Knave isn’t jealous except sometimes, and then only a little.

  Wolf—newer Wolf, soft Wolf—had captured Lune’s attention in a way Knave had not. In a way none of them had yet.

  It could be that Wolf is a killer. She takes after her namesake that way, so ready to rend and tear with tooth and nail. There’s a brutality to her, lurking uhe unassuming surface. Knave finds it vastly uling. And like the id whose name she bears, Wolf is always so ready to be pointed in any dire and used as a on. Any dire that Lune so chooses.

  Of course Lune loves her. How she not?

  It doesn’t sting like jealousy ought because Knave doesn’t want Lune’s regard. She never has. Or at least, she doesn’t want it in that way, doesn’t need or crave her love or prote, not like some of the irls do—the you, or the weakest.

  But it rankles heless, because Wolf’s presence means that Knave now has less. It means that Wolf has taken something from her.

  What does it mean to lose something you never wanted in the first pce?

  * * *

  There’s open space out here; that’s something that be said for their digs.

  There are too many bodies, of course. Rooms packed tight with chattering lips and seeking eyes, inescapable in the releogetherness of the main house, but out here at least it’s quiet. Knave get lost in the forest for hours, wandering among the woods. It’s almost enough to make her fet that she ever really get lost, much as she might like to. There’s an inexorable pass in her breast that points toward home no matter how far she runs.

  She bites her lip ‘til blood as the thought wells up. She hates that she thinks of it as home now. She’d never call it that out loud, certainly never within earshot of anyone else, but the self-knowledge that she thinks it eats away at her in her unguarded moments. It feels like losing a part of herself every time she finds herself in accord with the Persephone girls.

  For all that she’s excellent at lying to others, she’s never been much of oo lie to herself. They’re getting tetting into her mind, and no amount of chewing away at the inside of her mouth will remove the knowledge from her.

  At least the woods are quiet, Khinks as she rests her forehead against the cool bark of a tree. Sometimes it almost feels like peace.

  * * *

  Lune is not a good person.

  Knave has known it from the start. There’s something she reizes in their shrewd-eyed leader. It could be metaphysical—the edges of what’s real and possible tend to blur and bend in this pce—but maybe it’s nothing more than one ’s sense of another. A grifter reizing the grift when she sees it.

  The reasons don’t matter; the fact remains—Lune is not a good person.

  Knave knows it. Harlot knows it. It’s something they agree on, although they’re not friends.

  They don’t talk about it because that would be irresponsibly dangerous. There are eyes and ears everywhere, even this far from civilization, especially here, but Kucks the small piece of knowledge, folded, in the back of her mind. It’s a safeguard against troubling times, against a storm that’s sure to e.

  And if she sometimes takes it out, unfolds it and smooths her hands over it—

  If she reminds herself te at night when everyone is sleeping, shocks her system with a shot of truth as pu and unpleasant as smelling salts—

  If she catches Harlot’s eye iing gnces day to day—

  That’s nobody’s business but her own.

  Wolf eyes her suspiciously sometimes, little specutive looks with the hint of something in her eyes, feral and questioning, but Knave says nothing. She tips her just the barest bit higher.

  Let her look.

  * * *

  Sometimes it’s hard to keep her sanity. To remember her o remember anything at all. The Persephone girls have sheltered her, given her a new life. They’ve kept her safe from angry men that certainly would have e for their pound of flesh, for Knave had always been a shit-stirrer, in this life and the st. Lune probably saved her life. She t deny that, but the cost had been oh, so high.

  They took her name, her identity. They let her dress how she likes even now, but it’s a farcical representation of freedom, ohat Knave see straight through. No one is free here. Not really.

  Some nights, Knave lies awake in the dark with facts from her old life heavy on her lips. Her name, address, date of birth. The name of the st man she’d fucked, before all of this. The way his cock had felt thid sweet oongue.

  The Persephone girls have given her much, but they’ve taken more. They’d bleed her dry if she allowed it.

  She’s tired. Sometimes she wants to allow it.

  No, not the Persephone girls, she reminds herself as she drifts off to sleep. Don’t shield her from bme, name her.

  Lune. Lune had taken it from her.

  * * *

  Waif arrived in summer. She was frightfully thin, so thin you could see the articution of her skeleton, rib cage showing through her skin in sharp relief over the top of her muddy dress. The Persephone girls weled her in, as they always do. She stayed. She ate. She healed.

  It’s been months, and she’s still thin, but not so thin that it looks like she might blow over. She doesn’t flinch at sudden movements or cry in the dark anymore.

  Knave has always liked Waif as much as she likes anyone, which is not necessarily a lot, but Waif is young, kind and sweet, and she has a way of making everyone love her without even trying. She’s had a hard life, but that doesn’t endear her to Knave, doesn’t move Ko offer pity or soce. They’ve all of them had hard lives. That’s why they’re here.

  Knave likes Waif for herself. Because she’s quiet and perceptive. Because she listens as much as she speaks, and she doesn’t apologize more than she should.

