Chapter Thirteen

I found them both on the terrace the next morning, Nathaniel with his coffee, Elora curled into the chair beside him with her knees pulled up like she was cold, though the sun was already warm enough to burn off the dew from the grass.

I walked straight across the yard with the note still folded in my hand, and I didn't slow down until I was standing right in front of them.

"We need to talk," I said.

Nathaniel looked up, his face already braced for something. "About what?"

I held the note out, not to him, but to her. "About this."

Elora glanced at it, then at me, her expression carefully blank. "What is that?"

"You know what it is. You left it on my pillow."

"I don't know what you're talking about."

"Don't." My voice came out harder than I meant it to, but I didn't take it back. "You were in the guest house,you went into my room and you left this for me to find, and I want to know why you think that's something you're allowed to do."

Nathaniel set his coffee down slowly. "Elena, what does it say?"

I unfolded it and read it out loud, my hand steady even though my chest wasn't. "Big sister, know your place."

For a second, nobody said anything,then Elora's face crumpled, all at once, like a switch had been flipped somewhere behind her eyes, and she pressed her fingers against her mouth like she was holding back something enormous.

"I can't believe this," she whispered.

"Believe what," I said. "That I found it? Or that you got caught?"

"I never wrote that." Her voice cracked, thin and wounded. "Elena, I would never….why would you think I'd do something like that to you?"

"Because it's your handwriting, Elora. I grew up watching you write. I know what your letters look like."

"I didn't write it!" Her voice rose now, high and trembling, tears already spilling down her cheeks in a way that looked, infuriatingly, completely real. "God, is this what you think of me? That I'd sneak into your room to leave you a note like some kind of….some kind of bully?"

"I don't think it. I know it."

"You don't know anything." She turned to Nathaniel, her whole body curling toward him, seeking shelter. "She's been like this since I got back,everything is my fault,everything I do gets twisted into something cruel, and I don't understand what I did to deserve this from my own sister."

Nathaniel's hand moved to her shoulder before I even finished processing that it had moved at all.

"Elora, hey. It's okay."

I stood there and watched him comfort her, his thumb rubbing slow circles against her arm, his voice dropping into that gentle register I hadn't heard him use with me in over a year, and something in my chest went cold and very still.

"Nathaniel," I said. "I'm not making this up."

"I'm not saying you are." He didn't look at me when he said it. He was still looking at her.

"Then why are you comforting her instead of asking me if I'm okay?"

That got his attention, at least for a second. His eyes flicked to mine, tired, already worn down before the conversation had even really started. "Because she's crying, Elena. What do you want me to do, ignore that?"

"I want you to believe me."

"I want to," he said, and something about the careful way he said it told me he didn't, not really, not enough to matter. "But you're holding a piece of paper with no proof it came from her, and she's sitting here telling me she'd never do something like that."

"Of course she's telling you that. What did you expect her to say?"

"Elena." Elora's voice had gone soft again, wounded and small. "I know you've had a hard time and I know this whole situation with me coming back and everything happening with Marcus has been so much for you, but you can't keep taking it out on me,I didn't ask to come back into a war."

"You started the war the night before my wedding."

Her face flinched like I'd slapped her, and she pulled further into Nathaniel's side, and he wrapped his arm around her without even seeming to think about it, an old habit dressed up as comfort.

"I think," Nathaniel said slowly, "you should go back to the guest house and calm down."

"Calm down."

"You're upset,I understand that,but you're accusing her of something serious with nothing to back it up, and I can't just take your word for it anymore, not after everything."

"After everything," I repeated. "You mean after the restraining order neither of us can prove I filed,the photo of Marcus someone sent me,the robe hanging in my closet the night you moved my things out. None of that added up to anything either, did it? It's always my word against nothing, and somehow I always lose."

"That's not fair."

"No," I said quietly, "it isn't."

Elora wiped her eyes with the back of her hand, delicate, careful not to smudge whatever makeup she'd put on before coming out here to sit in the sun with my husband and my coffee cup. "I really am sorry you feel this way, Elena. I mean that."

I looked at her, at the tears drying perfectly on her cheeks, at the way she'd angled herself just slightly toward Nathaniel the entire time, performing for an audience of one while pretending the performance was for me.

I looked at Nathaniel, his hand still resting on her shoulder, his eyes tired and unwilling to meet mine for more than a few seconds at a time.

And something settled in me, heavy and final, the way truth does when you've spent too long refusing to accept it.

It didn't matter what I brought them. Handwriting, timelines, photographs, none of it would ever be enough, because the outcome had already been decided long before I opened my mouth,Elora could cry on command and Nathaniel would reach for her every single time, and I could stand there with proof in my hand and still walk away looking like the one who'd started it.

I folded the note back up, slow and quiet, and slid it into my pocket.

"You're right," I said, looking at Nathaniel. "I shouldn't have brought it out here."

He looked almost relieved. "Elena…."

"No, you're right." I took a step back from both of them, from the terrace, from the coffee that used to be mine and the sister who'd never once been held accountable for anything in her life. "I understand my place now. Better than I did yesterday."

I turned and walked back toward the guest house, and neither of them called after me.

I hadn't expected them to.