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When Adaine heard the sound of muffled sobs coming from inside the closed bathroom door, a part of her still leaned to the instinct to press her ear against the wall and listen in. Tears meant vulnerability. Vulnerability meant blackmail, upper hand.
Or at least, it had. Things had changed, so she shooed the instinct away and padded up to knock on the door.
Aelwyn didn't tell her to fuck off and leave her alone, so that was something. Adaine still heard the sharp intake of breath and sniffle that she tried to hide, sucking her feelings back in where Adaine wouldn't find them. (Except she would. They both knew that.)
"Aelwyn?" she asked tentatively. She wasn't entirely sure what to do; she had seen Fig and Kristen cry a few times, but she still wasn't sure if those were relationships that she could classify as sisterly to take notes from for this one. She wasn't sure how sisterly could be defined or navigated at all. "Are… is everything alright?"
There was a pause, and Aelwyn sniffled again, huffing with what sounded like frustration. Adaine flinched, but when she spoke, she could tell somehow that that frustration wasn't aimed at her. "No. Everything is decidedly not alright."
She sounded more resigned than anything, but worry still flared in Adaine's chest, and she reached out to push at the door. The lock on it didn't work, and she knew neither of them had ever gotten around to fixing it, but it still bumped closed when she leaned into it, something blocking it from opening. She shoved a little harder, then knocked again before it could devolve into one of their old catfights. "Let me in, please. Let me help you."
Aelwyn sniffed again, sounding closer to the door. "You are going to laugh at me."
"I won't," Adaine swore. "I promise. Are you hurt? What's happened?"
There was another pause, and then the door clicked, not opening but not being blocked anymore either. Tentatively, Adaine pushed it open, squeezing into the tiny bathroom where Aelwyn stood with quiet resignation in front of the sink.
The sink was full of hair, long and blonde and ragged at the end where the cheap craft scissors on the counter had cut through. Aelwyn was staring at her own reflection, lip bit hard and tears stained on her flushed cheeks. She didn't look directly at Adaine, but she got the feeling she was watching through the mirror.
"Oh," Adaine said, a little bit thrown off. Aelwyn looked completely different without the long, flowing hair she had known for all her life. And that was discounting the vulnerable level of upset on her face.
But it wasn't like this situation was completely foreign and impossible to her. She remembered Kristen's disasterous attempt to cut bangs in the summer after freshman year, vaguely remembers the things she and Fig had said and done to placate her in the aftermath. "Is it… do you not like it?"
Aelwyn did turn to face her then, eyes red and unbelieving of her cavalierness. "I look like the ransacked doll of a four year old."
"Well, I, we can fix it," Adaine said tentatively, shutting the door behind her and stepping a little bit closer. The hair that was left on her head was short, choppy and jagged on every edge, fanning out around her face and ears in disarray. It was longer at the back, but more disjointed, clearly difficult for her to reach on her own. "I can cast mending on it, if you don't like it. Or we can just kind of… try to clean it up a little."
Aelwyn sniffed again. "It's stupid. I look stupid."
"Well, it's not a very clean cut, but we can try again," Adaine said awkwardly. She reached up to touch the ends of it, trying to smooth it down and finding that it refused to budge. "Fig and Kristen and I usually cut each other's hair, I could get them—"
"No,"Aelwyn said, and so Adaine stopped. The Bad Kids had taught her what family meant, but they were family to her, not to Aelwyn, and she knew it wasn't easy to let new people in. They were strangers to her, and it was hard enough for her to reach for Adaine after everything.
"Well, I could try," she said, a little uncertainly. "I don't know how, really, but at least I can see it at the back."
Aelwyn made a noise of despair. "Is it worse at the back?"
"No," Adaine lied immediately. Aelwyn groaned, leaning her head against the sink. "It's fine! It will be fine. We can fix this. How do you want to do it?"
"I don't know," she said weakly. Again, she said, "It's stupid. I just wanted to… change something."She lay her head down on her folded arms.
Adaine understood, in a slow, painful sort of way.
She remembered looking in the mirror at Madame Silvaine's, seeing herself with her denim jacket wrapped around her shoulders and her school uniform crumpled and discarded on the chair behind her.
She knew what she meant. She knew what it felt like.
"Let's get a chair," she said. "It'll be easier if you sit down."
Aelwyn sighed heavily. "I suppose you can't make things any worse than they already are."
