“But if I do?” I asked, wanting the terms to be said aloud.
“Then whatever you want is yours, if it’s within my power.”
My heart thunked painfully in my chest, and I tried to arrange my face into a bland expression. This was what I wanted. This was my chance to save everyone, to save the Falls.
But now that I was here, in this moment, I was terrified to reveal that she’d called my bluff. I didn’t know her name. I didn’t have a clue as to what it could be.
Or did I?
Whitaker’s strange farewell still rang through my head, ripples of a rock dropped into a still pond. His words lingered, twisting over one another into a puzzle. I was certain they meant more than their first impression.
If I could piece them together, would I come up with the Queen’s name?
Think. Think, Ellerie. What had he said? Exactly?
The girl who can name every flower.
I recalled that afternoon in the meadow, alongside the Greenswold, the sun’s rays long and warm at our backs. We’d picked clovers and I’d made Sadie her birthday crown. I’d pressed him to admit his name. There’d been a flower….What was it?
I closed my eyes, trying to remember.
We’d been walking, and there had been little bursts of yellow and orange—like fireworks exploding in the midst of all that green.
Field marigolds—but I’d called them by their species name, their true name. There’d been surprise in his eyes when he’d learned that I knew the Latin. Surprise…and maybe a touch of worry?
The girl who thinks she can name the stars.
Christmas night. Dancing in the snow. And spotting a constellation. He’d said it was ridiculous to christen something so far away…but he’d asked if I knew more of the myths.
The girl who thought she could name me.
Here I stilled, my theories stalling. The name “Whitaker” hadn’t been taken from a myth or a dead language. There were no heroes, no legends. It had been the most pragmatic of choices. A name inspired by him.
A name that meant something.
I glanced back at the Queen. She was still waiting for my answer. If I did this, if I did this wholly stupid and unthinkable thing, I could save Amity Falls. If I succeeded, I could save everyone I knew and loved.
Or.
Or I could fail and become one of the Dark Watchers. My skinned crawled, just thinking about it, and my stomach flipped with revulsion. But if the worst should happen, my sisters would be safe….
Sometimes we have to overlook our own desires for the betterment of the hive as a whole.
Papa’s words returned to me, floating up out of a memory and ringing with importance. He was right. The good of the hive was more important than the life of one little bee.
“Yes,” I decided. “I’ll accept your offer.”
Her smile was quick and altogether too lovely.
“Excellent.”
“Should we…should we start now?”
I felt the weight of her silver eyes heavily upon me. “It’s strange.”
“What is?”
“I would have expected twins to be more alike,” she mused thoughtfully. “But you’re an altogether other sort. Two garments cut from very different cloth.” She blinked, as if working out a trying puzzle before her.
“What do you mean?”
“I met your shadow in the woods once.”
“Sam? Sam isn’t a shadow.”
“Isn’t he? A lesser copy of the original? He’d found himself in a bit of a predicament, a nasty little moment with a pack of wolves.”
“The supply run,” I guessed, and my breath caught as it finally dawned on me. “You saved him. You’re the reason he survived that attack.”
Her smile deepened. “It wasn’t terribly difficult. Not for me. But he was grateful. So grateful, he offered up your life in exchange for his.”
A black coil of dread uncurled within my belly. He wouldn’t have. “What?”
He’d bargained me away. My own brother. My other self. Indignation tore at my throat, showering sparks of anger. At him. At her. Why had she bothered with the pretense of a deal if Sam had already—
Her laughter was as bright as sunlight. “Of course I told him that wasn’t possible. You can’t go around pledging other people as payment for your own debts. Can you imagine? Oh, but how that infuriated him.” She clicked her tongue. “Such different characters. Truly a wonder.”
“But…what did he offer? It had to have been something special. He made it out of the woods. He’s alive. Tell me,” I insisted.
She paused, considering me. “He owes me a lie.”
Laughter snorted out of me. “You didn’t make a very good bargain. Sam lies about everything.”
She shrugged. “This is a very special one. An important one. One given at exactly the wrong—or right—moment.” Her glee could hardly be contained.
“What do you mean? When?”
She tweaked my nose. “That, my girl, is entirely between your brother and me.”
I squirmed away from her touch. Her fingers, so mangled and misshapen, felt wholly wrong against my skin, like the rough scrape of tree bark.
“Let’s begin, then, shall we?” Dimples winked from her soft and rosy cheeks.
“But—”
“Now!” she snapped, and for the sharpest moment, her features blurred, chaos and discord screaming out over the beauty. I wanted to look away, to cower and sink into the earth. But it was over in less than a second, and the human features regained control, settling over her monstrous form like a costume cloak.
She ran the backs of her fingers along her jaw, as if reassuring herself that everything was put back into place, before offering a winning smile of contrition. “Now, honey-haired girl. My name.”
Her name.
A name.
Any name.
Names are meant to have meaning.
My words from the flower field echoed back to me.
A name that meant something.
This thing before me. What summed her up? What resonated through her veins? What christening befit such a creature, so dark yet lovely?
Aphrodite, goddess of beauty.
It was the first thing to come to mind, but I tossed it aside. It wasn’t quite right for this Queen. Her beauty was dazzling, to be sure, but there was a sharp edge beneath it, hard and calculating, twisted and cruel. Aphrodite was also goddess of love. This Dark Watcher exemplified many things, but affection was not one of them.