But deep down, I knew… she already had.
And she wasn’t the same sister I once knew.
Lysara’s smile was the kind that didn’t quite reach her eyes.
That alone should have been the first warning.
It was quiet on the balcony, too quiet for two sisters who hadn’t seen each other in years. We stood in the chilled breath of twilight, facing one another like strangers instead of blood. The air between us felt like silk stretched too thin—fragile, tense, one wrong word from tearing.
“I missed you,” she said, the words polished, precise, as though she’d practiced them in front of a mirror.
“You faked your death, Lys,” I whispered, still stunned. “I grieved you.”
Her eyes flickered, just slightly, before she tilted her head. “And yet here I am. Alive.”
I didn’t know whether to scream, cry, or
