Mina lifted an eyebrow. “She?”
Mina was watching her with interest, but Lynet didn’t want to tell her more. She felt oddly protective of her new stranger, and she didn’t want to share her with anyone else yet. “I also saw the Pigeons today,” she said quickly.
Mina grimaced, and she accidentally tugged at one of Lynet’s curls. “Same as usual, I expect?”
Lynet knew the Pigeons would distract Mina—Mina found them even more unbearable than Lynet did. The first time Lynet had slipped and called them by that name in front of Mina, she’d been afraid that she’d be scolded. Instead, Mina had burst into laughter. Lynet didn’t blame her; though the Pigeons were always charming and respectful to Mina’s face, Lynet heard the way they talked about her when they were alone. They called her the southerner, or the southern queen, never just the queen—that title was still reserved for Lynet’s mother.
“Same as always,” Lynet grumbled as Mina started braiding her hair. “I look so much like my mother, my hair looks just like my mother’s, I have my mother’s eyes … they probably even think I have my mother’s elbows.”
Mina frowned a little and bit her lip, but said nothing.
Lynet continued. “It wouldn’t be so bad if it was just them, but—” She stopped, feeling too guilty to give voice to her thoughts.
“But you wish your father would stop comparing you to her as well?” Mina offered.
Lynet nodded. She started twisting a piece of her skirt in her hands. “It’s even worse with him,” she said quietly.
Mina laid her hands on Lynet’s shoulders. “Why do you say that?”
Lynet kept her head down. It was easier to talk about it when she wasn’t looking at anyone else—or at herself. She wanted to change the subject, but she had already done that once, and she knew she wouldn’t be able to manage it again. Whenever they talked about Lynet’s father, Mina seemed to … harden somehow, like she was putting a shield in place that even Lynet wasn’t allowed behind. Sometimes Lynet wondered why they had married at all, when they seemed to spend so little time together and show such little affection when they did.
Mina squeezed Lynet’s shoulders gently. “It’s all right, wolf cub,” she said. “Don’t be afraid.”
Mina’s special name for her rallied Lynet’s spirits, as it always did. She hated feeling afraid. “It’s just that … well, the others only talk about how much I look like her, but Papa … I think he wants me to be like her in every way. He expects me to be sweet and gentle and—and delicate.”
Lynet practically choked on the word. It was what her father always said about her mother—and about Lynet, too. Your features are delicate, Lynet, like a bird’s. You shouldn’t be climbing trees, Lynet, not when your hands and feet are so soft and delicate. Emilia had died, he said, because her body had been too delicate for childbirth. Being delicate had killed her mother, and yet he was so eager to bestow the quality on her.
“You say that like it’s a curse,” Mina said, her voice low and heavy. “There are worse things in the world to be than delicate. If you’re delicate, it means no one has tried to break you.”
Lynet felt ashamed without knowing why. She had always tried to emulate her stepmother, but the way Mina spoke now, Lynet wondered if she was trying to take on a weight she didn’t fully understand. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I must sound like such a child.”
“That’s because you are a child.” Mina smiled, but her smile started to fade as she studied their reflections in the mirror. “Or maybe not,” she said. “You’re turning sixteen soon, aren’t you?”
Lynet nodded. “In a month and a half.”
“Sixteen.” Mina knelt down beside her. “That’s how old I was when I left my home in the South to come to Whitespring. I think part of me has always thought of myself as sixteen, no matter how many years have passed.” Mina looked at the mirror and scowled, seemingly disturbed by what it showed her. Their faces were side by side, and for the first time, Lynet noticed a single white strand in her stepmother’s hair.
“You’re still young,” Lynet said uncertainly.
Mina wasn’t paying attention to her, though. She brought her hand up to her cheek, examining the corners of her eyes, the thin lines around her mouth. “If they love you for anything, it will be for your beauty,” she murmured softly, but Lynet didn’t think the words were meant for her, so she felt guilty for hearing them at all.
She waited a moment and then she said, “Mina? Is something wrong?”
Her stepmother shook her head. “Only a memory.” She turned to Lynet and kissed her on the head. “You’ve grown up so fast. It took me by surprise. Soon you won’t even need me anymore.” Mina stood and gave Lynet’s braid a playful tug. “Run off now, and enjoy the rest of your evening.”
Lynet started to go when Mina called to her, “And do let me know what happens with your young surgeon. It’ll be good for you to have someone closer to your own age to socialize with for a change.”
Lynet didn’t respond as she hurried out the door, but for some reason she couldn’t explain, she felt herself blush.
2
MINA
At sixteen, Mina knew she was beautiful. Sitting on the grass, angling her mother’s hand mirror so that the reflected sun wouldn’t blind her, she discovered the secrets of beauty: the way the blaze of the afternoon sun transformed her dark hair into a halo of fire; the way her golden-brown skin glowed when she held her face at the right angles in the light; the way the shadows elongated her cheekbones.
These were secrets no one had taught her. Her father, when he was home, kept to himself, and her nurse, Hana, would sneer at her for being so vain. Her mother was long gone, of course, but Mina liked to think that she had left behind the silver-backed mirror as a guide for her daughter.
“Dorothea,” Mina whispered to herself, wishing that just saying the name could conjure her mother on the spot. She had died so soon after falling ill that Mina didn’t remember her being ill at all. She’d been four, recovering from an unrelated illness of her own, when her mother had died, so memories of her mother were faint, shimmering things, like coins at the bottom of a moving river.
“Mina!”