Chapter 2

Aria drops the act the moment she walks in.

She barges into the bedroom Caspian and I share and starts hauling everything that smells like me out into the yard. The little woven rings I braided myself. The protection charm I slipped under his pillow. I spend weeks on that damn charm — every stitch counts. Now she crushes it under her heel like it's garbage.

I stand there frozen, watching her rip my life apart like she's gutting a bird. Caspian stands right beside her. He doesn't stop her. He laughs softly and helplessly, like he thinks this is just some cute tantrum that means nothing. Then he glances at me, casual as breathing.

"Let her blow off steam," he says. "I owe her. If she breaks something, I'll replace it."

My throat tightens. "…Don't bother. It's nothing." My voice is thin.

For a second he actually looks at me — really looks. Irritation flickers across his face, but he can't name why. He says nothing else.

Outside, the little row of vegetables I planted sits trampled. He used to tease me about the garden, told me it was silly to spend time on dirt when we could just buy food. Still, he goes out one morning and quietly puts up a low fence around it to keep deer and kids from wrecking it.

Aria stomps right over the seedlings. She snatches my bra off the clothesline and holds it up between two fingers like it's something disgusting.

"You actually hang this out?" she snarls. "You want the whole settlement to see what you're packing?"

She drops it in the dirt and grinds her heel into it. Caspian laughs. He watches her like a man watching a favorite toy. He never looks at me.

I pull my shoulders up without thinking. For the first time, I feel ashamed of my own body.

She's still not finished. Aria prowls the yard again, hunting for the last piece of evidence that I exist. Her eyes land on the wicker basket in the corner — the one I bring out so the snakelings can nap in the sun, because I'm afraid it'll be too stuffy inside.

My stomach drops. I shout before my brain catches up. "The snakelings are in there — don't—!"

She already has it over her head.

I lunge. Too slow.

Aria flinches, trips backward, about to fall —

A dark shape flashes past and catches her. The basket tips. My snakelings tumble out like fruit shaken from a branch.

They are so tiny. So small they make no sound when they hit the ground. Only the biggest one — startled awake — lets out a thin, scared hiss.

"My snakelings!" I drop to my knees. I'm scooping them up, fingers shaking, pulling all three into my arms. They're shaking too. Tiny tails curl around my fingers like lifelines. The biggest one has a scrape on his forehead. A bead of blood seeps through his skin.

I can't breathe.

Caspian was closer to that basket than me. He could have gotten to it first. He could have stopped her.

But he doesn't. He reaches for Aria. He catches her. He lets our snakelings hit the dirt. He doesn't flinch. He doesn't even blink.

Until now, I keep telling myself the nights matter. The hunger. The way he wraps his tail around me. I cling to those memories like a life raft. I think they're proof of love.

But now my hands are shaking, my snakelings's blood warm against my skin, and I can't pretend anymore.

Maybe I was wrong about everything.