You can leave whenever you want to, Adagio reminded herself. She sat at a small booth in a quaint little coffee shop, fingering a warm cup and keeping a wary eye trained on the door.
Sunset wasn’t there yet, but she’d said she would be. Last night, when Adagio had been in one of her… less than lucid moods, that had seemed like good news.
Now, though…
She’s a distraction, she’d said to Aria the night before. She liked to think she’d meant it, too. Sunset made a poor approximation of a siren at best. And when it was the company of sirens one craved, one found that other people just didn’t compare.
Adagio stared down at her locket. The shards were something. They helped, of course they did. But last night… last night convinced her that sometimes the shards just weren’t enough.
So, when she saw a glimpse of fiery red hair out the window, followed shortly by the door opening, she put down her locket and put on a smile, because a distraction was exactly what she clearly needed, and perhaps for longer than a day.
“Ah, there you are,” she said as Sunset drew closer. “I was starting to think you wouldn’t make it.”
“Sorry. Busy morning.” Sunset sat down across from her, pausing to reach up and fix her hair, then clasping her hands in her lap and smiling brightly. “How’s it going?” Her voice was cheerful and light, as casual as if she didn’t remember their past conflict at all. Another day, that might have been insulting.
“Well. I would still be at home, but lounging around looking gorgeous doesn’t exactly melt the hours away without anyone to appreciate how much effort I’m not putting into it.”
“You know, there might be something you could learn from that…”
Adagio rolled her eyes. “Yes, yes, friendship’s wonderful. Now you’re going to enrich my life with more of your rainbow-saturated enlightenment, I take it?”
With a giggle, Sunset made a cheeky grin. “Well, I was going to give you a break, but now that you asked…”
“You’ll have to expand my horizons some some other time, I’m afraid.”
“One of my friends is taking on friendship students now, I’m told.” Sunset shrugged in a pointedly nonchalant kind of way.
“Sirens are allergic to studying. It ruins our complexion and makes our hair fall out.”
Sunset snickered. “Is that a fact?”
“It’s a hard life, being a siren.” Adagio exaggerated a wistful sigh and a longing gaze out the window. “Feels like we can hardly go out the door somedays, with all our allergies. Studying… virgins…”
A snort caught her attention; out the corner of her eye, she saw Sunset clearing her throat, then making a bashful smile. “At least one of those,” Sunset said, “I know you’re making up.”
Adagio cocked an eyebrow, then smirked and leaned forward conspiratorially. “Don’t worry, I’ll live.” She took a brief second to appreciate the touches of red that came to Sunset’s cheeks, then pulled back and searched for a different topic, settling on the first one that came to mind. “I’ve been meaning to ask, by the way. Whatever happened to that—” she paused to remind herself not to scowl “—other me?”
“Oh, her. Yeah, um…” Sunset rubbed at her nose. “We actually had breakfast this morning. She’s… nice.”
Adagio was many things just then. Jealous certainly wasn’t one of them. “She’s keeping out of trouble, I hope?”
“Seems to be. I... told her about the magic thing, though. Just so you know. And how we’re not from around here and all that.”
It was an effort to respond with a smirk instead of a reprimand and a grimace. “You know, most people, if they knew about potentially world-dominating magic, would… I don’t know, lock it in a box or something, not tell anyone off the street about it.”
“I... didn’t say anything about the rubies.” Sunset quirked her mouth, then waved her hand. “Not yet, anyway. And… yeah.” Momentary discomfort took hold of her face, but its reign was a short one. “But actually, while I’m thinking about it, she did express an interest in meeting with you sometime.”
Adagio stopped herself from picturing such a meeting before it ruined her less-than-awful mood. “Tell her I’m not interested, if you wouldn’t mind.”
Sunset held up her hands. “I don’t plan on making you do anything you don’t want to do.”
“It’s cute that you think you could.”
To that, Sunset responded with a chuckle and an eyeroll. “Right.” She looked over her shoulder. “I’m gonna go get myself something. Be back in a few?”
Adagio shrugged, gestured, and watched Sunset stand up to leave.
A few minutes later, when Sunset came back and sat down with her drink, they talked for a little while. It… wasn’t terribly interesting, really. Aria would’ve had more insightful things to say, Sonata would’ve put more energy into it. But they weren’t there.
Once she let herself, Adagio managed to enjoy it a little bit. She tried to seem interested, even when Sunset talked about whatever trite nonsense went on in her school life.
“... but anyway,” Sunset said, having just finished a mildly-amusing tangent about her pet lizard and, from the sound of things, almost finished her drink, “you’ve been around for a long time, right? Got any interesting stories?”
