I didn't sleep that night.

I lay in my bed, staring at the ceiling, the letter pressed against my chest. Rowan's words echoed in my mind like a curse.

Someone who smiles at you and calls you sister.

Seraphine.

The girl who had found me in the streets. The girl who had brought me to this palace. The girl who had cried with me, promised to help me, called me sister.

Could she really be the one who destroyed my mother?

I thought about the way she had looked at me when she confessed her guilt. The tears in her eyes. The tremor in her voice.

"I've known for years......