I scowl at Balthasar. “I don’t want to.”
“I’m sorry,” he says. “Because I’ve really failed you if you believe it matters what you want to do.”
I just out my chin. “I’m your boss.”
“But you’re not your mother’s boss, and she set me to this task. Now stop throwing a fit and do it.”
I stare at the room full of coals and cringe. “They’re too hot. Can’t we wait until the flames go out, at least?”
Balthasar’s hand reaches out and shoves me right between my shoulder blades, knocking me forward a foot and a half. I sprawl onto my hands and knees, the burning coals searing my flesh immediately. The flames lick at my shorts and I scramble to my feet, patting at the fire before it can consume my clothing again.
I scream when my blistered palms burn even worse from putting out the fire.
“Move,” Balthasar barks. “You’re making this so much worse than it needs to be. Work smarter and you mitigate the pain. That’s the whole point.”
I stumble across the coals toward the other side of the room, the flames licking my calves and the heat rolling over the ruined soles of my feet and melting the skin on the tops. When I finally reach the far side of the burn box, I slide across the cool tile platform, slipping on the fat from my own body, and fall forward on my forearms. I’m too shaky and distracted to heal anything. I finally flop onto the cool floor, my face drinking in the contrast and my hands and feet shuddering involuntarily. I breathe in ragged breaths while I heal my muscle and skin, regrowing the hairs on my arms and legs last. Only then do I realize I didn’t put out the fire on my tank top quickly enough because my stomach pulses. Burned too. The smell of my own flesh roasting nearly causes me to puke. Balthasar would never let me hear the end of that.
I groan. “I hate the fire.”
“Which is exactly why we’re working on burns this entire month.” Balthasar walks across the coals as though they aren’t even there. He crouches down in front of me, the bottoms of his feet smoking. “You’re making things so much harder than they really are.” He lifts my chin with two fingers. “When you’re nine years old, everything seems unfair. But we are doing this for your own good, truly.”
“I’m only eight,” I correct him. “I don’t turn nine until five o’clock today.”
Balthasar smiles at me. “I was going to take it easy on you since it’s your birthday, but if it’s not your birthday yet. . .”
I jump up. “No, no, it is my birthday. It’s my birthday all day long.”
“Fine, fine. If you run back and forth three times in quick succession, I’ll assign you to finish your training in the kitchen with Angel. I hear she’s making a cake for you and Chancery. If you take everything out of the oven she needs removed today, without mitts of course, I’ll count that as your healing training for the day, and we’ll skip poison tolerance and detection entirely.”
My shoulders droop. “I have to do the entire course three more times?”
“You need to head back to complete this circuit, obviously.” Balthasar shrugs. “And then three more completions. But if you don’t want to run, I could shove you again. And of course, a full training session would be more than twenty—”
I hop to my feet and race to the other side, the soles of my feet livid. I ignore them. I try thinking of anything but my feet, but they heal slower that way, so I go back to focusing on them. “No,” I wheeze. “This is good. Thanks. Best birthday present ever.”
I hate fire. I hate burns. I hate the smell of melting flesh.
But at least it’s over quickly today. I fling my arms around Balthasar’s neck when I’m done. “Thank you, thank you. Really, truly.” I drop my voice to a whisper. “But could you do me one more favor?”
He taps my nose with a half grin on his face. “If you don’t tell your mother, I won’t either.”
I nod vigorously. “I won’t, I promise.” I practically fly down the hall to my room, where I shower away the smell of charred flesh, and change into something nicer so I won’t frighten the kitchen staff. I put on the white dress Mother gave me last week, my birthday dress she called it. I hate white, and I hate dresses, but I want Mother happy today. Because today’s the day I’m going to ask her.
I really want to take a trip with her, without my twin.
She takes Chancery on trips all the time. She just took her to a UN meeting so Chancery could practice the languages she has learned. I want to show Mother that I speak Italian and German and French, and a little Russian, too. I want to impress her, and I really think I can.
I practically skip down the hall toward Mother’s room, but then I hear a sound I hate. Chancery’s giggle. I slow down and creep silently the last twenty steps to the doorway. The door is hanging open a few inches. It’s enough for me to see them. Mother’s braiding Chancery’s hair in a circle around her head like a crown. Chancery yelps when Mother pulls too hard and Mother rolls her eyes.
