Page 326 of Split or Swallow

“Is everything in order, my dear? You do not look…joyous.”

Tem didn’t feel joyous. She felt only deep, unseated anxiety. There were too many balls in the air—too many things that could go wrong.

“I’m just…in shock,” she said.

“But why? The prince has always favored you.”

As soon as she said it, Tem knew it was true. But that didn’t mean she was joyous. It only meant she felt guilty Leo had to share her.

“Tem,” her mother took her hands gently in hers. “Talk to me.”

She sighed. Why lie anymore?

“I love another,” Tem said simply.

Her mother’s eyebrows rose.

“Who?”

“Caspen.”

Her mother frowned. Tem knew she would recognize the distinctly basilisk name. She watched as the truth dawned in her eyes—as her mother realized that history had repeated itself.

“Foolish girl,” she whispered, looking down at Tem’s hands and running her thumbs over her freckles. “Just like your mother.”

You hold the stars in your hands. Just like your father.

Tem clasped their fingers together tightly.

“It is not foolish to fall in love, mother. I have been many things, but I’m not a fool. And neither were you.”

Pain flashed in her mother’s eyes.

She dropped Tem’s hands and crossed to the kitchen window.

“Perhaps you are right,” her mother sighed. It was a long moment before she turned back to Tem, asking:

“Why are you marrying the prince if you love another?”

“I love the prince too.”

Silence settled in the kitchen, broken only by the occasional crow of a rooster. Tem broke it:

“May I ask you something?”

“Of course, my dear.”

“Do you still love father?”

Her mother turned once more to the window. Morning sunshine dappled her face.

“Love is complicated. It never goes away, only changes.”

Tem had never heard her mother speak so vulnerably. She pictured her next to Kronos, wondering how they would look together. It seemed a simple thing for other children—to see their mother and father in the same room. For Tem, it would be a miracle.

“It is true that I left your father,” her mother continued quietly. “But it was not what either of us wanted.”

Tem nodded, thinking of how her father had likely belonged to the Senecas—how that quiver wasn’t open-minded about courtships between humans and basilisks. Tem had never considered the ritual she’d endured a blessing. But now she realized she was lucky it had even been offered as an option. If Caspen’s quiver hadn’t allowed her to prove herself, their relationship would have suffered—maybe even ended—just like her mother’s did.