“Quite a few,” Adagio said. She glanced about the room, then, curling her lip at the ambient chattering noises. “But not for here. I tend to get odd looks when I talk about my life. Care to walk me home again?”
Sunset paused. “Oh. Um… sure. Yeah, that sounds good.”
Adagio cocked an eyebrow. “You sound surprised.”
“Oh, no, it’s nothing. Just… last time you had me over you—”
Adagio faked a sneeze into her elbow. “Sorry, allergies acting up.” When she saw Sunset blush, she grinned and leaned forward. “Sunset, when someone like me invites you home with her, a girl doesn’t usually say no.”
“... And here we are,” Adagio mumbled beneath her breath as she turned the knob of a freshly-unlocked front door, marching straight on through and beckoning Sunset to follow. “What kinds of stories were you after? I’m partial to tragedies, myself, but you seem like you’d prefer something lighter.”
“Actually, just… while I’m thinking about it, could I ask you something?” Sunset said, hurrying through the doorway behind Adagio, then pausing and shutting the door behind her.
“That depends on how flattering a question it is, I suppose,” Adagio said.
“Did something happen yesterday?”
And just like that, Adagio felt the already-tenuous good mood she’d let herself slip into dangerously fraying. She’d sought out Sunset precisely so that she could take her mind off recent events.
“A great deal of things, I’m sure.” She shot Sunset a mostly-false smile, trying in her head to work out ways to deflect the line of inquiry. “Why do you ask?”
“The last time you asked to see me again, you’d just found out that your sisters weren’t coming to see you. Two days ago, you sounded like you wanted nothing to do with me.” Sunset crossed her arms, frowning. “But last night…”
Adagio bristled, curling her lip, then sighed. Not much point in lying when Sunset was already so close to the truth, was there? The mood was already shot anyway; she doubted she’d get into a more enjoyable state of mind again soon. “I took your advice,” she murmured.
Sunset’s mouth opened like she had a question, but then she just nodded solemnly. “Oh.” She bit her lip, frowning, then met Adagio’s eyes. “Is there anything I can do?”
“I don’t know. Can you change the past?” When Sunset didn’t answer right away, Adagio shrugged and turned away. “I guess you have your answer, then.”
Silence lingered for a moment.
“You know…” Sunset’s voice made Adagio stop and listen. “This whole time, it’s always been talking about your sisters, not your magic, that gets to you. You’re… well, I can’t blame you for being angry at me about the gem thing, I really can’t. I would be pretty livid if someone went and took my magic away too.
“But then… I’d be feeling a whole lot worse if someone took my friends away, and I’m starting to think that you get that. The ruby isn’t what cuts deepest for you, is it?”
Adagio stared ahead, then felt herself glowering—Sunset sounded… sympathetic, for one. Wistful, melancholic. Whatever anger she may have once felt seemed to have cooled to a simmer, if it endured at all. But it was pity that had cooled it, wasn’t it? Pity for the pains of a splintered family, coming from the girl who’d stripped a goddess of her splendor.
“Is that really how you think of me?” Adagio’s eyes narrowed as she looked to Sunset. “That underneath all this grandeur and danger is a loving, caring sister? That’s what absolves me in your eyes.”
Again Sunset faltered. “I… I guess, yeah.” Her brow knit. “Why? What’re you—?”
Seeing Sunset stumble put Adagio slightly at ease. Facing Sunset head-on, Adagio folded her arms across her chest. “You know… I’ve never been alone before, not in my entire life. So if you’re desperate to help me, make that feeling go away and you’re doing it.” She scowled. “For completely the wrong reasons, apparently, but I’ll take what I can get right now.”
“I’m… not sure I understand.”
“No, you clearly don’t.” Adagio grimaced, then tried to reign herself in—she reminded herself of why she’d brought Sunset back. It wouldn’t be productive to drive her away.
But neither did the misguided little girl deserve an apology. “But that’s fine,” Adagio said. She tried to make herself smile, but managed a smirk instead. “You’re trying your best, I’m sure, but you’re… not a siren.”
“What would the right reasons be, then? If… if everything about this was the way you wanted, what would I be doing?” Sunset seemed as sincere as ever, at least to Adagio’s eyes.
“Forgiving me,” Adagio began, “as easily as you’ve already done. Not because you know there are people I care about besides myself, but because my song is the most beautiful thing in existence.” The bond she shared with her sisters was beautiful in its own way, certainly, but… it pained her slightly to put it second to anything, but how could it compare to her music? “And you’re driving yourself mad with guilt after taking it away from me.”
