Chapter 1

A faint mist rose off my body. Everything in front of me spun as if the world had turned upside down, and when my sight cleared again it was drifting inside the castle.

My parents were watching Aurora with aching faces. My mother stroked her cheek. My father watched it all in silence.

Then a sharp pain shot through both their heads. For a moment something like a vision passed in front of their eyes, me, lying in the white snow with half my body already buried.

My father's eyes flew open and he sucked in one heavy breath after another.

My mother was only just coming back to herself. Both of them seemed to sense something, faintly.

But one look at how weak Aurora was and they forced that strange feeling back down.

Aurora wore a gown much like her mother's. Between the two of them she looked small and thin. She sat silent through all their fussing, and then her cool voice broke in, "Is she coming back?"

Aurora folded her hands and lowered her head toward her. "Mom, Neve isn't going to come and bother us today, is she?"

"Don't worry, sweetheart."

My mother looked straight at her with soft eyes, as if no one else in the world existed, and patted her shoulder as she said, "You don't just come down with wolfsbane poisoning. She's jealous of you, that's all. She's faking it to get our sympathy."

My father chimed in, "That's right. You're what matters now. We've put her out, and she won't be taking any of our love away from you."

Before he had finished, my mother said thickly, "One more day. Whatever you want to do, tell us. We'll back you no matter what..." Then she lowered her head, her eyes red.

Aurora opened her mouth and closed it again, like someone with something to say and no way to say it.

I hung above the hall like a wisp of cloud, watching it all coldly.

For as long as I could remember, my sister had run through every part of my life. My parents' mouths never got away from her name.

I was jealous of her. I hated her for taking everything from me, until there was no place for me in that house and I was nothing but a weed outside the walls that no one noticed.

My father took her from witch to witch, hunting for one powerful enough to break the death sentence hanging over her.

Deep in the dark woods he found one. But the witch told him I would have to trade my life for my sister's.

He did not hesitate for a second before trying to make me drink the potion that would do it.

I shook my head as hard as I could and refused to open my mouth. He pried my jaw apart and poured it in.

"This is for your sister. You're young. What is half your life to you? Do you really want to stand there and watch her die?"

I screamed at him, "How can you be so heartless!"

When the potion was gone I lay on the cold floor, breathing in thin little gasps.

Aurora came over then, put her arms around me, and sobbed, "I'm sorry. I'm sorry. This is my fault. You got hurt because of me. I'm sorry."

I shut my eyes against the pain, and my tears ran down onto the cold floor.

I thought, if my life buys hers, it's worth it.

But the witch's potion was a fake.

I got my life back. My father flew into a rage, and after that he was colder to me than ever.

There was still one warm thing in that cold house. Late at night, when everything had gone quiet, Aurora would slip into my room and give me a piece of candy.

She would put a finger to her lips.

"Don't let Dad find out."

I would look at her and not know what I felt.

This was the person who had taken my parents' love from me, and here she was being kind.

"I'm sorry, Neve. I'll be gone soon. Then there won't be anyone left to take Mom and Dad's love away from you."

Sometimes I tried to help her on my own, only for my parents to decide I was trying to hurt her.

There was no avoiding the beating that followed.

In the last two years especially they watched me like a criminal. That was when I understood that a single hair on my poor sister's head was worth more than all of me.

My view rose higher. Through the windows my blank eyes found the body still frozen in the act of crawling toward the doors.

I stared at myself lying in the snow under a fresh layer of white, then at my own hands, already half see-through.

So I was dead.

So it was me the witch's prophecy had marked for death all along.