“I think you’re going straight to shit, since you ask!” He squeezed his voice back down with the greatest of difficulty. “This business with Luthar has gone way too far. Letters? Letters? I warned him, but it seems he wasn’t the problem! What are you thinking? Are you thinking at all? It has to stop, before people start to talk!” He felt a suffocating tightness in his chest, took a deep breath, but his voice burst out anyway. “They’re damn well talking already! It stops now! Do you hear me?”

“I hear you,” she said carelessly, “but who cares what they think?”

“I care!” He nearly screamed it. “Do you know how hard I have to work? Do you think I’m a fool? You know what you’re about, Ardee!” Her face was turning sullen, but he forged on. “It’s not as though this is the first time! Must I remind you, your luck with men has not exactly been the best!”

“Not with the men in my family, at least!” She was sitting bolt upright now, face tight and pale with anger. “And what would you know about my luck? We’ve hardly talked in ten years!”

“We’re talking now!” shouted West, flinging the crumpled bit of paper across the room. “Have you thought how this might turn out? What if you were to get him? Have you considered that? Would his family be charmed by the blushing bride, do you think? At best they’d never speak to you. At worst they’d cut you both off!” He pointed a shaking finger at the door. “Haven’t you noticed he’s a vain, arrogant swine! They all are! How would he manage, do you think, without his allowance? Without his friends in high places? He wouldn’t know where to begin! How could you be happy with each other?” His head was ready to split in half, but he ranted on. And what happens if, as is far more likely, you can’t get him? What then? You’d be finished, have you thought on that? You’ve come close enough before! And you’re supposed to be the clever one! You’re making a laughing-stock of yourself!” He almost choked on his rage. “Of both of us!”

Ardee gave a gasp. “Now we see it!” she nearly screamed at him. “No one cares a shit for me, but if your reputation is in danger—”

“You fucking stupid bitch!” The decanter flew spinning across the room. It crashed against the wall not far from Ardee’s head, sending fragments of glass flying and wine running down the plaster. It made him more furious. “Why don’t you fucking listen?”

He was across the room in an instant. Ardee looked surprised, just for a moment, then there was a sharp click—his fist catching her in the face as she got up. She didn’t fall far. His hands caught her before she hit the ground, yanked her up then flung her back against the wall.

“You’ll be the end of us!” Her head smacked against the plaster—once, twice, three times. One hand grabbed hold of her neck.

Teeth bared. Body crushed her against the wall. A little snort in her throat as the fingers began to squeeze.

“You selfish, useless… fucking… whore!”

Hair was tangled across her face. He could only see a narrow slice of skin, the corner of a mouth, one dark eye.

The eye stared back at him. Painless. Fearless. Empty, flat, like a corpse.

Squeeze. Snort. Squeeze.

Squeeze…

West came to his senses with a sickening jolt. The fingers snapped open, he jerked the hand away. His sister stayed upright against the wall. He could hear her breathing. Short gasps. Or was that him? His head was splitting. The eye was still staring at him.

He must have imagined it. Must have. Any second now he would wake up, the nightmare would be over. A dream. Then she pushed the hair out of her face.

Her skin was candle wax, pasty white. The trickle of blood from her nose looked almost black against it. The pink marks stood out vivid on her neck. The marks the fingers made. His fingers. Real, then.

West’s stomach churned. His mouth opened but no sound came out. He looked at the blood on her lip, and he wanted to be sick. “Ardee…” He was so disgusted he half vomited as he said the word. He could taste the bile at the back of his mouth, but his voice wouldn’t stop gurgling away. “I’m sorry… I’m so sorry… Are you alright?”

“I’ve had worse.” She reached up slowly and touched her lip with a finger-tip. The blood smeared out across her mouth.

“Ardee…” One hand reached out to her, then he jerked it back, afraid of what it might do. “I’m sorry…”

“He was always sorry. Don’t you remember? He’d hold us and cry afterwards. Always sorry. But it never stopped him the next time. Have you forgotten?”

West gagged, choked back vomit again. If she’d wept, and ranted, and beat him with her fists, it would have been easier to bear. Anything but this. He tried never to think about it, but he hadn’t forgotten. “No,” he whispered, “I remember.”

“Did you think he stopped when you left? He got worse. Only then I’d hide on my own. I used to dream that you’d come back, come back and save me. But when you did come back it wasn’t for long, and things weren’t the same between us, and you did nothing.”

“Ardee… I didn’t know—”

“You knew, but you got away. It was easier to do nothing. To pretend. I understand, and do you know, I don’t even blame you. It was some kind of comfort, back then, to know you got away. The day he died was the happiest of my life.”

“He was our father—”

“Oh yes. My bad luck. Bad luck with men. I cried at the grave like a dutiful daughter. Cried and cried until the mourners feared for my reason. Then I lay in bed awake, until everyone was sleeping. I crept out of the house, I went back to the grave, I stood a while looking down… then I fucking pissed on it! I pulled up my shift, and I squatted down, and I pissed on him! And all the while I was thinking—I’ll be nobody’s dog any more!”

She wiped the blood from her nose on the back of her hand. “You should have seen how happy I was when you sent for me! I read the letter over and over. The pathetic little dreams all came alive again. Hope, eh? What a fucking curse! Off to live with my brother. My protector. He’ll look out for me, he’ll help me. Now maybe I can have a life! But I find you different than I remembered. All grown up. First you ignore me, then you lecture me, then you hit me, and now you’re sorry. Truly your father’s son!”

He groaned. It was as if she was sticking a needle in him, right in his skull. Less than he deserved. She was right. He had failed her. Long before today. While he had been playing with swords and kissing the arses of people who despised him, she had been suffering. A little effort was all it would have taken, but he could never face it. Every minute he had spent with her he felt the guilt, like a rock in his gut, weighing him down, unbearable.

She stepped away from the wall. “Perhaps I’ll go and pay a call on Jezal. He may be the shallowest idiot in the whole city, but I don’t think he’d ever raise a hand to me, do you?” She pushed him out of the way and made for the door.

“Ardee!” he caught hold of her arm. “Please… Ardee… I’m sorry…”

She stuck her tongue out, curled it into a tube, and blew bloody spit through it. It splattered softly down the front of his uniform. “That’s for your sorry, bastard.”

The door banged shut in his face.