We reconvene in the dining room. Miss Ava sits at the head of the table, Miss Lilly at the foot; I’m reminded of our family dinners, except instead of Keol at her right hand it’s Penny and Abigala is at her mother’s.

I sit between my sister and Nua. Bayan and Sloan stand against the wall despite the fact that there are two empty seats on Penny’s side. Ava rests her elbow on the armrest and rubs her thumb and forefinger together. It’s deathly quiet for a minute, and then Ava presses the tips of her fingers together. “Fine, I’ll go first.”

All eyes turn to her as she stands, and she gestures to the empty chairs. “Bayan, Sloan, join us.”

They glance at each other, and then Sloan slowly takes the seat further away from Penny. Bayan follows, sitting between them. He does not look at Miss Lilly.

“Okay,” says Ava, pacing behind her chair. “First of all, mother, who’s the boy in the kitchen?”

I blink. Nua looks just as surprised, and Penny looks over to the kitchen door. But Miss Lilly just raises her eyebrows, and then says, “His name is Taymer. I needed someone to take care of the house, after you left me, Bayan.”

Bayan does not look at her, even though she looks at him. Ava looks at him too, and after a moment she says, “Second of all, where’s my cat?”

Lilly blinks. At this Bayan rises from the table and slips out of the room. Ava watches him go, and then moves on. “Alright, then, let’s backtrack. Four years ago, where were we?”

No one answers.

“Aber, how old were you?”

I blink, glancing at Abigala, who says quietly, “Fifteen.”

“Nua?”

“Seventeen,” he answers.

“Wonderful,” says Ava, stopping her pacing only for a split second. “Keol was twenty, and four years ago, Penny, we were sixteen.”

Penny swallows.

“That was when they told me I was sick,” continues Ava. “When we were sixteen. My lungs - not these ones, but my lungs - had those little black spots on them. They didn’t know what they were. So we decided - you decided - to pack us all up and move us far away. To here.”

She raises her eyebrows at her mother and brother, but neither argue.

“So for a while,” she says, “this table was me” -she points to her empty chair- “her” -she points to her mother- “and him.” She points to Penny. “But wait,” she says, as if any of us were protesting. “I should add that when we were, what, six or seven, you bought Bayan. It was that action that catapulted you to the top of your department, to get you right where you wanted to to run the agencies, right? Because you had exposed the corruption of the system, by participating in it. He was only, what, ten years old?”

“Eleven, Miss Ava,” says Bayan softly. I startle slightly, not having noticed him come in again. He’s cradling Shiv the cat in his arms, and then kneels down to let her jump softly to the floor. She slips under the table and then emerges a few seconds later, hopping lightly onto Ava’s chair, and curls up as Bayan sits next to Sloan again.

“Right,” she agrees. “So anyway, Mother moves us here, to the beach, and you were afraid, weren’t you, that Penrin was going to get sick. Not because you cared about his well-being or anything, but because you were planning on selling him away when he turned eighteen.”

Ava’s mother doesn’t react to any of this. So Ava keeps going.

“So before you started coughing, like I did,” she says, looking at Penny, “she traded you away. She gave you to that woman. We were only seventeen. And the table,” she adds, looking back to her mother, “was just you and I.

“But when we moved, you brought your assistant from work, right, Mother? And she had a lovely young son, only a year and a half older than Penny and me, and we had been friends for years, because they lived with us. But Owen’s mother started to get a little antsy by then, didn’t she? Her son was almost twenty. Wouldn’t now be a good time to give him away? And to whom? So I, having gotten it through my little brain what was going on, volunteered.

“Which made you mad, didn’t it?” Ava asks, bracing her hands on the table and glaring down the length of it at her mother. “You didn’t want him at our table. You didn’t approve of him, thought he wasn’t good enough for your grandchildren, but I wanted him. I wanted him safe, and you wanted me to listen to you. So you compromised. We agreed, eventually, on one condition. Keol.

