I want to tell her that I don’t need taking care of, that I’ve done just fine on my own. But that would clearly be a lie. I’d have likely died or gotten infected if she hadn’t stepped in.

The enormity of what she’s done—what she’s sacrificed for me—is overwhelming, and I have to turn away so that she doesn’t see my face.

I left her alone in the Forest. She had every right to abandon me as well, and she chose not to. That she didn’t means that maybe I can allow myself to rely on her. To actually believe she’ll be there for me when I need her.

This thought terrifies me. I’m not used to depending on someone.

That’s not true—I used to rely on Elias, but when he left me I promised I’d never trust again.

My sister places a hand on my shoulder, the tips of her fingers pressing lightly on my collarbone in reassurance. Beyond us, down the shore, the Unconsecrated shuffle toward us, slow and inevitable.

With a sigh she drops her hand and stands over the dead plague rats, bracing a foot against each one’s head so that she can tug at the bolts lodged in each skull. Her muscles strain until the arrows slide free with a loud shlurk of a sound.

We both cringe. I watch the way her tangled hair falls over her face and she absently brushes it away. I think how long it took me to learn not to brush my own hair back from my cheeks, to use it instead as a shield to hide my face.

I reach up to my neck, feeling the absence of my hair. Wind blows off the river and I shiver, wrapping the scarf I took last night tighter around my head.

“Do you think we’ll make it through this?” I ask her, the rush from the scuffle on the platform draining out of me.

She doesn’t even look up, just says yes as she jerks free another bolt with a grunt. I hear the resolve in her voice. An unshakeable determination to stay alive. I wish I had her absolute belief in survival. I wish I didn’t know how hard it is to do—to struggle through each day only to wake up to a deeper struggle the next. I feel like falling asleep and letting it all consume me. Just letting the Unconsecrated take over.

They’re bound to anyway.

“I killed someone.” My sister’s confession shocks me out of my thoughts.

I jerk around to face her. She’s standing right where the ice clings to the shore, clutching the recovered bolts in her hands.

“What?” I choke out. Of all the things I expect her to say this isn’t it.