Isolde limps closer, and I flinch. She stands right in front of me, and since we’re the same height, it’s hard to avoid her eyes. “Look at me,” she says, voice lowering. “Look at me!”

“I don’t understand.” It comes out as a sob. I don’t know what she wants from me. “I just—I just—I just don’t want you to go.”

“You just want everything to be exactly the same way it was before we left.” Isolde isn’t yelling anymore, but her voice holds a note of something hard and unfamiliar. “But it’s not, Seelie. It can’t be. You’re a changeling. You can summon lightning out of the sky and walls of fire and—”

“And you’re a thief!” I finally find my voice, and it’s also hard and unfamiliar, trembling with something that isn’t anger but could be. “Is that why? You’re too ashamed to face Mami and Papa? How long do you think you can go without picking pockets or threatening someone with a knife?”

Her mouth drops open, her face twisting. “I only started stealing to take care of you. Fate knows you weren’t doing anything to keep us fed.”

“I didn’t ask you to come with me! I didn’t want you to leave home! I was trying to fix a problem that I caused, and you’re the one who decided you needed to be the savior. You always have to be—”

“How long do you think you would have made it on your own, Seelie?” Isolde’s voice raises again, even as the corner of her mouth trembles. “You wouldn’t last a week without me.”

“Yeah, and with you I’m doing so well!” I gesture around us: at the mountains, her broken ankle, the empty space where the Destiny should be, the whole cursed situation. “Oh, wait.”

I’m distantly aware that Raze and Olani are still here, but I can’t make it matter when my whole existence is burning with anger. I’ve never felt this angry. Not at Raze, not at Cassius Redbrook, not at Leira Wildfall, or Fate itself. I expected all of them to hurt me. The surprise that Isolde, who I trust, could betray me like this burns worse than anything else ever could.

I flex my fingers and roll my neck, trying to hold back the magic that rises up with my storm of emotion. “You always know how to get in trouble, but you never think about getting yourself out. That’s what I have to do. And when you leave me, there won’t be anyone there to save you from yourself. Now, let—”

She limps forward, cutting me off before I can brush past her. There’s tension in her face, in her stance, in her hands. I wonder—for the first time since we were very young—if she’s going to hit me.

I try to put distance between us, but Isolde grabs hold of my shoulder—tight. I yelp at the sudden contact, trying unsuccessfully to twist away. “Let me go,” I manage, but my voice is dry and rough.