“Me,” she says again, pointing to her chair, “you. Owen,” she says, pointing to the seat that Penny’s sitting in, “and Keol.” She points to Nua’s chair. “You picked him for me, which I suppose could have ended up a lot worse. But Owen wasn’t happy, because you scared him. First you fired his mother, and then you start to threaten him. So after a while, he kills himself. And we’re left with the three of us.”

Everyone is quiet for a moment. I see Penny squeeze his eyes shut, and then open them again.

“So a couple months after that, you come along,” says Ava, turning her attention on Nua. “But you didn’t like me because, well, obvious reasons, and I didn’t like you, either, because you weren’t Owen. So we ignored each other, but Mother was satisfied enough, because by that point, I was with Keol.

“But then, years passed. I never got pregnant. My fault, or his? Who knows. Probably you, Mother, but you decided anyway that it was high time for another chair to join the table. And that, Aberworth, is where you and Abigala come in.

“But it isn’t really, is it?” Ava says, staring now at Abigala. “That’s not it at all. None of this is a coincidence. In fact, Aber, you’ve been a bargaining chip in this game longer than any of us even knew it was being played. Because for years, as part of Mother’s work, she’s been going to shelters. Different houses around the city where people harbor runaways. And on one of these occasions, she chances to meet” -she clasps her hands together and points her index fingers down the table- “Abigala.”

Ava raises her eyebrows in question at her mother, who doesn’t react.

“She was perfect, wasn’t she? Young and pretty and so desperate to escape her sorry excuse of a life that she became my mother’s project. Her second daughter, in a way, especially since the first one was so disappointing. And Abigala spilled. Everything. She leapt at everything my mother dangled over her head and gave all kinds of information that someone as diabolical as you, mother, should never have access too. And when was this? How old were you?”

I glance at Abigala, who’s staring at her fingers. Tears are filling her eyes, and she shakes her head, then whispers, “I dunno. Sixteen.”

“So I was eighteen. After I married Owen. And unlike me, this girl was so devoted to you, this naive teenager who knew nothing about the real world, which of course made her that much easier to exploit. Mother found out the reason she was so interested in these shelters that they both found themselves at. It was because her parents ran their own. So Mother raided her home. Kidnapped the boys. Every. Last. One of them.”

She’s staring at me now. I’m staring at Abigala, who refuses to look at me or anyone. Her fingers are twisting on her lap, and I tilt my head back, looking at the ceiling. Ava just keeps going. “But for Abigala, it was perfect. It was the opportunity she had been waiting for. Because now she could get a real job, doing real things, in the government, and she had the perfect mentor for it. You saw her resume, Aber, don’t you remember? She applied to be the ‘Assistant to the National Agencies Director,’ and she got it, of course.”

I look at her, and then at Abigala, who doesn’t say anything. Ava leans her hands on her chair. “But that meant more to me when I found it out than it did to you when you first did, Aber,” she says quietly, “because you didn’t know who the National Agencies Director was.” She gestures to her mother. “Now you do.”

If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.

I grit my teeth. Abigala stares pointedly ahead, tears brimming in her eyes, and I can feel anger in my stomach. What right does she have to cry right now? But Ava just leans her elbows on the back of her chair, looking down the table at her mother. “So that’s how it all came together, Aber, and neither of us knew it until we were already married for, like, a month. But there are still a few things. I have two questions for you, mother: What did you do to Keol, and why did I pick Aber?”

At this point, Lilly laughs. “Excuse me?”

“You let me choose,” says Ava. “For the first time, you let me choose who I would marry, and somehow anyway I ended up with the man you wanted for me all along. I know you’re manipulative, but I didn’t know you actually had the power to control people’s minds.”

“Oh, always over-dramatic, aren’t you,” sighs her mother. “Ava, dear, sit down. You’re making me nervous, all that pacing.”

“Just answer me,” says Ava, continuing to stand.

Lilly sighs again, standing up as well. “Alright, then, if you really want it. But first, answer me. When did you start smoking?”

Ava blinks, and she laughs. “Please, dear, don’t assume I didn’t notice. In fact, it made everything a lot easier.”

