The chair was made of flimsy metal, rusted over after years of disuse. One good kick was sure to dislodge one of its legs.
She gripped the chair back, lifted it over her head, and slammed it onto the wet stone. It fell apart in her hands, the pieces clanging against the floor like little bells. She searched the ground until she felt cold metal beneath her fingertips.
“Rattle the bars!”
Amina did so. Risa followed the sound until her palm met damp bars peeling with rust. She followed each rung, one by one, until she felt Amina’s warm fingers wrapped around a padlock. Fitting the end of the chair leg into the loop, she pulled down with all her might.
The tension went slack as a crack ripped through the air. The padlock clattered to the ground, useless.
“You did it!” Amina wrestled with the iron loop still hanging on the door and threw it aside. The hinges squeaked as she wrenched the gate open and leaped out, short arms circling around Risa. “I’msorry,” she sobbed a breath later, burying her face into Risa’s shoulder. “I didn’t try hard enough to save you.”
Risa sagged with relief, and then with an embarrassing amount of joy. Amina wasn’t upset with her. For some reason, Amina had wanted to rescueher. Something tickled Risa’s throat as she returned the embrace with a squeeze.
“Don’t worry about it.”
“I owe you.” It would have sounded a lot more authoritative if Amina weren’t sniffling.
Risa shrugged. “I oweyou. For the airship.”
Amina scoffed as she pulled away. “You don’t, because I didn’t do enough. But I told you: We’re friends.”
“You didn’t say that,” Risa mumbled.
She could practically hear Amina’s eyeroll. “I heavily implied it.”
“For the record, I don’t think friends should let friends get themselves killed.”
“For the record, I don’t have many friendships for reference, and would like to politely disagree.”
Gratitude surged through Risa, warmth flooding her chest with a tightness that wasn’t entirely unwelcome. Still, she couldn’t help but think of what that meant for her curse, how it would twist the words around and hurt Amina for the sentiment.
She needed to tell them. Unlike Javi’s, her curse was very real. And deadly.
But she was a coward. A monster. A Bad Thing. The words clogged her throat and refused to dislodge.
“Did you find her, or am I supposed to stand here all day?” Javi shouted down the stairs.
Amina’s hand found hers and tugged her through the darkdungeon, their steps echoing against the stones as they climbed up the stairs and into the dim light.
The trio slipped out into cramped servants’ stairs and narrower adjoining hallways. Still, no guards roamed the corridors, no servants made a mad dash to their stations. Whatever wedding was happening was a somber one, leaving the castle silent and empty when there should have been a flurry of activity.
Amina led them through halls she knew despite the gloom that clung to the walls and the dust that hung in the air. What was once a monument to Madrosian wealth and royalty—high, cavernous ceilings; arched floor-to-ceiling windows; silk wallpaper; intricate carvings—had fallen to something worse than disrepair. It had become stuck in time, sorrow and grief seeping through the cracks in the plaster.
The princess stopped mid-flight up a cramped staircase, looking out a window to survey the ruins that stood in place of her childhood home.
“This is not my Madros,” she whispered, her voice carrying despite the wedding bells that still tolled. The clanging sounds were muffled and melancholy from inside the castle walls.
“You will rebuild,” Javi assured her, placing a gentle hand on her shoulder.
Amina looked unconvinced. Her face was squared, her jaw set. The gleam of her scar looked angry and raw. She stared out into the empty halls, seeing a past that Risa did not know and could not imagine.
Risa retrieved Amina’s brooch from a pocket and straightenedthe clasp. Since the princess stood a few steps ahead, they were nearly the same height. That made it easier to pin the compass to the princess’s cloak, right above her heart. Once secured, the needle began to spin in its endless circle, theMglowing gold.
“Home is something you make.” She straightened Amina’s cape, the way her mother used to do when Risa would still let her dress her. She missed her mother’s warmth; missed tracing the lines around her mother’s eyes, counting the hairs that framed her heart-shaped face. “No matter how much he has destroyed, your people are Madros.Youare Madros.”
Saying the words—feeling how true they rang—made Risa realize she missed home. Not just her room or the loose floorboard or her mother’s rice and beans and cheesy doughs, not just her father droning on about town taxes. She missed the sound of rain hitting her metal roof. Missed the way the meandering river sometimes swelled and threatened to flood the town, and how, when it did overflow, nothing too terrible really happened beyond ruined floors and waterlogged furniture. She even missed Emilia and her snobby little face looking down her nose.
Amina stared at her. The princess’s stormy eyes were glassy with tears as she said, “You would make a good older sister.”