“Stop being such a baby. You’re nine years old today. It’s time to toughen up.”
My chest tightens at the thought. She’s complaining about her hair being pulled. I spent the morning being burned alive.
Life isn’t fair.
Mother reminds me of that a lot. I shouldn’t expect the world to be something it isn’t. Even so, I can’t bring myself to barge into Chancery’s room and ask Mother to take me on a trip, especially not in front of her. I’ll sound like a sulky child. I’ll sound like Chancery, and that’s one thing I will never, ever do. I race past the doorway and on toward the kitchen.
Angel’s eyes widen when I push through the door, nearly knocking her over in my haste. “Uh, sorry,” I mumble.
“Happy birthday, child,” she says, grinning at me.
“Thanks,” I say. “Balthasar told me to report here. He says I’ve got to take everything out of the oven, no mitts.”
Angel bobs her head knowingly. “Better than racing back and forth over the coals.”
I nod vigorously. “Way better.”
“Your sister Melina hated fire too, you know.”
I shake my head. No one ever mentions her to me. I’m afraid if I say anything, Angel will stop talking.
“She was tough, like you.” Angel sniffs the air like a dog and I miss Destruction, my Great Dane. I left him in my room so he wouldn’t freak out during pain training. “Do you smell that?”
I shrug.
“The cakes are ready.”
I don’t groan, and I don’t whine. I walk over to the oven and open it. I take each of the cake pans out, one at a time, and place them on the stone counter. They burn my fingers, but I’m careful and methodical and it only burns my fingertips. It’s so much better than open flame and coals that I can almost pretend I’m just here to have fun.
“What else should we make?” Angel asks. “Because it’s not much of a party if all we have to celebrate is cake.”
“I’ve always loved frosted sugar cookies,” I say.
“Which ones?” Angel’s eyes sparkle.
“The thick ones, with the sprinkles.”
Angel beams at me. “Good girl. Why don’t you help me, and I’ll give you a whole plate to take to your room.”
My mother’s chef is one of the most patient people on Ni’ihau. She doesn’t complain when I add too much baking powder, and she lets me lick my fingers. My eyebrows rise. “My own plate?”
“We can even double the batch and you can eat some of the dough.”
My jaw drops.
Angel laughs. “Birthdays should be the best day of the year.” She doesn’t even shout a while later when I leave one pan in for too long. “They’re perfect for dipping.”
We’re having so much fun that she spends a little too long working on cookies.
“What’s that smell?” she asks Gabriela. “Why don’t I smell the prosciutto? Did you forget it? Because Beef Wellington without prosciutto is disgusting.”
Angel must have been taking it easy on me, because she rips into Gabriela, chewing her out a mile a minute. Her sous chef, Frances, comes over to help me with frosting the last batch. “You’re doing great,” he tells me. “Can you finish the last two dozen yourself?”
“Oh sure,” I say. But an idea takes shape in my mind. Mother never has time for me, because she’s always with Chancery. If I ever want to have a few hours to myself, a window to ask Mother for the trip I want, I’ll need something to incapacitate my twin. I’ve heard that humans sometimes don’t feel good and lay in their beds for days on end. They call it ‘getting sick.’
Evians never get sick, but maybe there’s another way.
“I’ll take these back to my room,” I say. “Angel said I can have some for me, and I can frost them there. Is that okay?”
Frances waves me off. I take a plate of unfrosted cookies in one hand, tuck a container of sprinkles in my pocket, and then squeeze a bowl of frosting under my other arm before I dash out the door.
A big, waxy-leafed oleander bush grows just outside my window. I have perfect recall, which is how I know the exact number of times Mother has warned me that it’s toxic. Eleven. With all those warnings, it’s interesting that she only mentioned the seed pods are flavorless once.
But of course, one time is all it takes.
I look around the yard outside to make sure no one’s watching before snatching a long, skinny seed pod. I press it until the sides split and collect the tiny popcorn kernel shaped seeds that burst free. Before I think about it too long and change my mind, I ignore every single one of those eleven warnings.
I swallow one.
And then I wait.
It takes way, way longer than walking on burning coals, but eventually my stomach begins to cramp. Then my heart rate accelerates, and my vision blurs a little. A pounding like a hammer on a nail starts inside my skull, and I focus on each symptom in turn, starting with my stomach, repairing the lining and pushing the poisonous little seed along through my system.
