20 — Not Quite A Doppelgänger

* * *

I came back to myself with Lily's hands once again on my shoulders, with the taste of copper in my mouth.

"Clara. Clara!"

I blinked.

The council room. The tea. The stack of papers. The budget file with the vanishing ink. Celine, still sitting across from me, still watching, still holding Lily's cup in her hand.

I had bitten my tongue. That was where the copper came from. I had bitten it hard enough to draw blood, and I hadn't even noticed.

"Are you okay?" Lily's voice was sharp. Worried. Angry. All three at once. "You zoned out for like three minutes. You weren't responding. I was about to slap you."

I looked at her.

Then I looked at Myra. Still silenced. Still trembling. Still staring at Celine with those flat ears and that bristled tail and those small, clenched fists.

Then I looked at Celine.

She was smiling. Of course she was smiling. She was always smiling. That was the worst part.

I pulled away from Lily's hands.

"I'm fine."

"You're not fine."

"I'm fine."

"Clara—"

"Celine." I said it flat. Not a question. Not a greeting. Just the name. "I need to ask you something."

Lily went quiet. Myra went still. Celine's smile didn't change, but something behind it shifted. Something in the yellow eyes. Something that recognized what was about to happen.

"Ask," she said.

"Do you have a sister?"

The room got very cold.

Not literally. The candles didn't gutter. The windows didn't frost. But something in the air changed. Something that made the hairs on my arms stand up. Something that made Lily's hand freeze halfway to my shoulder. Something that made Myra's ears press so flat against her skull that they almost disappeared.

Celine set down the cup.

Slowly. Carefully. Like she was setting down something that might break.

"That's a strange question," she said.

"Is it?"

"For a student to ask her headmistress? Yes. I would say so."

"I'm not asking as a student."

"Then what are you asking as?"

I didn't answer. I just looked at her. Looked at her green hair. Looked at her young face. Looked at her eyes that were both yellow, both matching, both identical to each other.

Then I looked at the memory in my head.

Mint-aqua hair. Mismatched eyes. One blue, one gold. A smile that didn't reach the gold. A voice that said your parents are in Heaven now while wearing my mother's ribbon.

Green and mint were different colors. But not that different. Not in the right light.

And the eyes — Celine's eyes were both yellow. Both the same. Both matched.

Felice's eyes were not.

That was the tell. That was the difference. If Celine had been the woman in that church, her eyes would have been mismatched. They weren't. She was the twin. She was the other one.

"I'm asking," I said, "as the daughter of the man you let die."

Lily made a sound. Something between a gasp and a word. I didn't look at her. I couldn't. If I looked at her, I would lose my nerve.

Celine didn't flinch.

That was how I knew I was right.

"I didn't let anyone die," she said. "I wasn't there."

"No. You weren't. Your sister was."

Silence.

The clock on the wall ticked. Once. Twice. Three times.

Lily finally spoke. "Clara. What are you talking about?"

I still didn't look at her. I couldn't.

"Gospel Day," I said. "Ten years ago. The Lutetia Cathedral massacre. The Prime Minister and his wife. My parents."

The words came out flat. Clinical. Like I was reading from a report. Like I was someone else, someone who hadn't been in that church, someone who hadn't seen the bag, someone who hadn't felt the ribbon against her cheek.

"The official record says zero casualties. The Kingdom buried it. The Church buried it. Everyone buried it. Except you."

I finally looked at Celine.

"You knew. You've always known. And you've been sitting in this academy for ten years, running this school, watching me, waiting for me to figure it out."

Celine didn't deny any of it.

She just tilted her head.

"You've grown up," she said. "Your father would be proud."

The words hit me harder than they should have.

I had spent ten years imagining what my father would think of me. Imagining him watching from wherever the dead went. Imagining his disappointment. Imagining his pride. I had built an entire version of myself around the absence of him, around the need to be worth the space I took up, around the terror of failing the man who wasn't there to see it.

And now this woman — this stranger, this headmistress, this twin sister of the monster who killed him — had used his pride like a weapon.

"Don't," I said. "Don't you dare."

"Don't what?"

"Don't pretend you knew him. Don't pretend you cared. Don't pretend you've been waiting for this moment like some kind of mentor in a story. You're not my mentor. You're not my anything. You're just the sister of the woman who murdered my family."

The words came out louder than I meant them to.

My hands were shaking. I hadn't noticed when that started.

Lily was beside me. Not touching me. Just there. Present. I could feel her heat against my arm, her breath against my shoulder, her silence like a wall she was holding up for me to lean on.

Celine still didn't flinch.

"That's true," she said. "She is my sister. And she did kill your parents. And I did nothing to stop her."

The admission landed in the room like a stone in still water.

Ripples. Silence. Then the aftershock.

"Why?" I asked. "Why didn't you stop her? Why didn't you tell anyone? Why didn't you—"

"Because I couldn't."

"That's not an answer."

"It's the only answer I have."

"You're the headmistress of the most prestigious academy in the Kingdom. You're a thousand years old. You're immortal. You're—"

"I'm her sister."

Celine said it quietly. Almost gently. As if she were explaining something to a child.

"I'm her sister," she repeated. "And when you've been someone's sister for a thousand years, you learn certain things. You learn that love is not a weapon you can put down. You learn that loyalty is not a switch you can turn off. You learn that even when someone becomes a monster, you still remember the girl they used to be."