  Knave never had a sister, and she doesn’t want one. She’s not the type of person to seek out surrogates. She’s not a wellspring of love; her love is not looking for lround.

  Still. If she had time, Khinks, she would teach Waif. She would teach her how to fish and how to and cook what she catches. She would teach her how to avoid pickpockets iy, and teach her deeper lessons besides.

  Don’t let them twist your sorrow to their be. Don’t trust anyone who offers you sympathy.

  It’s what she would say, if she could. What she offers Waif is much clearer, much purer than what the rest of them would give her. No pity, but friendship. No mimicry of love, but acceptance. Knave would give her these things, if she could.

  But Waif is a little girl. Too young for hard lessons, too uo see the kindness in them. She wants fort still. She wants sod ease. Waif turns instinctively toward affe, toward Wolf’s overture’s and Lune’s. She basks in their easy treatment, in the way they brush and braid her hair and steal her dies from the kit. She turns toward them, rosy-cheeked and ughing. She turns away from Knave, but she does it kindly.

  It’s for the best, Khinks. She hasn’t the heart to go after Waif. She isn’t what the girl needs.

  Her ow is broken and scarred. She barely help herself, so she certainly ’t help anyone else. Not evetle girl with potential and wit, who is the closest thing Knave’s heart has ever e to calling sister.

  Let Wolf and Lune have her. Let her be their daughter, an accessory in the web they weave around one ahe Persephone girls swallow down another life.

  She tells herself it doesn’t taste like failure, that she doesn’t sigh and feel a small, wistful pain watg the three of them from the window.

  She tells herself it doesn’t feel like watg someone die.

  * * *

  Winter es, and it’s the hardest time of the year for Knave. Sometimes she pretend the Persephone girls are everything they cim to be, if she blinds herself willfully, but it’s harder tet when she’s in such close proximity to the others for days at a time. Harder tet that what they call a sisterhood is really a cage. The home they share never feels more like a prison thahe snow is piled high in the yard and it’s impossible to go outside.

  That’s not to say it’s all bad. They have good times, especially in winter. It would be easier if it was always ohing or the other. Sometimes Knave wishes for true cruelty directed her way, so she could hate and be doh it.

  Instead, there’s a Christmas tree that Soldier felled in the forest, decorated with dles and strings of pop. A fire crackles in the hearth, and the spicy st of mulled wine permeates the house. Everything is bright and soft-edged, and eveter winter chill ’t touch them in here. They are good at making light against the darkness.

  There are gifts beh the tree ed in thick red paper. Some are rge, and some are small, and Lune walks around the room pressing each gift into the hand of its recipient. Girls chatter in low, excited voices, oohing and ahhing over one another’s presents. The wine makes the versation flow in a way it ofte. Even Knave partakes. By the time Luo her, everything is feeling pleasantly muffled. She feels far away and muted, loose-limbed and easy.

  She’s staring into the fire at some far-off distant past. Memories flick through her head, and she lets them go, her helping nor hindering their passage. She’s so distracted that she doesn’t notice Lune for some time. When she does, her eyes refocus until she’s present and not stalking the halls of memory.

  Luices when Knave es back to herself. She smiles, and the sight still mao take Knave’s breath away. Lune is something to behold when she really smiles. Her face seems lit from within with breathtaking kindness, hair illuminated like a halo around her head. Sometimes Knave knows why they follow her, this ragtag band of misfits and strays.

  “Merry Christmas, Knave,” Lune says softly, holding out a square, red package.

  “Thank you,” Knave says, taking the parcel in fihat are numb despite the warmth in the room. The fire will be lovingly tended all day, a balm against the gathering gloom outside. It’s more likely to be too hot than too cold.

  Lune smiles again, nodding. She leaves to take her pext to Wolf oher side of the room. They sit side by side on the floor, with their legs stretched out and their stoged feet not quite toug. Lune leans in to say something close to Wolf’s ear, and Wolf smiles with a brief fsh of teeth before nodding and saying something in reply.

  Knave looks away, and it takes a curious amount of effort. It feels as though she’s just seen something private. She feels like she’s intruding, although she knows she is not.

  She looks down at the present in her hand. It’s soft beh the paper, and she rips it open slowly, peeling the er away like the skin of a fruit. Inside is a new sweater, soft and bck. It’s the sort of garment that she prefers—just her and no one else. It’s nothing any of the irls would wear. She runs her fingers down its front and feels the sleek fabric shift coolly beh her hands. One er of her mouth quirks up despite herself. It’s a truly lovely gift.

  She looks around the room, but no one is paying attention to her. No ourns to look as she cautiously brings the garment up to her nose and inhales. It smells and new, like nothing so much as open spaces and pine. Her smile cracks open and widens. She pulls the sweater over her head despite the insiste from the fire that pinkens her fad toes.

  That night Knave dreams of leaving in the spring, like she always does.

  But winter es and goes, and she stays.