“Zadie, no!” I plowed through the water toward her, reaching her just in time. I pulled on her shoulder, whirling her toward me, and for a moment we hung there in stillness, her face a mirror of the anguish I felt.

“Please, Nor,” she cried the moment we surfaced. “If you won’t do it for me, at least stay with me. I can’t do it alone.”

I hated myself for nodding. But I knew I would hate myself more if I left and she seriously injured herself trying to do this by herself. “How were you planning to do it?” I asked shakily.

Some of the worry drained from her face, but I felt like I had absorbed all of it. “I’ll cut off one of the tentacles and lay it on my legs. It will need to stay on my skin for a little while to ensure permanent scarring.”

I stared at her in horror. “How do you know this?”

She started for the other side of the boat, away from the jellyfish. “Mother told me once. She said if a jellyfish ever stung me, the most important thing to do would be to remove the tentacles right away, and to use something flat and rigid to brush out the stingers. Otherwise I’d have permanent scars. It’s a small maiden’s hair. I don’t think it has enough venom to kill me.”

“You don’t think?” I yelped.

“I’m sure it doesn’t.”

That was hardly reassuring. “And what will we tell Mother and Father? What will we tell the rest of the village?”

“That we went for a night swim and didn’t see it. No one would believe I did this to myself.”

She was right. I could scarcely believe it, and I was here with her. “What if Sami won’t have you?”

“He loves me, Nor. I know that won’t change.”

I knew very well how love could be changed by a scar, but I didn’t have the heart to tell her that. “His father is the governor. He might not allow it.”

Zadie shook her head. “If Sami wants me, his parents will listen. And if not, we’ll run away together.”

I blinked in shock. I had wanted to run away with Zadie, but I never believed it was something she would actually do. “Did you discuss this with him?”

“No, but I just know it. We kissed, Nor. And it was like a promise. That he loves me as much as I love him. That he would do anything for me. I can’t tell you what that feels like, to know someone would do anything for you.”

I inhaled sharply, her words a barbed hook in my heart. Hadn’t she always known that I would do anything for her? “And yet you ask this of me? Why not ask Sami, if he loves you so much?”

She pulled me to her. “Because you are the twin of my soul. You know me better than anyone ever has or ever will. Because I trust you more than I trust Sami. And because you are the strongest person I have ever known. Only you can help me.”

“It’s not fair of you to ask me,” I said, my voice breaking on a sob.

“You will protect me,” she said through her own tears. “You always have, and you won’t stop now.”

I had to bite my lip to keep from crying out. A part of me was furious with my sister for even asking, for putting me in this position. I wanted to tell her no, to go back to my bed and sleep through the next two days, until all of this was over.

But she was right. There was nothing she could ask of me that I wouldn’t do for her. And if this was truly what she wanted, then I couldn’t let her face it alone.

“I will help you get the tentacle,” I said finally. “But I am only doing this because I’m afraid you’ll hurt yourself trying, not because I agree with it.”

“I understand.” She reached into the boat and handed me Father’s sharpest spear and a small net used to catch little fish. “Be careful.”

I took the spear and net and ducked under the water. The jelly was mostly contained within the larger net Zadie had caught it in, but several tentacles had wriggled through the holes. As my tears mingled with the saltwater around me, I fought to still my shaking hands, and it took several attempts before I was able to lop off four or five of the thin tentacles. I reached out with the little net and caught them, still unsure if I was doing the right thing, then rose carefully to the surface, keeping the net at arm’s length.

Zadie was holding a small piece of driftwood. “I thought it would be best to do this out here, so no one would hear me scream, but just in case, I’ll bite into the wood. We should get into the boat now, in case I faint.”

She had planned all of this, I realized. Maybe since the day we saw the dead jelly. “And then what?”

“And then we’ll see.”

I dropped the net and tentacles into the boat and hauled myself in after, landing in a heap next to Zadie.

We were both wearing only our tunics, and the seawater on Zadie’s long legs glistened in the moonlight. She was still whole and perfect. It wasn’t too late to go home and pretend all of this had never happened.

“Please stop this, Zadie,” I begged. “What if we talked to Governor Kristos together? Perhaps he would agree to let me go in your place.”

She shook her head. “Even if he allowed it, Mother never would. She is determined that this should be my fate.”

And she doesn’t believe I’m beautiful enough, I thought. She would never risk the elders choosing Alys to go in Zadie’s place.

She sat down at one end of the boat and placed the driftwood between her teeth. “I’m ready,” she said around the wood.

I picked up the small net, where the tentacles barely glowed at all. What time was it? How many hours did we have before our parents woke up and discovered what we’d done? What would Mother say when she found out? I knew everything was about to change forever, but I handed Zadie the net anyway. I thought of Dido’s wounds, which I’d only seen once, when we went to visit her shortly after the accident. The flesh where the tentacles had touched her was raised and pink, as though a mass of worms was crawling over her leg.

I imagined Zadie with scars like that and began to cry, closing my eyes tight as she lowered the net toward her legs, bracing myself for her screams.

“I can’t.”

My eyes flew open, relief coursing through me. “Thank the gods.”

She removed the wood from her mouth. “You have to do it, Nor.”

“What?” I shook my head violently. “No. I said I would stay with you, but I can’t be the one to do it.”

Zadie set the net aside and dropped into the floor of the boat to kneel before me. “Please,” she begged. “If I have to go to Ilara, I’ll die of a broken heart. And you’ll die, too, if you have to stay here without me. Maybe not for a long time, but this life will slowly kill you, too. I know you, Nor. You’ll never be happy here.”

“Don’t do that,” I said through my sobs. “Don’t make it about what I want. I don’t want any of this!”

She reached for the net again and thrust it toward me so forecefully that I flinched. “If you really love me, you’ll help me.”

I had never seen Zadie like this, her eyes so wide I could see the whites all around. She was wild with desperation, barely recognizable as my beloved sister. “Don’t say that. Please.”

She was frozen there, quivering with fear and anger and need. An honor, everyone called it. To be the chosen girl, to be beautiful, to marry advantageously. But this wasn’t what honor was supposed to look like: a frightened girl on her knees, begging to be spared.

“I can’t believe this is what you really want, Zadie. I can’t.”

“It is, Nor. More than anything else in the world.”

It took all of my strength to take the handle of the net from her, but I felt her relief as if it were my own. She’d looked so taut I thought she might snap like a fishing line.

“I love you,” I told her.

“You have been everything for me,” she said, her voice thick with emotion. “My arms when I wasn’t permitted to row, my legs when I wasn’t permitted to dive. My lips when I couldn’t defend myself from Mother. Now I need you to be my hands, Nor.”

I bit my lip to stifle my cries. But if Zadie could not do this on her own, I would be the steady hand that she lacked.

I lowered the net until the first tentacle was hovering just above the bare skin of her thigh and hesitated once more. “Zadie, I...”

Before I could stop her, she reached out, took my hand, and forced it down. Horrified, I wrenched myself out of her grasp and dropped the net, but the tentacles that had made contact were already adhering to her skin. Zadie winced as the tiny stingers grabbed hold of her leg, pulling themselves toward her.

Biting my lip was no longer enough. I bit my own hand to keep from screaming. The translucent blue lines clung to Zadie’s leg, even as she began to tremble, even as she started to squirm away from the pain. Her skin reddened, then blistered. I watched in horror as the tentacles appeared to melt into her flesh.

“Get them off!” she wailed finally. “Please!”