For a moment, Evelyn thought she’d misheard.

“I’m sorry, what?”

Bree panicked. “Listen, Eve, this is... er... you know we didn’t have a good relationship with each other, and... and I thought that... I just... look, I’m sorry.”

“Sorry?” Eve repeated, incredulous. “Bree, you tried to get rid of me.”

Bree winced. “I didn’t mean... y– you know this was right after my birthday, and—”

“And that makes it right for you to get rid of me?” Evelyn looked away, feeling disgusted.

For once, Brianna didn’t have an argument to counter that. She just stood still, in silence, looking at her sister. When an answer to Evelyn’s question failed to come, Eve turned her back on her stepsister, and started walking toward the door.

Bree tried to follow her. “Eve, wait!” she called, stopping Evelyn in the act of swinging open the library door.

“Leave me alone, Brianna,” said the girl, coldly.

As soon as she walked outside, Eve saw Cat and the Rose girl chatting with each other, all smiles, as if they were old friends. Ugh! What’s with that? she thought to herself.

Evelyn began to walk down the street, with haste. Cat finally noticed that she was there, and unaware of what had just transpired inside the library, ran over to Eve, happily.

“Hey, Evelyn! Did you and Brianna find anything interesting?”

Eve ignored her and continued to walk.

“Evelyn?” Cat asked, understandably surprised, but still she was ignored. Because Evelyn just wanted to get away from there, as fast as possible. She wanted to be alone, and she wished against all reason that people would just magically understand that and leave her alone.

“Evelyn, what’s wrong? Please talk to me. If... if something’s wrong, I can help—”

“Help?!” Eve stopped walking and turned to look at her, perplexed. “Help, Cat? I’m sorry, Princess Catherine, I mean. Your... highness,” she spoke those words with almost palpable contempt. Cat noticed it.

“What are you on about?” said Cat, her normally cheerful disposition now replaced with wariness. She seemed hurt.

Evelyn couldn’t care less. Cat was royalty. A privileged girl who had probably grown up in the lap of luxury. “You of all people think you can help me?” Eve scorned. “Help anyone? You’re a fucking princess, Catherine, for goodness’ sake. You do know what I think of people like you, right? Of royalty,” the word tasted bitter on her tongue. “It’s because of people like you, Cat, that Oliver’s father was kidnapped. Murdered, possibly. And so many others too. You saw them, on Skeleton Ridge, this morning. These are people whose lives you’ve ruined, because you and all other nobles thrive on exploiting people through the use of violence. So you can’t help me, or anyone, for that matter.”

“What’s wrong with you?!” Cat exclaimed, now livid. “Is this what you really think of me?! Because if it is, then you really don’t know anything about me, Evelyn. At all!” She sighed, and looked away, dejected. “You know... I really thought we were friends... but I guess I was wrong about that,” she said those last words with spite, before turning around and walking away.

Evelyn watched Cat leave and, for a moment, her anger wavered. Had she said too much? After all, she wasn’t really angry at Cat, but at Brianna. Should she go after Cat? To apologize?

She hesitated. And watched as Cat joined Light of Stars in the village, pulling her to her feet before continuing down the street, never once looking back. Evelyn felt dejected, and all the anger from before came back.

“So that’s how you wanna do this?” she whispered to nobody.

Evelyn had known since they arrived at the village that Light of Stars was not to be trusted. She tried telling the others that, even tried telling Catherine that. And this is what she gets in return. Catherine had made her choice, and she chose the Rose girl.

A single tear threatened to fall down Evelyn’s left cheek.

“God, you’re such an idiot, Cat.”

—

Brianna was sitting on the floor inside the Rose library, leaning her back against one of the bookshelves, alone and crying. There was a knock on the door. The girl wiped her tears and tried her best to sound calm and collected as she told whoever was out there to come in.

Cat walked into the room. Her steps faltered when she noticed the state that Brianna was in. The blonde flashed her a tentative smile, which just about failed to conceal how miserable she was feeling. In silence, Cat walked up to her, and sat down by her side.

“Cat...” Brianna called. “I did something horrible...”

Catherine said nothing. She sat down beside her friend and waited for Brianna to collect herself, in silence.

Once Brianna had stopped crying, she started telling Cat the whole story. She told her of the horrible way Evelyn used to treat her, before they arrived in this world, and of how Brianna herself had responded by trying to get rid of her new sister with witchcraft.

“The spell did exactly what I asked of it,” Brianna said. “It sent Evelyn so far from our house that she actually ended up in a different world. Except that, for some reason, I wound up here as well.”

“I saw Evelyn storm out of here earlier,” Cat pointed out, “angry at everything and everyone. She even lashed out at me. Was that why?”

Bree nodded. “Evelyn really has every right to be angry at me. I know I should apologize, but what could I even say after what I’ve done?”

“Can I ask you a question?” said Cat, receiving a nod from Brianna in response. “That spell you tried to cast, what was it supposed to do?”