Despite the casual barb, Adaine could feel the lack of hesitation in the way that Aelwyn moved to make room for her, the undeniable trust as she sat down and turned her back, leaving herself exposed. Even if she flinched when Adaine reached for the scissors, even if her shoulders were tense and hard as bricks, Adaine watched the levelled control in her breathing and knew that she was trying.
Aelwyn didn't know how to be a sister either. They were both learning as best they could.
Adaine tried to get a sense of what she was doing, though she felt herself floundering terrifically. She could cast mending on it and bring it back to the way it was before, but she didn't have the first clue about cutting it to make something different. "Do you just want it… even? Shorter at the back?"
Aelwyn sighed. "I don't know. I'm fed up of having to brush it and tie it up every morning, and I don't want to look the same anymore. You can just cast mending and I'll put a hat on over it, or something."
Adaine ignored this deflection and tried to rack her brain for examples of short hair. "Do you want it like… like Riz's hair, maybe?"
Adaine could see the wrinkle of Aelwyn's nose in the mirror in front of them. "The Ball? His is dreadfully shaggy. I mean, it suits him alright, but I don't want it getting in my eyes anymore."
"So, shorter than that." Adaine plucked at the strands between her fingers, measuring them out with her eyes. "But still with scissors? Or should we try and shave it?"
"I'm not shaving my head," Aelwyn said, with a sense of indignation completely hypocritical for the fact she had just been criticising Riz's neck-length curls for being too long. "Surely there's some kind of middle-ground we can find—"
"Of course there is, I've got it," Adaine interrupted before she could stand up from the chair and attempt to take over again. "I'm just trying to get a sense of what you actually want."
"I don't know what I want," Aelwyn said again, and she sounded so truly miserable that it completely cut off any and all further questions from Adaine.
She simply mouthed a quiet "okay" to herself before picking up the scissors again, quietly trimming up the jagged ends so that they at least were all the same length. For several long minutes, neither of them spoke, and it was only the quiet snipping sound of the scissors in the cramped tower bathroom.
The silence made the absurdity of the situation press in on her from the walls, the ceiling, the floors. She imagined seeing this moment in a vision, eyes going white and limbs going limp with the picture of her sister sitting in front of her, quiet and pliant and trusting Adaine with a blade at her back. She thought it probably would have made her dizzy and nauseous with confusion just a year ago, maybe even disgusted at a version of herself that treated her sister with gentleness and understanding.
A lot changed in a year. Adaine was careful with the blade of the scissors near the skin of her sister's neck, and wanted to press gentleness into the vulnerability of her skin until it reached her bones.
After a bit, Aelwyn sighed again, and Adaine could see her eyes looking at herself in the reflection of the mirror in front of them. "Maybe this is a silly idea."
She didn't sound convinced enough for Adaine to put the scissors down. "Just say the word, and I can cast mending and go back."
Aelwyn did not. Instead, she sighed again and said, "I can't imagine Jawbone will have anything approving to say. He'll think I'm just continuing with my 'reckless rebellion' against our dead and missing parents instead of focusing on what I really want."
Adaine hadn't realised Aelwyn had spent so much time talking about that stuff with Jawbone. The self-awareness of it all startled her, for a moment, and she put the scissors down. "Do you think you're just doing this to… rebel?"
Aelwyn was quiet for a moment. Adaine saw her considering, watching her new reflection with its choppy tufts of short blond hair turning her into a puffball.
"I don't think I'd be brave enough to do it if they could still see me," she said eventually. And then, "I don't want to look like her anymore."
Adaine wasn't sure if she was referring to their mother or her old self. She didn't say anything, and they lapsed back into silence, comforted by the rhythmic shht, shht of the scissors.
She managed to do a passable job, she thought; evening up the jagged lines, everything short and orderly against her neck and temples and forehead. It all looked mostly the same from all sides. Aelwyn's face was still melancholy and resigned in the reflection.
"Is it too short?" Adaine asked, holding up her crystal to reflect the back of her head into the mirror in front of her. "We can still do it over, if you want. Or we can go shorter?"
Aelwyn didn't say anything. She touched the short strands at the side of her neck, considering, her mouth still turned down at the corners.
"I like how it feels," she said eventually. "I don't know what I expected it to look like."
It was hardly a glowing review, but Adaine had a feeling that wasn't anything to do with her barbering proficiency. She remembered the intangible, uncertain feeling in her own stomach like it was yesterday.
