“No,” I say. “It was cruel of our Sister, an act of retribution. You did not deserve to have this curse placed upon you. But I am offering you a way out. And if you deny my help, you will have no one but yourself to blame for your coming misery.”
My Sister can’t seem to help herself. She glances again at the mortal man, as if waiting for some last-minute confession—a moment she’s probably played in her head a million times through the faces and voices of dozens of different men, all wearing similar features.
And then she stops. As if she catches herself in what she’s doing—the foolish desperation of it—as the mortal stares at her in disgust.
“Make it fast,” she says, her restraint evident.
The mortal calls out to me. “Darling, are you sure about that? I do not trust her.”
“I do not either,” I say. “But neither do I fear her.”
I snap open the adamant restraints, and they clank as they hit the ground. Anxiety wells up in me—that my Sister will make the wrong decision, that she will betray me.
Instead, she reaches out her hands, her shadows joining with mine. The power that thrums through me, I assume thrums through her as well, by the way she gasps.
A third of that power is still missing, and I wonder what our father had in store when he created us. What he had in mind that will never be completely fulfilled.
She tenses at first, then releases, surrendering to our power.
Inside her, I can feel the curse. It is darker than a shadow. More solid. It is a disease, multiplying and growing, a parasite that has made itself necessary for the survival of the host. It tastes of faerie dust, like the high I used to get from it back when I was only mortal.
That is what she feels when she looks at the mortal man. But there is a bite at the end—one I am all too familiar with as well.
My Sister cannot shed true tears. None of us can. It is not the sort of thing shadows do. But she does let out a sob.
I reach deep within her, yank at the curse, at the design. I feel her let me in. Feel her allow the walls to crumble—not entirely; she doesn’t seem to have the strength for that.
But she does have enough strength to show me the path forward.
I can see now why it would have been difficult for her to release it on her own. It is wrapped around her soul. It infuses her very being. It is a cancer, and when I remove it, it will take part of the organ with it.
But if souls are like kidneys, it will regrow with time.
I whisper as much to her, though she has so decoupled her mind and body in an effort to resist clinging to the curse that she does not seem to hear me.
Its slick tendrils wrap around her soul, and I pry at them with shadows like greedy fingers until there is only one left. But I find I do not have enough shadows to grasp that one. It is too strong, too desperate.
“You have to help me,” I say into the darkness.
I receive no answer.
“Sister, you have to help me if you want to be free.”
There is a great cry—a shriek—one I have only ever heard from a mortal’s mouth. With one last strained tug, with the help of my Sister, we drag the curse away from her heart.
Light pours around me, and we are back in the room, the two of us heaving as we stare at the blotch, the illness. The curse.
It is revolting, a bulbous growth the color and consistency of tar, its spider-like legs clawing at the slick ground, trying and failing to find traction there.
“That… That was inside of me? All this time?” asks my Sister, looking repulsed. “It always…” She stops herself and looks around to see if she can trust us. “I always imagined it to be so beautiful.”
The mortal man brings his foot down upon the creature. It squelches, blood seeping into the floor.
“Just in case you got any ideas,” he says to the Middle Sister.
She doesn’t answer. She just shakes her head slightly.
I’ve never seen my Middle Sister ashamed, but that is the only way I can describe how she looks now. I still cannot see her face. But I can tell from the movement of her shadows, slinking behind her, hiding in the dark corners of the room.
