She's the reason the heart of my family had been torn apart. Because that night, I'd unwittingly chosen her. Now, years later, she's my prey.
[Season 1 'Of Crows and Thorns']
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NELLE:- Cursed by a terrifying dark power, I'm a secret hidden in plai...
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I'd not find anything on this thing that wasn't any different from Nelle. She looked like her. Wore her clothes. Even her unique fingerprints would be an exact match. She'd speak like her. But what they couldn't do was replicate smell.
"It's not her. It's not her," I kept repeating in bewilderment.
"Gray?"
I glanced sidelong over my shoulder and Caidan returned a look that was soaked in sorrow.
"It's not... It's not Nelle," I whispered so quietly only my brother would have been able to hear.
This thing in my arms was a Changeling.
Still, even knowing that, I couldn't drop this thing. I gently lowered Nelle's replica to the ground and Marissa swooped in.
I threw out my arm to stop her. "Don't—"
Marissa paid me no mind. Dodging around me, she sank to her knees and gathered the changeling in her arms. She choked on tears while holding it gently to her chest, not realizing it wasn't her daughter.
Evvie pushed off Caidan. And Lise scrambled to her feet.
The sisters clustered around their shaken mother cradling her youngest daughter. Draped across her lap, Nelle's wild hair, matted with blood, shivered with the sobs wracking Marissa's frail body.
I stepped back, one step...two...three more...to gain distance from the Wychthorn women. Running a blood-coated hand through my hair, I wrenched at the locks, hardly feeling the dull burn spreading across my scalp. I needed to think. I needed to work this out.
My brother's brows nudged together, as he stared at me, taking in the change flooding through my posture and expression. I'd let the grief go and replaced it with grim determination to work this out.
Had Nelle done this?
Did she purposely leave the Changeling as a decoy to buy herself freedom?
My gaze swept across the small crowd gathered around with grieving Wychthorns. More of the Pelans had arisen and stumbled outside to find out what was wrong. More shocked servants hung back further away, standing alongside the family guards collected in small pockets. Their disbelief and grief mirrored one another—a terrible blight against the grassy lawn and the low rising sun full of warmth and fresh sunshine.
Sage hunkered down nearby, his unblinking silver eyes slit and fixated on the thing now in Marissa's arms. His rigid muscles were bunched, readying to pounce. And along his spine was a ridgeline of hackled misty fur.
I frowned in deep contemplation.
Could Nelle have left Sage behind?
Her loyal companion.
Her heart.
Could she have given up Sage for freedom?
No. I didn't think she could be parted from Sage. She might have run, but she wouldn't have left Sage behind. Which meant...?
