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While she’s adjusting her satchel over her shoulder and standing, the light catches her face and I see the cosmetic powder around her eyes She never wears cos, like that she’s been crying It would do no good to ask; she would only take her own advice and lie

"You didn’t need a sibling, anyway," I say "You’ve always had me"

"Yes" She hooks her arm around mine and leads me down the aisle "After so many years, we’re rather stuck with each other now We’re like a double birth"

A double birth is when two children are born from the same womb at one time, and sometimes they’re even identical There’s a story in the history book about one such pair Their names were Odette and Olive But while they wore the same face, they couldn’t have been more different Odette was content with her life, while Olive was restless and ever unhappy She seduced Odette’s betrothed by pretending to be her; Olive fell so in love with being her sister that she drowned Odette and assu to be Odette, married her sister’s betrothed and bore numerous children, all of which were born dead Convinced that she was being punished by the god in the sky, and driven rief, Olive confessed what she had done

Double births were banned after that If tere to be born of the same womb, the first was allowed to live, while the second was drowned before it finished its first cry It was believed that the second child was Olive, always Olive, trying to be reborn once again as soressed enough that double births never need to happen

It would frighten me to share a face with someone else, but that’s one of Pen’s favorite chapters in the history book She says it’s poetic that one soul could bear so ain to come into the world as so Alice swore tothe cabinets as she puts things away Down the hall,to his transcriber and he has just knocked sos are placed

I don’t knohat this is about Basil and I missed the worst of it My mother has just sent us upstairs with dinner, but dinner doesn’t seem to be in the immediate future here

Alice wants to leave, I can tell She wants to put on a pretty dress and go for a walk Men who are unaccompanied by their betrotheds would wink at her, tip their hats, and ss and look away A little flirting is harmless, she’s told me But she could never be the sort to cos have had people declared irrational, ruined their fa the queue But Alice’s loyalty to ht hoo as far as the market unless I’m nearby to check on him She loves hian," she tellsit to the cold box "Now isn’t a good ti okay?" I say Basil touches s will ever be," she sighs, and closes the door behind us

I hear her high heels pacing about the kitchen, disappearing down the hall

I frown "I wonder what Lex has done this ti to worry about," Basil says "They argue all the ti day Do you reh

"What’s theto pieces aroundin the aftere, even all these years later I don’t knohat is theher secrets; and I cannot stop thinking about Judas Hensley and his dead betrothed

But none of these things are " No need to burden hiht, and I a his elbow aroundto distract irls are sullen

"Not to the lake," I say, too quickly It’s after dark now and Judas h the labor sections, where there will be nobody but the food ani with him I swear I feel his eyes on me in the afternoons sometimes

Basil raises an eyebrow as he holds the stairwell door open for ry," I amend "Maybe we could try the tea shop near the theater They have desserts"

"You know it’s near where the flower shop burned down," he says "We’ll have to pass by it"

"I know" Maybe if I keep seeing it, it won’t be so scary

There are no patrolht Security see, and I wonder if it’s to perpetuate the illusion of safety or so that there will befor Judas

I have my answer before we athered, and patrolet back" while nobody seeetsatop a short blond ponytail Aan, wait!" Basil says

"Aod of the earth cast to drown his people in the history book