Isolde looks into the fire, and sharp shadows carve out her profile as a strange smile curves her mouth. “I want to be an adventurer,” she says. “I think I’d be good at it. I wouldn’t have to keep stealing. I’d be hunting treasure, slaying monsters, rescuing people. Olani was telling me about what she wanted to do when she left her parents, before she started working for Leira Wildfall. If we pull off this quest, anyone would hire me. And...you could come, too.”

I finally lean back, shaking my head. It feels too light, and Isolde’s words ring around, echoing over and over and not making any more sense. “Sol...” I say weakly, “...the plan.”

“You can’t mean you want to stay tied down for the rest of your life. What, to be a midwife, like Mami? With magic like yours?” She’s pleading now. She knew how this would go. “Just think about it, Seelie. We wouldn’t have to say goodbye.”

Anger flares, but I’m still too frozen to really feel it. “I’m not doing it,” I spit. “I’m not—whatever stupid thing—you can’t drag me into it this time. This, this is too far. My magic—” I can’t talk about magic right now. My jaw trembles, and I will my voice not to break with a sob. “If you leave, you’re leaving me, too.”

“I’m not leaving,” she soothes, reaching for my arm.

I pull back harshly. “But you’re not staying?”

The firelight makes Isolde’s eyes look as dark and shiny as puddles of ink. If she wants to run away from home again, to risk her life again and again, to leave her family and her twin behind, then maybe I don’t know her like I thought I did. I thought we understood each other. I thought we wanted the same thing. “I can’t,” she says softly. “You have to understand—”

“No!” I sound like a wounded animal, snarling at her to back off. “I don’t understand. I’ll never understand.”

She finally snaps. I see the anger in the set of her jaw, the tightening of her fists. “Well, what did you think was going to happen, Seelie? That we’d go home, and everything would be exactly like it was when we were kids, forever?”

“I—”

“Just because you didn’t think any further ahead doesn’t mean that’s where everything ends. You’re not going to be happy just because you made everything go back to how it was. You weren’t even that happy then.”

“Don’t tell me what makes me happy,” I snap, all in one low, furious rush.

“Why?” Isolde laughs bitterly. “Because it’ll make you confront reality? Seelie, you were never happy because you could never be yourself. You’ve always been trapped. You think just when you’re actually starting to understand your magic, you’re suddenly going to be okay stuffing it back down and pretending to be what you think everyone wants you to be?”

Grief and anger both burn in my chest, in my voice, in my head, warring with each other. “No one wants me to be myself.”