I was relieved that he didn’t try to stop me, but I wondered about his true feelings toward our betrothal. Was it just that I was the next best thing to Zadie, or did he really believe he could love me the way a husband loves a wife?

I tried to see him not just as a best friend, but as an eligible young man. He wore his finest tunic and trousers tonight, and his hair was neatly combed and oiled—or had been, before he’d ruffled it. But when I looked at his face, all I could see was the mischievous boy from my childhood, the one who had dropped anchor without securing the rope and told Father it was my fault, who had once stolen my tunic so that I had to return from diving wearing my skirts as a dress. When his eyes, rimmed with long dark lashes that were the envy of many a girl, met mine, I didn’t feel anything but the same kind of love I felt for my family.

“I’ll come by tomorrow afternoon,” he said. “When your parents are out. Tell Zadie... Tell her the elders chose well.”

I managed a small smile. “You should tell her yourself. Good night, Sami.” I was reaching for the ladder to the dock when I felt his hand on mine.

“I didn’t ask for this either, you know.”

The coldness in his voice startled me, and I realized I had wounded his pride with my reaction to his news. Sami was kind and handsome, and he would make a good leader one day. Any girl would be lucky to marry him. But I needed him to understand how I felt.

“I am not my sister, Sami,” I told him as gently as I could.

“I never said you were.”

Our eyes locked for another moment before I climbed out of the boat, leaving Sami alone in the dark.

* * *

I was still grappling with Sami’s news when I went in search of Zadie. I found her surrounded by the other girls from the choosing ceremony, and I was happy to see she was smiling, her golden-brown eyes beginning to glaze over as she took another swig of wine. We weren’t normally permitted to drink, but it seemed like none of the rules applied tonight.

“You must envy your sister,” a woman my mother’s age said to me. “She gets to leave Varenia. She gets to marry a prince.”

As if I wasn’t aware. “Yes, ma’am, she is very blessed.”

“And to think, if you hadn’t saved her from that fishing net and cut your cheek all those years ago, it might have been you chosen tonight. It must be difficult not to blame her for your misfortune.”

I glanced again at the woman and felt that same strange sensation in my belly, like a writhing eel. It was Alys’s mother.

Contrary to what many Varenians thought, I had never once blamed Zadie for the scar on my cheek. It was a small price to pay for my sister’s life. That didn’t mean I had never envied my twin, or that I never wondered how things would be if the incident hadn’t happened. But I often consoled myself with the fact that if I didn’t have my scar, Zadie and I would have spent our lives competing with each other. The idea of viewing my sister as an obstacle, rather than my best friend, was unthinkable.

Alys’s mother was like a flounder stirring up sand that had settled long ago, trying to bring painful memories to the surface. I buried them back down where they belonged. To hold on to the past was as useless as trying to find the same wave twice, Father always said.

“I’m happy for my sister,” I said, then left to join Zadie.

We didn’t return to our home until late into the night, after the entire village celebrated with enough homemade wine to hide the fact that there was no feast, as there should have been.

Mother was half-asleep by the time Father led her back to our house, but the triumphant smile on her face never faltered. She relished every single congratulatory word, drank in the jealous looks of other mothers, many of whom seemed to know that Mother would now have a princess and the governor’s wife for daughters. Word traveled fast in Varenia, but it was clear no one had yet told Zadie about my betrothal, for while she was tipsy and exhausted, her mood was still riding the current of an entire village’s elation.

I helped her undress and eased her onto our bed, then carefully folded up our gowns. I tried to imagine my sister in a whale-bone corset and high-heeled shoes—things I’d never seen but heard about from Sami, who had encountered all manner of people at the port where he did his illegal trading.

Only Ilarean men came to the floating market where we purchased our goods, and they never spoke to us about life in Ilara. They were polite but curt, keeping the conversation on business in their clipped cadence. (Though we spoke the same language, I’d always thought it sounded more musical on Varenian tongues.) But over the years, I’d gleaned small details about life on land from their clothing—never ornate, though fine—and mannerisms. And while Mother haggled, I often studied the intricate carvings on their boats: people and horses, trees and rivers, and dozens of creatures I couldn’t name.

Perhaps, if I married Sami, I could sneak away with him and see those things for myself one day. Surely the governor’s wife would have more freedom than a villager’s daughter.

I pulled a blanket over my sister, my eyes filling with tears at the thought that we had so little time left. It was a crueler twist of fate than Alys’s mother realized, that Zadie would leave Varenia and see the world, while I stayed behind and married the boy she loved. I scrubbed angrily at my tears, accidentally brushing the scar on my cheek. Without it, I might have been chosen, and Zadie could marry Sami. I didn’t resent my sister in the slightest, but I muttered a curse to Thalos that would have made even Sami blush. None of this was fair.

I lay down on the straw-filled mattress next to my sister and carefully removed her seaflower crown, then began to release the braids in her hair. I’d thought she was asleep, but then I heard her breathe a sigh so weary, she sounded as old as Elder Nemea.

“What is it?” I whispered. Mother and Father were asleep in their own bed across the house, but we only had curtains to separate our rooms.

“It just all came back to me.”

“What?”

“What tonight meant. For a little while, I allowed myself to forget. I was just a girl celebrating with her friends.” She rolled over so I could work on the braids on the other side of her head. “I can’t believe I have to leave in a week. I’ll never see you again. It doesn’t seem possible.”

“Then let’s pretend it’s not,” I said, fighting back fresh tears. “Let’s spend this week doing all our favorite things. We won’t mention anything beyond these seven days.”

“It won’t change anything.”

“No. But neither will spending the next seven days crying. And I doubt the prince wants to find his new bride as swollen as a puffer fish.”

She released her breath through her nose. I had finished with her hair and it was fanned all around her now, a mass of brown waves identical to my own. “Fine,” she said. “What do you want to do tomorrow, then?”

“I want to watch the sunrise with you.”

“That’s in about two hours. Would you settle for the sunset tomorrow?”

“I suppose. Then I want to go out to the reef and swim with the turtles. I want to find the fattest oyster we’ve ever found, one with four or five pearls inside, and have Sami trade it for fresh fruit. And then I want to—”

“I think that’s enough for one day, Nor.”

I yawned and pulled my hair out of the way before settling onto my side. We often slept like this, facing each other. We had since we were babies, Mother said. “Should we invite Sami?” I asked.

“Not tomorrow.”

I smiled, relieved. I wanted a day alone with my sister. I didn’t want to think about Ilara or about marrying Sami. Tomorrow would be about us.

* * *

Father agreed to let us take the boat for the day if we promised to bring back some pearls. There was never any guarantee we’d find even one, but I had a good feeling about today. As soon as we were out of sight of the house, I removed my hat and tied my skirts up between my legs. We were the only boat on the water—most people, like Mother, were sleeping off the festival and wine. Zadie looked a bit green herself, but I’d forced a ladle of fresh water and some porridge into her before dragging her into the boat.

She sat across from me now, her face shaded beneath the wide brim of her hat. Just because the ceremony was over didn’t mean she could fall into her sister’s slovenly ways, Mother had grumbled as we made our way out the door.

“You can remove your hat, Zadie. Mother can’t see you out here.”

She kept her gaze on the water. “I will, once we get to the reef. There’s no point in taking risks now.”