“Wish-granting,” Bree explained. “I wished for Evelyn to be sent away, and she was.”

Cat pondered about that for a moment. “Well, I don’t know any spells like that,” she said, “but if the spell was supposed to grant your wish, and you both ended up in this world, couldn’t it be that you had been wishing for this, instead?”

Bree furrowed her brow. She had not considered that possibility, before. But it couldn’t be, could it? After all, why would she even wish for something like that?

They remained in silence for a little longer. Then Cat sneezed, turning herself into a black cat, and sneezed a second time after a few seconds.

“Dust,” she explained. “This place is filled with the stuff. We need to get o– ooaaaatchoo!”

Bree chuckled. She picked Cat up in her arms and collected her clothes from the floor, then made her way outside.

—

Evelyn’s first instinct was to get as far away from the Rose village as possible. But the gate was still closed, and a sandstorm raged outside. Eve walked around idly, trying to find a place where she could be alone with her thoughts. She came upon a lake, and decided to sit by the water’s edge.

Hours passed. Evelyn’s rage subsided. By the time the sun set, she wasn’t angry at Brianna anymore. Nor was she angry at Catherine, despite the way she’d lashed out at her, before. But Evelyn was still angry, and she didn’t know why. The girl tossed a stone, hoping to make it skip over the surface of the lake, but it just plopped into the water.

Brianna’s words had made her gloomy. Eve knew that she had been a horrible step-sister for months, back home, but at least she would never have tried to get rid of Brianna. So of course it hurt her, to think that Brianna had actually tried to send her away like that. And the worst part was that it would have worked, if Brianna hadn’t accidentally gotten herself caught in the spell.

Mostly, Evelyn felt cast aside, and maybe that’s part of the reason she was still angry. On the other hand, if Brianna had felt the need to do something that extreme... that had to mean that Evelyn must really have been horrible to her. And that thought made Evelyn angry at herself.

Eve tossed another stone at the lake, and it failed to skip, as well. Then, she heard the sound of steps crunching the gravel behind her, and turned her head to look. It was Brianna, holding some sort of parcel wrapped in white cloth.

“Eve... can we talk?”

Eve looked back at the lake, and didn’t answer.

“I brought you food,” said Bree, taking a few steps closer. “You haven’t eaten anything since we got here, right? So I figured you might be hungry.”

She placed the small parcel close to where Evelyn was sitting, and sat down herself at a small distance. Eve kept looking at the lake.

“I’m really sorry for what I did, that day,” said Brianna. “There’s no excuse for it, and I don’t expect you to forgive me. I just... hoped you could give me the chance to make amends.”

Eve sighed. She was caving, and she really hated herself for it. Because, deep inside, Evelyn wasn’t a particularly bad or resentful person, so it was really hard for her to keep ignoring Brianna, especially when she was this close to her, and speaking in such a heartfelt manner.

“Why did you do it?” said Eve, still not looking the other girl in the eyes.

“I was angry,” Brianna explained, “and miserable, too. When you forgot about my birthday, I... felt really hurt. I thought it’d be better if you weren’t there. But I was wrong, and I regret everything.”

Eve sighed. Had this revelation surfaced just a few days before, Evelyn might not have found in herself the will to forgive her. That Evelyn would have said things like “you only regret it because you got stuck in this world too;” or “you wanted me gone, so I’ll just return the favor, now go away.”

She wasn’t that person anymore.

Eve supposed she owed it to that day at the forest, when she realized how awful she’d been acting toward Brianna these past few months. It changed how she saw her sister, and how she saw herself, too. It made her want to strive to do better.

“I do regret it,” Brianna repeated. “I wish I could go back and do things differently, but...”

“...but you can’t,” Eve finished.

And neither can I, she realized.

Eve looked into Brianna’s eyes. There wasn’t enough light to be sure, but she could faintly see some redness in them, so Brianna must have been crying. Eve felt a sharp pain in her chest. What was she doing?! Was she really dumb enough to let things go wrong all over again? Eve didn’t want to hurt Brianna again, or to shut her off anymore.

I can fix this, she realized.

“It’s okay, sis,” said Evelyn, smiling gently at her sister.

To her surprise, Bree actually did start crying, then. She wrapped her arms around Eve, embracing the girl tightly. “Thank goodness,” she said, between sobs. After a moment, Bree pulled away, and dried her tears on the cuffs of her blouse. “When you left me, earlier today, I was so worried.”

“I’m sorry,” Eve told her.

Bree shook her head. “Don’t be. You had every right to do that. I should never have cast that spell.”

“Hey, it’s all right,” said Eve. “We’ve both made mistakes. It’s not too late to fix things, don’t you think?”

Bree nodded. “Of course,” she said, in a shaky voice. She was smiling, despite the tears. And Evelyn caught herself thinking that this is really what being sisters is all about. Getting angry at each other, fighting, making up, all that was inconsequential. What mattered is that she’d be there for Bree, and vice-versa, whatever happened.