“What?”

“When, Ava, dear?” asks Lilly again, and Ava’s nostrils flare. “After Owen died. I was eighteen. He should’ve been twenty.”

“For two years you just couldn’t kick the habit, could you?” says Lilly. “Despite your bad lungs. So I figured I could use it to my advantage.”

Ava clenches her jaw. “Mother.”

Her mother grins slightly. “You started taking medicine, didn’t you?” she asks. “When you were seventeen, for your lungs. But then you started smoking, and your dear mother started to get worried. So I upped your dosage. Or rather, I added another pill for you to swallow each day.

“But then you noticed Keol started coughing, so you decided that the best thing to do was to give him half of your medication. Now, Ava, you needed this new medication, once you were on it. You couldn’t just quit like that. And you just happened to give the new pill to Keol. It all would have been fine, wouldn’t it, if you chanced to choose the keep the new pill every day and give your original meds to him. But no, you took the new little red pills to give to him, and your body started to protest.”

“You cut me off,” Ava whispers. “You stopped getting the new meds when you…”

“Found out Keol was taking them,” her mother finishes with a slight grin. “No one had ever quit that medication so abruptly, and it was so new, I didn’t know what would happen.

“Turns out, he died. And then you refused to take any of your medication too, after that. You got worse in the lungs, my dear, but that’s not how he died, not why. Your beloved second prominent, he died from withdrawal.”

Ava lets out a shuddering exhale. “He was twenty-four. He was getting close, and you…”

“He had problems long before he should’ve,” says Lilly. “I admit I made a mistake in choosing him, he was unhealthy, he wasn’t fit to be a husband. You could’ve been a mother by now if not for him, and the fact that you never took Nua. I’m surprised you never took Bayan, to be quite honest, he was healthy enough, but now he’s past his time. You could’ve told Keol that Bayan’s children were his.”

Bayan stares at the table, his jaw clenching, and Ava’s mouth drops open. She glances at him, and then back to her mother, and says, “How could you think that I would-”

“You knew what you needed to do, Ava,” says Lilly, her eyes flashing. “It doesn’t matter how you got there, as long as you did. But you didn’t even try.”

Ava looks at her, her breaths starting to come heavy. Her eyes dart around to me, to Bayan, to her brother, and then back to Lilly. She exhales, and then says again quietly, “Why did I pick Aber?”

Lilly laughs a little. “Ava, you were ditzy. The medication made you stupid. You blamed everything on me, and your only drive in life was to get revenge on me, in any possible way. You tried to save your husband’s life, you care too much about these boys. All I had to do was put an eighteen-year-old among a bunch of fourteen-, fifteen-, sixteen-year-olds, and I knew you’d take him to save the younger ones. Even if he was clean.”

I swallow. I see Abigala glance at me out of the corner of my eye.

“Although,” continues her mother, “he’s not exactly as clean now as he was, is he?”

Abigala looks at me again. I don’t look at her.

Ava’s nostrils flare. “So what happened to those other boys?” she asks. “Do they all have twin sisters too, out there somewhere, with your ideas of magical fantasy swirling around in their heads, waiting for you to come back with the promise that their brothers are safe?”

She chuckles. “No, dear. Those were boys from shelters, or orphans, normal ones you’d think of when you think husband. Aber was the only special one there, thanks to his sister and all she promised me.”

Penny has his eyes squeezed shut again, and he presses his fists pressed against his head. Nua is staring at the other wall across from us. I’m trying not to look at Ava or Abigala or her mother but I can see my sister out of the corner of my eye, biting her thumbnail as she slowly pieces together all the swirling elements of our lives.

“You killed Keol,” Ava finally whispers quietly. “You killed Owen, you could’ve killed Penny. You wanted everyone I had dead, so all I’d have left was you.”

The twins’ mother smiles. “No, my dear. I loved you and I wanted you happy. But you killed them. It was your illness that could’ve gotten Penny sick. It was your insistence on marrying Owen that kept him here and your medication that hooked Keol. He didn’t love you for you, you know. He loved you for all that you gave when you let him into your bed in the night and for the pills you slipped him in the morning, and when they stopped coming, he died with the thought of your betrayal on his mind.”