“Adagio, I’m… I’m sorry, I don’t see it that way.”
“I gathered. I’d try to explain it to you, but… I don’t think I have the words.”
Sunset paused. Then she reached into her pocket, pulled out a circular crimson stone and thumbed it. “Would you like to show me, then?” she asked at last.
Adagio cocked her head, eying the stone in Sunset’s hand. Something popped out to her when she looked at it, an unmistakable glimmer of magic that gave her pause. “What does that do?” she asked. A suspicion came to mind, but not a pleasant one.
“It lets me see other people’s memories.”
Adagio’s face tightened. She fixed Sunset with a glare. How dare you? she hissed in her head; the thought had almost made it out her mouth before a raised hand cut her off.
“Don’t worry, I haven’t used it on you, and I’m not planning to, not unless you let me. I was thinking maybe you could show me a time when you were singing and…”
A grimace and a low growl formed Adagio’s response. Instincts urged her to recoil, and she thought her gem would support that decision.
Again she quelled her anger, though this time she wondered if Sunset’s company would be worth the trouble. “What would you see, exactly?” She forced herself out of her scowl and into a smirk. “Just so I can know how offended I should be.”
“Not very much. Just whatever’s on your mind.”
“I see.” Adagio edged back, staring away from Sunset at the wall in front of her. Of all the things Sunset could have asked of her…
… why did she have to go and pick the most infuriatingly tempting one?
What would be the point of accepting it, though? If Sunset had seen the beauty in the song of a siren before, her heart would have rent itself in two before it let her break those rubies. She had judged it by its danger, by what it could do, and in doing so flaunted her incurable ignorance of the music’s essence.
Incurable. That’s what her gem would have said, if it could still speak to her. Sunset didn’t see the music of sirens the way Aria and Sonata did because she couldn’t. Attempting to enlighten her was to contemplate the meaning of futility—a thrum from Adagio’s shards seemed to validate her.
And yet she still hadn’t refused.
She wanted that seemingly impossible result, didn’t she? Aria understands, she’d thought to herself the night before; the joy that came hadn’t seemed like a craving then, but she longed to feel it again, it seemed.
“Do it.”
“Are you sure?”
“No. Get on with it before I kick some sense into myself.”
Sunset frowned, but nodded, then stepped forward and reached out. “Okay. I… just need to touch you, then.”
Adagio rolled her eyes, then stuck out her hand and envisioned a memory. She only barely realized soft fingers wrapping around her hand and white light filling Sunset’s eyes.
The grandiose stage hadn’t seemed so desolate and lifeless, but suddenly Adagio strutted out onto it and midnight turned to noon. The clamors and whispers of the thousand faces packed into the audience all snuffed themselves in an instant. No sound wished to be the one to compete with Adagio’s voice.
She stood there, still, silent and serene in the center of the stage, slender fingers wrapped around a microphone. There wasn’t another place, not anywhere in the whole world, that anybody in that room wished to be. Adagio feasted on the adoring stares trained on her, basking in the crowd’s affection and reluctantly restrained enthusiasm. Somehow, an eager smile defied reason by beautifying an angelic face.
Her song was already there. She hadn’t felt generous enough to speak a word of it, not just yet, but it was there, waiting. An ethereal melody unfolded and evolved in her head, shifting from one of endless forms to another every second. A song of unparalleled beauty inhabited her head—the kind of song that would make poets throw down their quills and weep and drive musicians to envious madness.
But to her, its presence was almost silence while its absence would be deafening.
When she cared to, and not a second before, she opened her mouth and her music came to life. Words flowed from her, dancing through the air, leaving streaks of radiance where they wandered and graced mortal ears. They coiled around Adagio, suffusing her body with enrapturing radiance—looking away from her would’ve been the cruellest torture in the world to those fortunate souls in her audience.
It shouldn’t have made such a difference, her speaking her song aloud, not when it already lived in her head, but it did. It uplifted her, transformed her. Her eyes twinkled, her skin glowed, her hair shone. Every movement she made was fluid, graceful and stunningly bright, like she was made of water mixed with sunlight. Awe descended upon her audience, but the only look on her face was one of joy. The thrill of singing, unadulterated joy.
Adagio and her song stood there on that stage, blazing stars dwarfing mere wicks with their presence.
Sunset’s grip released abruptly. She jerked back with a start, eyes dazed and unfocused once the light faded. Adagio withdrew her hand sharply, wringing it with her other, regarding Sunset warily.
