I woke with a start.
Lavendra’s face stared down at me in the dark. Behind her, through my room’s window, I could see the moon still sitting in the middle of the sky.
“Lavendra, what are you . . . ? Do you need something?” I said as I tried to orient myself. I wasn’t dreaming. Lavendra was really here. But why? What was she doing here in the middle of the night?
“You’re going to take my place, Shadow,” she said without preamble. “I don’t know whether you saved me or cursed me when you took my place. But I have decided it’s the former. You gave me my freedom. You gave me a reason to leave this place. Can I let you in on a little secret?”
I sat up in the bed. I saw her valise stuffed messily to the brim. She was leaving. This was her version of goodbye.
I nodded.
“There was part of me that always envied Shadows,” she said in a hush.
“How? Why?” I asked, thinking of the time we’d spent together. There had never been a moment when it felt like she wanted to trade places with me.
“Before, you got to live here without any expectations. You never had to Become. You could just be,” she explained.
I had never just been. I had been born into the expectations of the Entente, and since they were gone I had lived under my own self-imposed expectation for vengeance. There was no rest for me.
“But have you thought of what it really means to Become? What it really means to devote your whole life to another who you don’t really know? Take away the pomp and circumstance and the big black palace. And he’s just another boy. One that you never got to choose for yourself.”
Lavendra’s words struck a chord. I had never thought about what it was like for her. But I was still on the defensive, thinking of how it had been for me.
“You have no idea who I am. You never bothered to ask,” I returned. I couldn’t help it—the words tumbled out of me after five long years of staying quiet for Lavendra, copying her every gesture, serving her every whim.
“You’re right,” she said.
I was stunned. Lavendra had never backed down to a contrary idea once in all our time together.
“And maybe I have no idea who I am either. I’ve spent my whole life preparing to be loved by one person, and you’ve spent so much of yours trying to please me . . . It is such a mess. But neither one of us created it,” she added.
I felt my chest constrict with guilt. I had not created the Couterie, but I had created the circumstances that were sending Lavendra out into the night and away from everything she had ever known.
“I never really thought about you and me having anything in common except our faces. But I couldn’t have been more wrong. I’ve been serving the idea of the prince. And you’ve been serving me . . . What could I have done with all those years—all that energy? What could I have made, or built, or learned? What could you have? I know more about the prince than I know about myself. I am the product of his likes and dislikes, not my own. What else do you know, Farrow?”
I inhaled sharply. I’d actually been serving my own revenge. But she was right, we had both devoted ourselves wholly and entirely to a cause. In her case, she’d decided that cause was no longer worth pursuing.
Had she really changed? Was this a trick? If Lavendra could change her mind and heart, what else was I wrong about . . . about humans . . . about my plan . . . ?
“You don’t have to go,” I blurted, refocusing on her. I stilled my hand, which I realized was tapping at my leg.
I wanted to tell her that this was temporary. That I only needed to be Couterie for one night. Just long enough to get to the Queen. But I couldn’t tell her. I couldn’t risk the plan. But as much as I didn’t like her, as much as I remembered her selfishness and her moments of unkindness, I didn’t necessarily want to send her out into the harsh realities of the Queendom.
“I know we have never been friends, Farrow. But if you want to come with me, I think that my purse would be enough to cover your passage as well . . .”
I forced myself to breathe. I had never imagined this. She was extending her hand to me. I could feel the call of what she was suggesting . . . Run away from the plan, run away from the Hinter. Run away from the pain and loss and hurt. And just start over . . .
“I know this sounds crazy. I know I have been less than kind.”
“That is an understatement.”
“Yes, it is,” she said, with meaning. “But there is a whole world out there. One where we make our own expectations.”
“I can’t. My place is here.”
“But if I deserve more . . . then so do you, Farrow.”
I shook my head. “I can’t explain it. But this is where I need to be,” I said.
She took a long beat to consider me.
“Then maybe you’ll be a better me than I was,” she added. And with that, she gave me a kiss on the cheek.
“Goodbye, Farrow.”
“Goodbye, Lavendra,” I returned as she closed the door behind her.
I rushed to the window. A few minutes later I saw her emerge from the back door of the Couterie, suitcase in hand, and disappear into the night.