Her mother opened the door with a blanket wrapped around her shoulders. Judging by the dark circles under her eyes, she’d been up most of the night. She eyed the Guardians behind Senna suspiciously. “Where have you been?”
Instead of answering, Senna stepped inside and closed the door to her Guardians. “I want the truth. What happened to my father and sister?”
Her mother blanched. She wandered to her chair and sat on the edge. “A Guardian found me last night and told me you were safe but not coming home. Does this have something to do with Joshen?”
No. Joshen is gone. All we seem to do is fight, and I don’t know how to fix it. “They died when you were pregnant with me. I’ve seen the drawings of them in your money box. That’s all I know of them.”
Like the sun and moon, their conversations circled around each other without ever touching. “You won’t leave this cursed island with me, and yet you’d risk everything you gain by staying—your Apprenticeship, your place in Haven, your shining future—all for a boy. What are you doing, Senna?”
I may have already lost him. Refusing to be distracted, Senna sat in the other chair. “Is that what you think happened when you married my father? That because you married him, you lost everything?”
Sacra finally looked in Senna’s eyes.
“I won’t stop asking,” Senna said.
After a long silence, her mother said, “A man in town brought me those sketches after they died.” She looked away. “He drew your father’s nose wrong. And Arelle’s eyes. I remember thinking that when he gave them to me. But now, when I picture my daughter and husband, I see them how he drew them.”
Senna waited for her to continue, but she just remained silent and staring. “Mother, they were my family. I deserve to know what happened to them. Please.”
Twin tears leaked out of Sacra’s eyes. “It was my fault. Espen was hunting us down, one at a time. Men weren’t allowed on the island, so your father and your sister were in Nefalie. I slipped away from Haven to tell him I was expecting another baby. He was terrified for me. He begged me to go into hiding with him. But I was a Discipline Head, and the Sisters needed me desperately. “So I left him with your sister and returned.”
Senna considered her own future. Duty and family. How did one balance a life where both needed her, but only one’s needs could be met?
A sob clawed its way out of Sacra’s body. Senna leaned forward and covered her mother’s clenched hands with her own.
“The Witch Hunters found them instead of me,” Sacra went on. “I was here when I heard. On this cursed island, safe, while my family was in danger. Doing my duty while my daughter and husband were murdered in my place.”
Senna closed her eyes, imagining how her mother must have been once—ambitious, beautiful, confident. Senna slid off the chair to kneel before her. “It wasn’t your fault.”
“No?” Her mother’s voice was low. “I chose being a Witch over being a mother. It was a choice I’d made a hundred times. But this time, I was needed. And I wasn’t there.”
She sniffed and wiped her eyes. “I see you making the same mistakes I did. Sacrificing everything for the Witches, for a boy who loves you. And if it’s all taken away, what will you do then?”
Senna almost decided she couldn’t risk going to Tarten. Maybe she should just go into hiding until this was all over. It’s what her mother had done, though too late to save her father and sister. But Senna’s very soul balked at existing in ignorance and fear ever again. She’d been living with doing nothing for weeks, and it was destroying her. “I’ll be glad I ever had them at all.”
“If you die, what will I do?” Sacra’s voice cracked.
Could Senna ask her mother to live with that? It would break her. She searched her face. “Promise you’ll release this burden you’ve carried for so long. Promise me that you’ll find a way to be happy.”
Sacra lifted her shoulders in a helpless gesture. “I’ve carried it so long it’s become a part of me.”
“Then unmake that part of you!”
Sacra grunted. “I’ll—I’ll try. If you promise to live through all this.”
Senna wrapped her arms around her mother’s rounded shoulders and pressed her dry cheek against her mother’s wet one. “I promise to try.” How could she say goodbye? How could she make her mother understand she had to go? That she wasn’t repeating the same mistakes, because they’d never been mistakes. They were choices, the best choices she could make with the knowledge she’d had. “Perhaps I’m more like you than I know. I’m glad for it.”