The question—“What had she seen?”—rang sharply in Adagio’s mind. A faint nervous shiver ran through her; she wished right away that she’d had more restraint, but the damage had undoubtedly already been done. She couldn’t put into words what exactly the damage was—and frankly, it was Sunset; it wouldn’t be a big deal—but still she chastised herself for letting it happen.
You idiot. You foolish, shallow, reckless, desperate—
“Wow,” Sunset gasped. She shook her head, blinking quickly, mouth hanging open. “You—that was—wow!” More noises came stumbling out of her mouth, half-formed utterances and disjointed mashes of syllables.
Adagio faltered. She felt as though she ought to have been relieved, but lingering caution and memories of whispered warnings made her keep Sunset at arm’s length.
“That’s what it was like?” Sunset finally managed to say coherently. Her eyes were wide, gleaming brightly and… starstruck—that was the only word Adagio could think of to describe the awe that she saw in Sunset’s eyes. “Every time you sang, that’s…”
Adagio blinked. Sharpness fled from her tongue—silver turned to lead. “Y—yes,” she said flatly. The awe on Sunset’s face should have been a welcome, joyous sight, but the surprise of it all left it ashen and matter-of-fact.
Or it did at first, at least. Sunset stammered again, tripping gracelessly over her praise, she had so much of it to give. Adagio knew she should have been smiling.
And she might have been, if she could stop thinking about how her shards had been wrong—that thought gave her pause; it felt ugly, slimy as it crawled about her head. But they would’ve told her that, at best, letting Sunset see that memory was a pointless endeavor. And now here she was, presented with a sight of adoration. The shards had been wrong.
No. No, they couldn’t have been, she decided. Why would they be? They’d never been wrong before, not in a thousand years. Surely, Sunset of all people would not be the one to finally coax an error out of them, would she? No, there had to be something she was missing.
“Would that have changed anything?” she asked, quietly. Nagging doubts made her anxious to continue. “If you’d seen that back when…”
A stark, grave silence fell over Sunset, as though she’d just realized her joy was an unwelcome outsider. It brought Adagio at least a little solace. There was more to that reaction than merely joy, at least, and that was exactly what she knew would come. Part of her loathed how she tried to convince herself that made her happy.
“It… makes me think about a few things. I—I don’t know if it…” Attempts at eloquence crumbled, and soon Sunset gave only a sad shake of her head.
“I see,” Adagio murmured.
“But…” Sunset started to reach out—when Adagio flinched, Sunset made a show of tugging her necklace off, slipping it into her bag and tossing the bag to the side. Then she drew close again, laying an almost-comforting hand on Adagio’s shoulder. “I’m glad you let me see that. It puts some things in perspective, knowing what you lost.” Her voice was soft and heavy, laced with prominent sympathy and just a hint of regret.
It was exactly what Adagio wanted, and yet she couldn’t stop thinking how much simpler it would be if she’d been denied it. Her shards had said it would never come. Her shards, that had assured her that her sisters would return, comforted her with visions of mended gems and ascensions to the peaks she deserved.
She stared down at her locket, wishing it would give her something more—maybe if it admitted that it could be wrong sometimes…
That still wouldn’t be better. If her shards could be wrong about Aria and Sonata first, and then Sunset as well—Stop it, she told herself when she felt her composure fraying.
“Adagio? Is everything…”
She jerked away from Sunset, stared at her for a moment, then turned a shoulder to her. “You should go,” she said. Her voice sounded weak, wavering slightly, so she breathed deeply. “You should go,” she repeated, more clearly this time. She looked back at Sunset, and found some small solace in collecting herself. “I’ll let you know if I want to see you again.”
Confusion flashed through Sunset’s eyes. But she nodded. “Okay. I don’t understand, but…” She nodded, holding a sorrowful frown for a moment before taking her leave.
The rest of the day trudged by at a sluggish pace. Adagio had too many things to think about.
Her locket sat on a table by her bed. The loss of its weight made her always feel like squirming. She had to move back to the living room to even have a slim chance at stopping herself from throwing it back on before the night was over.
Just one night, she’d told herself—the shards in that locket were her oldest friends. If they’d been wrong, and she still didn’t like thinking that they had been, they’d not steered her so badly she could never forgive them. She just… wanted to think about how to deal with that on a different day.
They might be proven right eventually, after all. Maybe they’d known, somehow, that Sunset’s awe would blacken and turn to scorn, that the glimpse of magic she’d seen would make the prospect of even a hint of it coming back a terrifying one.