"You should take a shower, get all the hair off. It will probably look different when it dries, without the extra weight on it."
Aelwyn nodded a little, hollowly, and Adaine made to pack up the scissors and chair, resigned to their strange, silent moment being finished. Aelwyn followed her out of the bathroom, casting invisibility on herself before she reached the door and silently descending the spiral staircase to the downstairs shower. Adaine passed no judgement on the spell; she could remember the heaviness of existing in a house filled with attention for the first time, still felt it suffocate her when nights were hard.
She was surprised when, less than half an hour later, the door opened and closed again, and Aelwyn dispelled the spell, visible in front of her again. She was wet from the shower, rubbing her short hair with a towel and a general air of uncertainty, but Adaine knew the spell hadn't worn off on its own. She tried not to look too surprised as Aelwyn crossed the room to sit on the windowsill right next to her desk, tucking her knees up to her chest so they fit in beside one another.
"It looks nice," Adaine said, though it was still damp and limp, darker than it was when it was dry. It was falling into a new shape now, looking less like her old hair with a foot lopped off at the ends. A few strands arced up and fell in fans over her temples, artful and unintentional.
She looked older, more tired. Adaine wasn't sure how much of that was from the haircut.
Aelwyn ignored the compliment, wringing her hands in front of her knees, but she didn't move away from where Adaine was right next to her. Surprising both of them, Adaine reached for Boggy in his terrarium and placed him in Aelwyn's hands. He croaked gently, and Aelwyn seemed to untense a little, sliding down the windowsill with the frog cupped in her palms.
"I didn't mean to upend your afternoon," she said eventually, quieter than Adaine was used to. "I'm sure you have important things to attend to."
Adaine wasn't sure if she was speaking with jealousy, stripped of her purpose without their parents and her past wicked endeavours. It didn't sound like she was jealous. "I mean, most of my exams are finished for the year now. Mostly I'm just messaging with the others about prom."
Aelwyn stroked Boggy's head with her thumbs, and he chirped appreciatively, making them both smile softly. "You're really going to that, after last year?"
Adaine shrugged. She'd had the same question, but the others' excitement was infectious, and she'd been persuaded without a lot of effort. "The prophecy already happened. Kalvaxus is gone. And the food was apparently really good last year, so. Might as well go and check it out."
Aelwyn didn't respond to that, staring hollowly at Boggy in her palms. Adaine turned to face her properly. "What about you? I'm surprised Fabian hasn't asked you yet. He must be saving up to write it in the sky, or something."
Aelwyn didn't laugh or roll her eyes like she thought she would. She just kept on staring at Boggy, inflating and deflating with gentle ribbits in her palms.
"I'm not going with Fabian," she said eventually. "To anything."
Adaine was surprised. She had been trying not to pay any attention to the two of them—just because her sister wasn't evil anymore didn't mean she hated the idea of her dating her party member any less—but she hadn't noticed anything strange between the pair of them that indicated a nasty breakup, or any such thing. Fabian had been over for dinner just the previous night, the pair of them sitting opposite one another and glancing over every time someone made a joke or comment, like they were having their own silent conversations.
She didn't say any of that. Maybe Aelwyn hadn't said anything yet. Maybe this haircut was, like Kristen's several disasterous attempts at bangs, an indication of a greater crisis.
"Oh" was all she wound up saying. She was out of her depth in conversations about relationships and breakups and romance, though she knew it was supposedly something that sisters dealt with together. She wasn't sure that Aelwyn would want to talk about it with her, anyways. "Sorry. I didn't know."
Aelwyn didn't seem bothered. She squinted at Boggy, and Adaine wondered if she could see her own reflection warped in the round blackness of his eyes. "I didn't want to make a big deal about it. He's all yours, though, now."
Adaine made an indignant sound in the back of her throat. "Fabian? No, thanks."
Aelwyn finally glanced up at her, then, and Adaine could feel the incoming tease in her eyes. It was strange, how immediately she recognised it and yet knew that it wasn't any kind of sign of malice.
Still, she cut in before the tease could broach the air. "What happened between you two?"
Aelwyn bit her lip, teases forgotten, blowing a sigh out her nose. Boggy croaked in her hands, and her thumbs moved absentmindedly to stroke the sides of his face again. "I suppose you don't want to know the details," she said eventually.
Adaine's nose wrinkled. "Well, I was asking about the breakup, not the… anything else."