Ava’s broken. There are tears streaming down her cheeks with her mother’s words, and after a moment of staring at each other, her mother falls back into her chair with a sigh. “Leave, Ava, I’m sick of you for the day.”

She doesn’t answer. She just presses her lips together, and then turns and runs from the room.

Penny, Nua, Sloan, Bayan, Aber, Shiv the cat. All jump up to follow her, leaving Abigala and the twins’ mother sitting alone at the table. We hear her feet on the stairs and Penny follows, and once again I’m being led to Ava’s old bedroom. She almost closes the door in her brother’s face, but he manages to catch it, and pushes inside. “Ava.”

“It’s my fault, it’s my fault, it’s all my fault,” she says breathlessly, tears streaming down her face. She’s running her fingers through her hair, making it more rumpled and messy than it was before, and Penny grabs her arm. “Ava, it’s not-”

“It’s all my fault, it’s all my fault,” she says again, her voice rising. “Penny, I did this, I let her do this, I was the one who gave him the pills, I can’t…I could’ve…”

“Ava,” says Penny firmly, holding her by the shoulders so she’s looking straight at him. “Stop. It’s not your fault. It’s hers. You know that.”

Ava takes a shuddering breath, and then slips out of Penny’s grasp to sit right down on the floor, right in the middle of her bedroom. Shiv curls up on her lap and Penny kneels next to her. “Hey.”

“Bayan, I wouldn’t’ve hurt you,” she murmurs, burying her face in her hands, and he exhales shakily, and nods. “I know, Miss Ava.”

“Abigala stole my room,” she says into her fingers, and Penny looks up at me. I nod. He laughs in slight disbelief. “Alright. All right, fine, you know what, Ava, it’s your room. So here’s what’s going to happen. Bayan and Nua are going to help me change the sheets on your bed while you go take a shower, because I know you love showers and haven’t had a shower in a while, have you?”

Ava shakes her head slightly.

“Come on,” says Penny, grasping her wrist and standing up. Ava’s pulled up too, and she wipes her eyes, stares at her brother for a moment, and then goes into the bathroom and closes the door behind her.

“Bayan,” says Penny tiredly, “can you grab the sheets?”

He nods, slipping out of the room, and I tilt my head, watching the cat lick her paws. “What am I supposed to do?”

“You need to go talk to Abigala,” he says, glancing at me. I raise my eyebrows. “I literally just did that.”

“You need a better explanation than all of that,” he says. “I’m sorry, but this…this is…just go talk to her. I know she wants to talk to you.”

I exhale, then nod. “Where is she?”

“Your old room, Master Aber,” says Bayan, slipping back into the room with an armful of fabric. Nua takes some from him. “Again, Bayan, not masters.”

“It’s Lilly,” says Penny, throwing back the heavy red comforter of Ava’s bed. “She’s a bitch, but worse, she’s scary.”

“Hey, were you ever gonna tell us that your full name is Penrin?” asks Nua, but when Penny glares at him he looks away to hide his grin. Bayan smiles slightly.

“Penrin LeGatte,” I repeat. “Ava and Penrin. I kinda like it, to be honest.”

Nua stifles a laugh and Penny rolls his eyes. “If you want to be Aber, I get to be Penny.”

I raise my hands in surrender, but Nua can’t keep a straight face, and I hear him laugh as I go into the hallway. I leave the door open, and the door at the other end of the hallway, the door to Nua and my’s old room, is open too. The hallway still smells faintly of smoke, and I run my hands over the windowsills as I pass. The beds are perfectly made, just as Bayan left them, and I turn the lamp on in between them. This is the first time in a long time I’ve been perfectly and truly alone; I think about Haywood, and Alis. I take a deep breath, looking over to where Keol’s room is; the door is shut. The shower starts up in the bathroom, that door is shut too.

I wait.