“It’s my library,” Embla said. “I know everything that happens inside its walls.”
“Why didn’t you say anything?”
“At first I wasn’t sure what you were up to, but I decided if it was something important enough for you to steal into my room, hide under my bed, root through my things, and take my spare key, then it was something that didn’t require my interference.”
Blood drained from my face. “Do you have hidden cameras?”
Embla smiled and shook her head. “No. Just a good sense of when things go amiss in the room I’ve lived in for twenty years. You smell like a summer day, Solina. After all that smoke and soot, you were like an air freshener. Also, I haven’t cleaned under my bed since the fire, but there was a large patch absent of dust and soot in the vague size and shape of a young woman.”
I blushed with mortification. “Well there goes my CIA application after all.” All that sneaking around for nothing. Why couldn’t I just sink into the floor and disappear?
Embla turned to Skyla again. “I suppose Ariel wasn’t the only ghost you were thinking about last night either, was it?”
“What do you mean?”
“Your mother.”
Skyla’s face slackened, and her mouth fell open. “What are you saying?”
“Solina found the evidence, didn’t she? A picture of you as a sweet, young girl. I know each of those photographs as a mother knows her children’s names, and I know when one goes missing. It seems you’ve learned more than you bargained for in your search for that key.”
“Why do you have those pictures?” Skyla asked.
Embla shrugged. “Because. Your mother was my sister, and I am your aunt.”
The room went silent and airless as a vacuum.
“M-my mother was an only child,” Skyla said after overcoming her shock.
“It would seem that way, but no, she was my little sister. We had an older sister, too, but she died as a baby. Your mother never knew her.”
I saw a similarity in their looks—matching eye shape and bone structure. They shared the same distinct chin and jaw lines. Embla’s skin tone was darker and cooler, and her black curls were tighter and a little coarser. Skyla’s Puerto Rican genes added amber tones to her skin and lightened her hair color several shades, but their genetic relationship was obvious once it was pointed out.
“My mother never mentioned you,” Skyla said.
“She wouldn’t. It’s the side effect of leaving the Aerie.”
“My mother was a stay-at-home mom. She was on the PTA and baked cookies for fundraisers. What do you mean she left the Aerie?”
“Kara was Valkyrie,” Embla said, “just like me. She was my sister, my closest friend. Our mother died not long after Kara’s birth. The Valkyries showed up a few days after her death and told Kara and me what we were. They took us to the Aerie to raise us and train us. We never saw Father after that—I barely remember him. Your mother and I were inseparable… until your dad came along. That girl fell hard and fast. A man in uniform has a way of doing that.”
“So,” I said, “no coincidence you followed in your father’s footsteps.”
Skyla pulled a face. “He wasn’t going to raise any princesses.”
“That explains a lot.”
Skyla ignored me and turned back to Embla. “She sure didn’t seem like any of the Valkyries I’ve met so far.”
“The sword I gave you yesterday belonged to her,” Embla said. “I wanted to tell you, but I didn’t know how. The Valkyries’ existence is supposed to be a close-guarded secret. If a sister chooses to leave the order, she has to take a vow of silence.”
“Who would believe her anyway?” Skyla asked. “To anyone but us, it would sound crazy.”
“Still, the sisterhood takes no chances. If a woman chooses to leave, she has that freedom, but she must keep our secret. It’s more than a simple promise that binds her tongue. She’ll be physically unable to speak of it, and eventually her memories of us will fade.” Embla gave Skyla a meaningful look. “By the time you came along, the Valkyries were a distant memory to her—more like a dream. She wouldn’t have spoken of us. She couldn’t have.”
Skyla frowned at Embla. “What could have made her want to leave this?”
Embla shrugged. “Love.”
“Oh, gag me. My mom and dad fought like cat and dogs.”
“That doesn’t mean they didn’t love each other.”
“Bullshit,” Skyla said. “He spent as much time as possible away from us.”
“What about when she got sick? He was there for her.”
“How would you know?”
Skyla had never offered much information about her past, and I had never had the guts to ask. Truthfully, I had let my problems overwhelm me, and I hadn’t spent much time worrying about Skyla’s background. That was self-centered of me, perhaps, but there in the Valkyries’ kitchen, I found Skyla’s lineage intensely interesting. Val looked equally intrigued.
“You never saw me,” Embla said, “but I was there. I watched her. I watched you.”
Skyla’s cheeks flushed a deep, angry crimson. “Why wouldn’t you tell me? You knew, but you kept it from me. Do you know what it would have meant for me to know who I was?”
“I wasn’t sure it was a good idea in the beginning,” said Embla. “I debated whether this was the life for you or whether you should be allowed to live as a normal woman. But I see now that your heritage will not be denied.”
“Did Tori know about me?”
