Tesara nodded. She braced herself for Yvienne’s displeasure. Instead, her sister said, “Do you think you can do it again?”
Tesara glanced up sharply at Yvienne. Her sister’s eyes were bright and her breath came fast. Tesara grinned. “Oh, Vivi. I could have taken them for a lot more, had I wanted to, but I thought it best to let them get away thinking it was beginner’s luck.” She leaned forward. “They underestimated me. They thought I was poor little Tesara Mederos, too woolly-headed to know what she was doing. So, they will keep inviting me to play and I’ll keep winning because of ‘beginner’s luck,’ and it will be extra sweet to win against the ones who cut us in the street.”
The thought was seductive. Take it all back. Cheat them the way they cheated House Mederos. It would take cunning and courage, timing, and above all a certain amount of acting ability. Alinesse and Brevart couldn’t know, nor could Uncle Samwell – certainly not, as he would just blab it to all and sundry. All the while she would have to evade Trune, avoid being pressed into an arranged marriage, oh, and try to get her powers back.
Easy peasy, as Uncle would say.
Yvienne’s smile matched her own – a bit delirious and not at all innocent. “We are quite a pair, are we not?”
“Indeed we are,” Tesara agreed. But that reminded her. Tesara gave Yvienne a narrow-eyed, suspicious look. “What exactly did you do last night, big sister? You did leave me a note.”
“I was hoping you wouldn’t remember,” Yvienne muttered.
“I know you were. But if we’re in this together, we can’t have secrets. We have to work together.”
“And have you told all your secrets, Tesara?”
That hit home. Tesara tacked and came around on the offensive. “At least I’ve come clean about the gambling. You still haven’t told me where you went last night.”
Yvienne sighed. “You know what we have to do.” She held out her hand, littlest finger curved outward.
Surely she didn’t mean… “Pinky tell?”
“Pinky tell.”
They linked pinkies in the old childhood ritual, Yvienne’s straight and healthy pinky to Tesara’s bent and broken one. Tesara thought fast. She had only one chance and she had to choose carefully. Tell Yvienne about visiting their old home and being recognized by Trune – or tell her about her powers?
She had to deflect her sister, and she had to do it with a truth.
“One… two… three…” they chorused.
“I burned down Treacher’s shop.”
“I sank the fleet.”
Chapter Thirty-Two
I sank the fleet. Tesara became aware that she held her breath, and let it out slowly. Almost at once, she experienced a light-headed sense of relief that she had said the words, a great weight lifted from her. Even though she had confessed as a distraction, it felt so lovely to finally be free of her secret. She became aware that Yvienne was staring at her with an expression of incomprehension.
“What?” Tesara said, as innocently as she could.
“You sank the fleet,” Yvienne repeated blankly.
Tesara sighed. “Do you remember how the governesses always said strange things happened around me? I made the fires flare up, I made the pages of their books flutter. That night that Uncle brought Parr over to dine with us, and he teased me about not knowing what his ships were called? So, I went up to my room, and I called up the wind and the waves, and I sank the fleet.”
Once again, she had a visceral memory of the power coursing through her and out of her, knocking her off her feet. What she had experienced at school or at Jone’s party was nothing but an infinitesimal fraction of that night.
“Tes,” her older sister started. “Those were just pranks. That’s all it was. You can’t think that you sank the fleet. That wasn’t your fault.”
Perversely, Yvienne’s blindness irritated her. “Yvienne, actually it was. I sank the fleet.”
“You were angry, you wished the fleet to sink, and it happened – but that wasn’t your fault, Tesara.” Yvienne sounded irked.
Oh, now it was really aggravating. She held up her hands.
“If it’s not true, Yvienne, why would Madam Callier do this?” Her fingers – the pinky of which Yvienne had just linked with her own perfectly formed pinky finger – were crooked and ugly, the broken joints swollen and red. “Do you think she would break my fingers just because of pranks?”
Tesara watched her sister take in the evidence. She hadn’t known what to believe when they were at the Academy, Tesara knew. Yvienne had suspected, but she refused to continue down that line of thought. Now her sister was being confronted with the evidence to support her own suspicions.
“I don’t understand why you think this. It’s impossible,” Yvienne said, and Tesara knew something else; her sister was pragmatic and realistic, and if it were out of the ordinary, she could not believe it. Even if it happened right before her eyes.
“Not impossible,” Tesara said flatly. “Madam Callier knew. She broke my fingers because I pulled the tablecloth out from the table.” The memory of the pain had dulled over the years, but she could still conjure with startling clarity the sounds of the snapping bone. “Listen to me,” she added. “I’m not lying. Use your considerable brainpower, Yvienne. Why would I make up something like this?”
“If you thought – as a child–”
“I’m not a child anymore. And I’m not lying.”
Yvienne lifted her hands in defeat. “All right. You’re not lying. I’m not going to say that I believe you sank the fleet from your bedroom window, but I accept that you aren’t lying about it.” She held up a hand to forestall Tesara’s wry comment. “Nor do I think you are mad. But you have to give me time to come to terms.”
Distraction achieved, and then some. She would just have to show her sister, and that meant getting her power back.
“Fair enough,” Tesara said. “But now it’s your turn. What