I rush to the bathroom, and by the time I’m done, I feel better.
Which means this is going to work perfectly. I suppress a pang of guilt when I crush four dozen seeds into pulp and then mix them into the frosting. It’s not as if this could kill Chancery. I already tested it. It will just make her feel what a human would call sick. I endure far worse every day as part of my training. So really, I’m helping her. And I’ll finally have a little time to myself while she writhes on her bed or huddles on top of a toilet bowl. All will finally be right with the world.
I eye the cookies critically. The frosting’s a little lumpy, maybe, but once I add sprinkles, Chancery will never notice. Once the frosting has set, I pile a dozen up on a plate. Then I wonder how many she might eat all at once. What if she gobbles them all? Could she actually die? I take off all but six. Six shouldn’t kill her, I’m pretty sure, and they’re pretty, arranged like a flower with five petals.
“What do you think?” I ask Destruction. He barks at me, as if giving me his seal of approval. “I agree. It looks perfect.”
But what if it’s not? After a few minutes agonizing over the presentation, I replace two cookies with regular ones. What if Chancery’s greedy and starving and bolts all six at once? I don’t want to be responsible for killing my own sister. Mother would never, ever forgive me, and I would miss her too. A little. She is kind of funny, with her melodramatic squawking and little compassion projects. Who knows? If I had as much time as she does, I might try to save sickly animals and doomed humans too. Probably not, but maybe.
I open the door and listen carefully for any sound that might clue me in to Chancery’s whereabouts. I’m listening so intently for my twin that I don’t even notice someone is leaning against the wall behind me until I notice a conspicuously close heartbeat. I whirl around.
Roman grins at me. “Careful or you might drop those.” He reaches for the plate. “You made cookies? I want one. They look awesome.”
I snatch the plate inward, toward my chest. “These aren’t for you.”
His eyebrows rise. “Uh, okay. Who are they for?”
I square my shoulders. “They’re for Chancery. It’s her birthday.”
“You made her a treat?” The incredulity in his voice bothers me. If no one believes me capable of making her something nice, they’ll immediately realize she’s sick because of me.
“I always make her something,” I say.
“Like what?”
“Well, last year I made her. . . cry.”
Roman laughs. “She’s such a baby.”
I haven’t ever given her anything before. People are going to figure this out. Maybe it’s a terrible idea. I should ask Roman for some help instead. He could distract Chancery so I can get Mother alone, and then I can ask her—
The bark of Chancery’s horribly trained mutt distracts me. I spin around to face my twin, my ill-conceived gift still in hand, Destruction sitting on his haunches behind me.
“Happy birthday, Chancery,” Roman says. “Judica made you a present.”
I turn sideways to glare at him.
“Like she always does,” he says, nodding his head.
He’s such an idiot.
“Uh, yeah,” I say. “Angel helped me. I made cookies. I thought you might like some.”
Mother’s only two steps behind Chancery, as always. “Judica, what a thoughtful thing to do. I am so proud of you.”
Chancery’s eyes light up. “You did? That’s so nice!”
A pang of horrible guilt clutches at my stomach. It hurts more than the stupid seed did. “Oh.” I trip over my own foot when I step toward her, nearly dropping my plate. I wish I’d actually thought to do that, although then her stupid dog would probably eat them and croak. Oh man, I’m lucky she’s not in the line of succession, so her dumb dog doesn’t test her food. I have no idea what the seeds might do to him. But no one feeds frosting to dogs, anyway. Right?
“Actually,” Chancery says, “I got you something too. While we were in New York at the general assembly meeting.” She reaches into her pocket and pulls out a tiny blue box. “When I saw it, I thought about us.” She blushes. “Well, our birthday, anyway. And you know, I just thought you’d like it. Maybe it’s kind of stupid.”
She got me a gift? From New York? Without knowing I’d give her anything? I want to sink into the ground and never come back up.
Chancery takes my plate and sets the box on my hand. Her grin is so large, I can practically see her back molars. I want to rewind the last two hours and not have this stupid idea in the first place, but now I’m not sure what to do about it. I can’t admit I tried to poison her, or it’ll be even worse than a stomach ache.
“Open it,” she says.
“Uh, okay. Sure.” I flip up the lid on the box, and there’s a necklace inside in the shape of the number eight.