I wanted to scream at her.

I wanted to tell her that was the most pathetic excuse I had ever heard. That love wasn't an excuse for complicity. That loyalty wasn't a shield against responsibility. That remembering the girl someone used to be didn't bring back the parents they had killed.

But I didn't say any of that.

Because I was starting to understand something.

"You've been protecting her," I said. "For ten years. You've been protecting her."

Celine didn't answer.

"You knew she was here. You knew she was teaching. You knew she was under your nose the whole time, and you let her stay, and you—"

"I didn't let her stay."

"Then why is she still here?"

Silence.

The clock ticked.

Celine looked at me for a long time. Longer than she had looked at me since I entered the room. Longer than she had looked at anyone in a long time, I suspected.

Then she stood up.

"My sister," she said, "has a philosophy. You may have heard it, if you've ever taken her class. She believes that the Abyss doesn't create darkness. It reveals what was already there. She believes that humanity's morality is a mask, and that when the mask comes off, what's underneath is always the same. Hunger. Selfishness. Cruelty."

She paused.

"I have spent a thousand years watching her test that philosophy. I have watched her kill, and consume, and destroy. I have watched her prove her point, over and over again, to anyone who would listen."

Another pause.

"And then, ten years ago, she met you."

I didn't understand.

"She met you," Celine repeated. "A six-year-old girl who had just lost everything. And instead of consuming you, she held you. She comforted you. She told you a lie about Heaven, and she let you live."

My throat was closing.

"She has spent every day since trying to understand why. She has spent every day since trying to prove that moment was meaningless. That it was an anomaly. That you were simply lucky. And every day, she fails."

Celine's voice was quiet now. Almost gentle.

"You are the one thing in her thousand-year existence that she cannot explain. You are the one person who contradicts everything she believes. You are the counterexample she has been trying to erase for a decade."

She looked at me.

"And she cannot erase you. She has tried. She has tampered with your fox. She has watched you fail, and freeze, and lose your magic, and hate yourself. She has done everything in her power to make you into proof of her philosophy."

She took a step closer.

"And you keep surviving."

The room was so quiet I could hear Myra breathing.

"Your parents," Celine said, "are dead. I cannot change that. My sister killed them, and I did nothing to stop her, and I will carry that for whatever remains of my immortal life. But I did not let her kill you. And I have not let her kill you since."

I didn't realize I was crying until I felt the tears on my cheeks.

I hated it. I hated that she was making me cry. I hated that her words were landing somewhere deep, somewhere I didn't want them to reach. I hated that some small, ugly, desperate part of me wanted to believe her.

"You're lying," I said. "You're just — you're just saying this so I won't—"

"I'm not lying."

"You're lying! You're protecting her! You're protecting her right now, with this — with this speech, with this story about how I'm special and important and—"

"Clara."

Lily's voice. Sharp. Quiet. Right against my ear.

I stopped.

I was breathing hard. My hands were still shaking. My face was wet. I looked at Lily, and she was looking at me with an expression I had never seen on her before. Not pity. Not concern. Something else. Something softer.

And then I heard Myra.

"Master."

The silence spell was gone. Celine had released it. Myra was standing beside me now, her small hand in mine, her ears still flat, her tail still tucked, but her eyes — her eyes were bright.

"I remember," Myra said. "I remember her. Not the whole thing. But I remember her hands. I remember her touching my head. And I remember her face when she did it. She looked sad."

I stared at her.

"She didn't want to hurt me," Myra said. "But she did anyway."

I turned back to Celine.

"She's still here," I said. "You said she can't erase me. So she's still trying. She's still watching. She's still—"

"She's still teaching theology," Celine said. "Yes."

"Why haven't you stopped her?"

"Because I can't."

"You said that already."

"And it's still true."

I wanted to argue. I wanted to scream. I wanted to grab Celine by the collar and shake her until she gave me something I could actually use. Something I could hit. Something I could kill.

But she was looking at me with those yellow eyes, and there was something behind them that I hadn't seen before. Something tired. Something old. Something that had been carrying the same weight for a thousand years and had never found a way to put it down.

"You're going to fight her," Celine said. Not a question.

"Yes."

"Good."

That surprised me.

"I can't help you," she said. "I can't fight her. I can't expose her. She's my sister. That's not a choice, Clara. That's a law. But I can tell you one thing."

She leaned forward.

"She's not afraid of you."

"I didn't think she was."

"That's not what I mean." Celine's eyes were steady. "She's not afraid of your magic. She's not afraid of your anger. She's not afraid of the Kingdom, or the Church, or the Council, or Arthur, or Lily, or anyone."

She paused.

"She's afraid of what happens if she's wrong."

I didn't understand.

"About what?"

"About you." Celine straightened. "About what you are. About what you might become. About whether the light she saw in that church was real, or whether it was just another mask she'll eventually prove wrong."

She walked to the door.

"Sleep well, Clara. You're going to need it."

She left.

The door closed behind her.

The room was silent. The candles were guttering. The tea had gone cold. Lily was beside me, Myra was in front of me, and I was standing in the middle of the room with tears on my face and no idea what to do next.

"Clara," Lily said quietly. "What the hell just happened?"

I opened my mouth.

Closed it.

Opened it again.

And then, for once in my life, I told the truth.

"I don't know," I said. "But I'm going to find out."