Lilette reached forward and put her hand awkwardly on Bethel’s shoulder. “She’s never felt like she was enough.”
Bethel sighed. “She was always enough for me, just never for herself.” Her gaze fell on Lilette’s pendant. “What’s this?” She was already reaching for it.
Lilette forced herself not to squirm. “The sun pendant. I wouldn’t wear it, but Han—”
Bethel waved her to silence as she pulled it over Lilette’s head and held it in her hand. “It’s amber. Blood of the trees, frozen by the sun and wind. Hardened by thousands of years until it is something not quite stone but no longer plant. Something other.”
Eyes closed in concentration, Bethel used her finger to trace a pattern through the stone. She sang, her voice commanding and clear as rainwater. The amber cracked, a crescent-shaped piece breaking off to leave an imperfect circle.
Lilette gasped. “That’s mine!” Somehow, the pendant had come to stand for everything Harshen had given her—both the good and the bad.
Bethel pried off the setting and tossed it aside. She held the pieces in her hand, eyes closed. “It has been forced to be the sun, bright and hot and pumping blood, when it should have been the moon, layers of shadow and rivers swollen with life.”
Jolin wandered back into the room, her footsteps hushed. Bethel turned, as if she’d heard her anyway. “This—this you could wake up.”
Jolin stared at the two pieces. “What could I possibly accomplish with two pieces of amber?”
Bethel’s gaze turned inward. “You cannot make a sword from coal. You cannot build a house on sand.” She stretched out her hand and dropped the two pieces into Jolin’s palm. “This is meant to be one piece, and it will fight to stay together. Wake up that need, give it life.”
Jolin’s mother hesitated a moment, as if she would say more, then shook her head and left.
Lilette bent down and picked up the discarded backing. It was solid gold—it ought to be worth something. Perhaps she could have it melted down into coins. She wandered back into their shared room and pulled down her sack of jewels, carefully adding the broken gold.
“She broke your pendant?” The voice came from behind her.
Anger pricking at her throat, Lilette nodded.
“Why would she do that?” Jolin held the amber in the palm of her hand.
Lilette reached out and brushed her thumbs along the precise edge. She curled her hands away. “She said your work was important, that many things in the future would depend on you, and that one of you should stop being prideful.”
Jolin bristled. “Prideful? I’m not the prideful one.” But there was no heat in her words.
Lilette shot her a look. “I’ve seen rocks more willing to bend than you.”
Jolin wandered among her plants, her fingers skimming the edge of their leaves. “Wake up a need that’s already there.” Her hand stretched out, snapping a leaf from its branch.
Lilette followed her into the glass room and watched her pull a root free from the soil and lay it next to the leaf. “Wake it up. Strengthen its desire to be together.” The brightness had returned to her eyes, the focus sharp enough to pierce shark skin.
A smile crept up Lilette’s cheeks, but she was already late for class. She hustled to Political Studies, but her smile faded as her hand crept to the hollow of her throat. She felt empty without the familiar weight of her pendant around her neck. Empty and somehow free.
Chapter 27
I thought being strong meant never giving up. But it is really knowing when to fight and when to let go, and having the courage to follow through. ~Jolin
Lilette woke to a pair of hands shaking the dreams out of her. “It’s ready. I know it’s ready.”
She cracked her eyes open and squinted at the lamp light not far from her face.
Jolin’s expression was jubilant. “I’ve done it. I know I have. You have to sing, to wake it up.”
Lilette dug the pads of her fingers into her eyes. “What have you done?”
“Created the potion to wake it up! Now get moving!”
Jolin hauled her out of the bed that had been shoved into the other corner of Jolin’s room. When Lilette sat up, the hassacre slammed into her full force. She gasped in a breath as she stood, her underdress tangled around her thighs. Stumbling along after Jolin, she shook the dress to rights as best she could.
The glass garden was stuffy and hot again, but it smelled pleasant, somehow reminding Lilette of home. Doranna was there, looking exhausted and on edge. Sitting alone on a dirt-covered table was what remained of Lilette’s broken pendant. The amber was dry, but a steaming puddle had formed around it.