“Do you like it?” She’s bouncing a little on the ends of her toes, just exactly like her terribly behaved dog, Fruity Pebbles.
“Um, I’m not sure I understand it. We’re turning nine, but it’s a number eight?”
Chancery’s laugh sounds like water bubbling from the ground in a freshwater spring, or the sound of tinkling wind chimes, or a nightingale’s trill. They’re all different sounds, but her laugh distills the essential element in each. It’s somehow fresh and innocent and delightful at once. She may be obnoxious and demanding, but I only hate her laugh because it never fails to make Mother beam. I avert my eyes so I don’t have to see it.
“No silly,” Chancery says. “It’s not the number eight. That’s the symbol for infinity.”
Right. Of course it is. Now I look idiotic. “Of course.”
“You still don’t get it.” She touches the side of my hand. “We’re sisters forever, you and me. More than sisters. We’re best friends forever. From Mom’s belly to the grave, you and I are the same, right down to our DNA. I got one for myself, too.” She pulls a chain out from under the collar of her dress. “See?”
I open my mouth, but words don’t come out. I snap it shut again.
“Plus,” she natters on, “the letters of our first name look like the necklace, kind of. The J hooks this way, and the C this way.” She waves her hands in the air. “Like the two sides of the infinity symbol, if you hook them in the middle. See how the chain pulls at the end of the symbol, like the letters of our name have been hooked together into one design?”
I swallow. I need to get away from her right now, or I’m going to tell her not to eat the cookies, and then I’ll have to tell her why. “Cool. Well, thanks. I better get ready. I’ve still got combat training and it starts soon.”
“Of course,” Chancery says. “Thank you so much for the cookies. Now I feel really bad that I didn’t make you something more personal. I’m so sorry. There’s always next year.”
“Right,” I say. “Always next year.”
I practically sprint down the hall to where Balthasar’s waiting to slice me into ribbons. This time, I don’t avoid his blade.
After a few miserable minutes, he yanks back and straightens from his crouch. “What’s going on with you?”
“What do you mean?” I ask.
“You’re not even trying. I’m carving you like a roast chicken. This isn’t pain or healing training, so what’s going on?”
I shrug. “I don’t know what you mean.”
Balthasar frowns. “Get your head in the game.”
This time, when his broadsword swings for me, I meet it with a double handed grip and gritted teeth. The impact travels up my arm, but I deflect his attack. I stop thinking and focus on the fight. Nothing matters here, in this ring. Not trips, or necklaces, or Mother or the throne or my duty.
A loud boom startles me out of my combat fury and I stumble. Balthasar turns toward the sound and I follow his gaze. Mother must have burst through the double doors so quickly that they flew into the walls behind them. Her eyes are blazing when they meet mine.
Oh no, did I miscalculate? Did I kill her? I can’t hide the fear in my eyes, so I drop them to my feet. “Is everything okay, Mother?”
“I recently searched your room.” Her voice is melancholic.
“Okay.” My hands tremble more than they did when I was healing the burns this morning. What if I killed her? What will Mom do?
“I found eight more cookies on your countertop. The frosting on two of them was laced with the same oleander seeds in the gift you made Chancery. Were you planning to poison anyone else? Or just your sister?”
I clear my throat. “Is she—”
“No. You didn’t kill her, thankfully. Only her dog.”
I open my mouth to tell Mother that I didn’t mean to kill Chancery or her dog. I open my mouth to apologize. But if I apologize, that means I made a mistake. That means my plan didn’t work as I intended. It means I’m not perfect. And that would be worse than being vicious, or angry, or jealous. It would mean I’m weak. Like my father. Admitting his fault and apologizing is something Eamon would have done.
I force the tension from my shoulders. I can’t apologize. I can’t make this right, and I have to live with that knowledge forever. I think about Destruction dying and close my eyes, but Mother can’t know I’m hurting. Mother can’t know my plans went awry. What would I say if I wanted to kill Chancery, but failed? What would I say if I tried to do what Mother thinks I did?
For a split second, I consider what Chancery would do in my place. She’d run past Mother, ignoring her vexation, and chase me down. She’d fall at my feet and apologize. She’d probably confess that she was jealous and wanted time with Mother on her own. Then she’d beg for my forgiveness with a few tears to season the entire thing. If I did that, we could be friends. But Mother would remove me as Heir.