"The—anything else." Aelwyn's face scrunched up, and Adaine wondered vaguely if that was what she looked like when she made that expression. She had never seen a lot of similarities between herself and her sister before, but ever since returning from Fallinel, she had been noticing them more and more. "No, it wasn't like that. He—I know we both talked as though it was something grander than it was, but it really—"
She trailed off, but Adaine could tell she was still trying to organise her thoughts. She frowned and glanced up, blowing a puff of air that seemed to rearrange the damp strands of hair over her forehead.
"I don't think it was what either of us wanted," she said eventually.
Adaine snorted a little. "Did Fabian tell you that?"
Aelwyn leaned her head against the window. "We didn't… discuss things very deeply. We just agreed that it wasn't something worth pursuing any further emotionally." She sighed. "Look, I know you weren't there for the start of the party, but it was—nothing I was doing up until the moment I put Ostentatia in that palimpsest was calculated. They paid me for those parties, and I played a part. That's all. I showed up in a very nice top and said some very rude things, I brought the chaos and the sex, I did some drugs and I kissed some boys—"
"Right, okay," said Adaine, starting to get the feeling that her sister was spiraling a little. Boggy croaked very long and slow in between her palms, and Aelwyn took a shuddering breath and lapsed back into silence. "It's alright. You were probably the woman of his dreams to a fourteen-year-old pirate."
Aelwyn groaned, but it was lighthearted, and Adaine smiled at the small levity. "I was not. I was just a very familiar sort of chaos in shorts that were much too tight who showed a modicum of interest in him. That's all."
"Hmm." There was more Adaine wanted to ask while simultaneously wanting to know nothing more about it, but she decided not to press—there was a rawness in her sister's face, and the only thing worse than that was the oncoming tease when they'd first mentioned Fabian, and she knew she hadn't forgotten that, either. Instead, she said, "Well, you could come with me, if you want."
Aelwyn turned to look at her. Her eyebrows were raised. "To prom?"
Adaine shrugged. The judgment didn't burn her as it might once have. "There are no rules about being romantically entangled. We haven't had the chance to do much together as sisters."
Aelwyn blinked, and then looked away. A moment later, she cast invisibility on herself once again, leaving just the soft croaking of Boggy and a shadow on her windowsill, and Adaine knew she was trying not to cry. She let her hide while the spell was in effect, turning back to her desk and pretending to ignore the sniffling beside her until Aelwyn dispelled the spell and addressed her once again.
"I don't have any dresses."
"Jawbone is going to take me shopping next weekend," Adaine offered. She put her pencil down, still leaning over her desk. "I think Fig is going to tag along, though she still has her blazer from last year. You could ask to borrow something if you don't want to come with us."
In the corner of her eye, Adaine saw her sister wiping at her face with a fist curled up in her sleeve.
"You should ask them first," she said eventually. "I—they might not want me to come."
"I don't care what they want," Adaine said. It was an exaggeration, maybe, but she knew that nobody had ever had qualms with Aelwyn the same way that she had. If any of them were uncomfortable, it wasn't to enough of a degree that Adaine would back down on this newfound forgiveness. "You're my sister. They don't get a say."
Aelwyn stayed curled up in her spot on the window, and Adaine swivelled to face her properly. "You know, on our first day at school, Ragh dunked Riz into a trashcan? And he helped the cult-leader bloodrush coach try to start the apocalypse on us? Nobody has a problem with Ragh. We invite him to everything. That's because that stuff doesn't matter anymore. We believe in second chances."
Aelwyn didn't say anything, but her eyes glimmered and spilled over in the silence. Between her hands, Boggy let out a soft ribbit, ribbit.
"I might like that," she said quietly. "Maybe you could pick something out for me."
Adaine grinned. Aelwyn looked up, blinking like she was startled by the intensity before tentatively returning the expression. Between them, Boggy went ribbit ribbit ribbit.
"We'll get a neckline that suits the new hair," Adaine said lightly. She reached up to tousle it as obnoxiously as possible, and Aelwyn cursed, slipping on the windowsill as she tried to bat her away. "I'm sure that won't be difficult to find."
"Adaine," Aelwyn spat like a curse. It filled her lungs with air enough to float, and she laughed until the feeling of the lightness spilled all around the room, Aelwyn joining in somewhere along the way with rolled eyes and a smile that said she felt like things were going to be alright.