My dear Mina, I can’t leave without saying good-bye.…
She frowned, wrinkling her nose at the musty smell of the old paper. She had thought it was only the paper that was old, and that Lynet had written a letter to her, but this wasn’t Lynet’s handwriting. She didn’t recognize this hand at all. Her eyes swept down to the bottom of the page, and the name Dorothea made her suck in a sharp breath.
Felix tilted his head. “Should I leave you?”
“No,” she said quickly. “Don’t … don’t go.” She had no desire to be alone with her mother’s ghost. Felix sighed and settled beside her, careful not to let even their shoulders brush against each other.
At first Mina imagined that this letter was her mother’s last good-bye before taking her own life, but as she read—going over some of the sentences several times—she started to frown in confusion. Her mother’s words didn’t match what Mina knew, what she expected. Mina couldn’t understand the words until she put aside the story she knew and focused on the one she held in her hands now.
The letter wasn’t just a good-bye. It was an apology—and not for killing herself, but for running away.
I wish I could take you with me, but I don’t know where I’ll go, if I can take care of myself, let alone a child your age with your poor health. Your father says your heart is stable thanks to what he’s done, but I can never tell if he’s lying, if he’s only trying to trick me. I’ve never been alone before. No one ever told me how hard it was to be a mother, how much of a child I would feel even when holding my own child in my arms.
The paper was stained in places—smudges of ink during hesitant moments, stains that might have been tears.
I know I should stay, and that it’s wrong for me to leave you here with him, but I can’t stop myself from hating him and I know that he sees it in me, and that he hates me for it too. And I’m sure that if I stay, he would do me some harm. But he wouldn’t hurt his only child, not after he worked so hard to save your life. I’ve failed you too many times, and I don’t deserve your forgiveness, though I hope that one day you might still try to think kindly of me. I won’t look for you, in case you don’t want me, but I’ll always be waiting, in case you ever find your way to me again.
And then, miraculously, the words that made the least sense of all—
I love you, Mina. I love you so much. I wish I could be stronger for you.
Mina’s hands trembled, both from anger—She left me—and from joy—She loved me. She ran her fingertips over those last words again and again, wanting to hold them, to transform them into something with weight and shape, something she could carry with her. All these years, this letter had been hiding the secret of her mother’s love. Where had it been? How had Lynet found it?
She had gone to Gregory, Mina remembered. Lynet was always so curious, always snooping where she shouldn’t be. Gregory had kept this letter, or perhaps he had forgotten about it, but he still knew that Dorothea hadn’t killed herself. He had lied to Mina—about her mother’s death, about her mother’s love, about the way her heart worked. You cannot love, and you will never be loved, he had said, and he had been wrong.
Didn’t you see how much I loved you? Lynet had asked.
No, no, she’d only ever seen the world through her mirrors, surrounding herself with distorted images and believing that they were real. Lynet is younger and more beautiful than you, and she will replace you, one of them had told her, and she had believed it while ignoring the joyful smile on Lynet’s face as she talked with her stepmother, the love that poured out of her with every word. Mina had let reflections fool her, too afraid to look beneath them for a heart she didn’t think she had. She wondered when she had started to imagine that Lynet was as cold and heartless as she saw herself.
Felix now put a tentative hand on her shoulder. “Mina?”
Mina dropped the letter carefully on the ground and turned to take Felix’s face in her hands, studying him intently. All those times he had said he loved her—had he truly meant them all? Even now, when he was angry with her, he had stayed with her simply because she had asked him to. She shyly ran her thumb along the line of his mouth, and she remembered what he had said to her in the crypt. And when I touched you, it felt like the first time, the night you made me. She felt that way now, because it was the first time—the first time they were both alive together, separate and yet the same. The first time she felt an unfamiliar warmth spread through her chest and knew that she loved him, as he loved her.
“Oh, Felix, I’m sorry,” she breathed, thinking of how she had almost wanted to kill him that night.
She started to draw away, but he caught her hand in his and brought his head down to press his lips to the veins on her wrist, where her pulse should have been, embracing the parts of her that she thought were broken, just as he always had. And then they were both in each other’s arms—him holding her fiercely, one hand buried in her hair, her murmuring “You love me” over and over again against his cheek.
“Lynet was right,” he said, pulling away from her. “She said that letter might do you some good.”
Mina couldn’t answer. Her mother had still abandoned her, leaving her to her father, and Mina felt a wave of resentment, a dizzying sort of despair as she wondered how her life might have been different if Dorothea had been brave enough to stay or to take Mina with her. I wish I could be stronger for you. And yet when Mina said those words to herself, she didn’t hear her mother’s voice, but her own—I wish I could be stronger for Lynet. Dorothea had run away from being a mother. Mina had not run away, but she had still failed Lynet. It was only the dead mothers who were perfect—the living ones were messy and unpredictable.
Is there a cure for me, do you think?
I’m not sure that you need one.
Lynet had known. She had understood that Mina’s heart wasn’t as damaged as either Mina or Gregory had claimed. She had read the letter, but more than that, Lynet had loved her. Even now, Lynet loved her. And Mina … Mina made her decision at last. She would do what her mother hadn’t been able to do—she would protect her daughter.
Mina rose from the chapel floor, picking up the letter, and walked toward the door. Felix followed close behind. “Is she still in the tower, do you think?” she asked him. “I left the door unlocked.”
“I would think she is,” he answered. “The guards said she came freely, without trying to run or fight.”
Mina would go to her, then, and Lynet would see that she had the letter, and she would know at once—that Lynet had understood her better than Mina understood herself. And the crown? The Summer Castle? a treacherous voice whispered in her ear. Only one of you can be queen. It was true. She faltered in her step as she hurried down the long hall that led to the east wing, and Felix held her arm to keep her from stumbling. But what was the false and fickle devotion of Whitespring compared to the love that Lynet had shown her? What was the heavy feeling of a crown on her head compared to the pressure of Lynet’s fingertips against hers, as she had lent Mina her heart? It was only the South that she still wanted, the South that gave her reign any meaning at all, but would Lynet even want to take that from her, as Nicholas had?