And Mother loves Chancery, not me. Mother spends her time voluntarily with Chancery, not me. So I wouldn’t be Heir anymore, and I wouldn’t be beloved, either. I’d be caught with nothing. A cheap facsimile of my twin, not inherently sweet, not strong enough to deal with the realities of the throne.
Mother would have no use for me at all.
So I say what I must. I killed my sister’s dog, which is sickening, unforgivable, but my sister is still alive. “Well, there’s always next time.” I choke down the disgust I feel. I bury the regret. Instead I focus on my frustration, my resentment, my jealousy. I fan it until my eyes spark and my fingers tingle. “I guess there’s some sport in that, right?”
Mother crouches down in front of me. “No, Judica, this isn’t a game. There can’t be a next time. You must promise me that. You must never try to kill your sister again.”
I try not to, but the frown shoves its way through, pulling the corners of my lips downward. “What if she betrays me? What if she’s a threat to me? To you? To Alamecha? What then?”
Mother shakes her head. “You mustn’t ever kill your sister. She would never betray you, or me, or Alamecha. Never. Do you hear me?”
I nod, tightly, not having to try quite so hard to expand my resentment. “I hear you.” I sound practically sullen.
“You don’t need to fret over this. I’m drawing up paperwork today that will name you as Heir, formally. Chancery isn’t a threat to you. You know that, right?”
I should be reassured. Mother clearly wants me to feel better about things. She’s worried and wants to protect darling, perfect, contrite Chancery. But I’m smart enough to know that if Mother can draw up paperwork naming me, she can also change that paperwork. Which means it’s completely worthless. Pointing that out is probably equally useless. “Yes, Mother. I believe you.”
She pats my head. “Good girl. I don’t expect you to do anything about this, because I don’t think anything you do or say would be well received, but your sister is very upset right now.”
She loved that stupid dog. I liked Pebbles too. He always licked my hand and bumped my leg so I would scratch him behind his ears. I didn’t mean for him to die, but she thinks I meant to kill her, my own sister. “I know.” My lower lip wobbles.
Mother’s mouth tenses. “The thing is.” She clears her throat.
“You want me to apologize to her.”
Mother nods. “That might help, but we might need to wait and do that tomorrow.”
“What am I supposed to do at our party tonight?” I ask. “Ignore her?”
“That’s the thing,” Mother says. “She doesn’t want you there.”
I open my mouth, but I have no idea what to say. She’s right. I tried to force Mother to spend time with me, cutting Chancery out. It’s fitting that I should miss this celebration, lose out on even more time with Mother for my selfishness. Not that it fixes anything, but I get it.
“I told her you should be allowed at your own party,” Mother says. “Of course. But I think I have a solution that will work out better for everyone. We’ll host your party first. You can greet everyone, and spend some time with your friends.”
Is she really so clueless she thinks I have friends? “Okay.”
“And then after an hour and a half, you can return here, to your room, and Chancery will come out. You can both enjoy the party, but we don’t agitate her further,” Mother says.
I hate the idea. Chancery gave me a necklace an hour ago to tell me she’ll always be my best friend. I grab my shirt, feeling the metal underneath. But my options are to apologize and explain it was all a huge mistake, that I was simply greedy for time alone, or to let this stand.
In a bizarre way, I’m getting what I want. I won’t be sharing my party. But for the first time ever, I’m realizing that if I don’t share, I get half the time I had before. I thought I knew what I wanted. I thought I was being smart.
I was an idiot.
And yet, when Mother stands up to leave, she looks at me with respect in her eyes. I’m terribly afraid that she’s proud of me for trying to kill my sister. Which is both undeserved and unwanted. I’ve never wanted to blurt out the truth more than I do right now. I want to beg Mother to forgive me, beg her to plead with Chancery to understand.
Chancery won’t look at me with respect. She won’t blush and give me corny jewelry. She’ll look at me with loathing, with contempt, and maybe even with fear. I swallow and force myself to meet Mother’s gaze calmly.
Because any kind of apology Chancery would accept would require me to admit that I made a mistake. A fierce queen is respected. A ruthless queen is feared. A terrifying queen is obeyed. But a flawed one? She’s replaced. I’ve learned my lesson for this year.
Be perfect at all costs. Even when it hurts more than burning coals.