my own issues when ites to romantic entanglements. Seeing as I am still foolishly in love with my ex-betrothed.” Tatianna leaned against the wall by the window and slowly sank to the ground. Becky walked over to join her, and Evie did, too.


    The three of them sat quietly side by side. Becky had to admit, it was apanionable silence.


    “re still loves you.” Becky broke the quiet. “It’s obvious every time she looks at you.”


    Tatianna rubbed at one of her eyes, and some of the pink glitter on her lid was transferred to the back of her hand. “You are probably right. And at one point in our lives, that would’ve been more than enough. But adulthood brings with it far too manyplications to untangle.”


    Tatianna took hold of one of Becky’s hands, and Evie took the other.


    “In any case,” Tatianna added, “enough about me.” She looked at Becky expectantly.


    “I don’t know how to flirt,” Becky blurted, and Evie’s head now whipped around to look at her, too. “I have no idea how to be charming or witty without being scathing, and every time I talk to de I lose all my faculties. That’s why I came to you two.”


    Tatianna furrowed her brow and held up a hand, mock whispering behind it. “Have you seen Evie attempting to speak to Trystan? She doesn’t just lose her faculties—she loses her mind.”


    Evie appeared unable to argue, her lip twitching as she said gravely, “It’s true. I am ttered you think I have any idea what I’m doing, but truly, I hardly ever know what is going toe out of my mouth. Which has gotten me into as many bad situations as it has good ones.”


    Tatianna gave Evie a pointed look.


    Evie admitted, “Mostly bad ones.”


    “The point is, Rebecka, flirting is just a way to y and indicate your interest. There’s no right or wrong way to do that if the other person understands thenguage you’re speaking.”


    Becky sulked, releasing Tatianna’s hand to push one of her hairpins deeper into her bun. “We’re always speaking the samenguage.”


    “She means metaphorically, dear.” Evie squeezed her other hand, refusing to let go. “I would wager a guess that your direct manner of address is one of de’s favorite things about you. You don’t have to mold the way you speak to fit someone else’s ideal. de will like you as you are, and if he doesn’t, he is the worst kind of fool.”


    A warmfort made all her limbs feelnguid, her body rxing after releasing a tension that she may have been holding on to for years. A clear exnation for the headaches and the irritability.


    “It’s strange. I don’t think I’ve ever spoken this candidly with anyone. I adore my brothers, and we have our own sort of bond.” She looked back and forth between the women on either side of her. “But this is different, with women, I think. I never had sisters.”


    Tatianna leaned her head on Becky’s shoulder, and then Evie did the same. They sat there in silence for a few more moments, taking in a level of safety that only other women could give.


    “You do now,” Evie said.


    Becky’s heart felt like it was much too big for her chest.


    But that contentment died when Becky realized that now that she had something worth holding on to…


    Something—or someone—could take it all away.