Maybe.
There was a knock on her door. Adagio peered towards the sound; despite the vulnerability that came with excitement and hope, she found herself grasping eagerly at them. So she hurried over, gripped the doorknob.
The door swung open and Adagio stared at herself—her double stood there, beaming vacuously, a bottle of wine gripped in both hands. “Hi! Sorry for—”
Biting anger tore through sullen brooding and fleeting optimism. Adagio’s face tightened into a scowl. “What are you doing here?”
“I was in the neighborhood. Thought I’d stop by, try and smooth things over, get off the wrong foot we started on.” The imposter held out the bottle. “This is what always got me through the nights where my sisters gave me trouble.”
Adagio cocked her eyebrow, then reached out and took the bottle. She gave it a scrutinizing stare before shrugging. “Thank you.”
She slammed the door shut, lingered long enough to lock it, then walked back towards her kitchen.
That was just what I needed, she thought, chuckling and managing a smirk as she glanced down at the bottle. Oh, and she’s even got good taste.
The loneliness of taking out a single glass along with a corkscrew had never felt sweeter. She pulled the cork out of the bottle, poured herself a glass, gave it a few swirls and sipped from it. The sharp taste was good; in half an hour, it would be delicious. Remembering what had happened the last time she’d had wine made her almost reconsider, but…
Screw it. She deserved a little naughtiness after everything she’d been through, didn’t she?
She carried the glass in one hand and the bottle in the other, walking out of her kitchen intent on going back to her bedroom—and almost dropped them both when she saw her double calmly seated on her couch.
Anger rose up, but she quelled it straight away. A wretch like her imposter didn’t deserve the satisfaction of getting a rise out of her so easily.
“How did you get in here?” she asked, curling her lip but keeping her voice sharp and clear.
“You really ought to get a better lock,” her double said with a nonchalant shrug. “For people like me, that one’s as good as wall of paper.” She paused to look around, idly brushing her fingers through her hair. “Although I bet you don’t get many of those in this part of town.” Her eyes drilled into Adagio’s, frustratingly enigmatic. “People like me, that is.”
Adagio stared. Her double seemed… still relaxed, but not in a vapid kind of way, this time. Less like oblivious to consequences, more heedless. There was an air of confidence to her that suggested she thought she was completely safe sitting uninvited in someone else’s home. And perhaps an undercurrent of tension, if she strained her eyes, but only a faint one.
“You make it sound like you’ve done this before,” Adagio said.
Her double shrugged again. “Desperation has a way of making us stop caring about what we’ll regret.”
“Perhaps.” Adagio sipped calmly from her glass. Her grip on the bottle—the closest thing to a weapon she had on hand—tightened. If words hadn’t gotten her double to leave…
“Believe me, I didn’t want to have to do that,” her double said, leaning forward and clasping her hands in her lap. “But I really did want to talk to you.”
Adagio stared back at her double and wondered. Everything she’d just heard played back through her head, and this time she picked it all to pieces. Whatever life her double had lived didn’t sound like an easy one. If she’d been dropped into a… rough life... without any magic to rely on, then presumably she’d found other tools to get what she wanted.
Adagio, speculating and theorizing, glanced down at her double’s chest and curled her lip, then decided to, for the sake of her pride if nothing else, draw a different conclusion than the first one that came to mind.
Everything pointed to the odds not being in her favor, if it came to force. She wished Aria was there with her.
“Alright.” She took a small sip from her wine, adopting a haughty smirk. It did, on some level, make it all more bearable knowing that her double likely hadn’t had the same pampered lifestyle a siren would’ve lived. “I’m curious. What do you want?”
Her double eyed the bottle. “Let me pour myself a glass of that and I’ll tell you all about it.”
Adagio stifled a scowl, then stopped herself from cracking a smile. “Give me my couch back first and you have a deal.”
A few minutes later, Adagio laid on her couch still cradling an almost-full glass, while her double sat primly in front of her on a chair, lowering an empty glass and reaching for the bottle again.
“So,” Adagio began, “when you decided it would be a good idea to come here, what were you thinking we’d do?”
“Well. Let’s not make this too much about me, shall we?” The imposter giggled as she poured her second glass. “But I would like to know why you don’t like me, if you wouldn’t mind. I’m not sure how I earned that much hatred so quickly.”
Adagio eyed her double’s bare neck, then shrugged. “Don't sell yourself short.”
The imposter’s smile was maddeningly unperturbed. “Would you let me make a guess, then?” She swallowed a mouthful of wine. “Sunset says that you used to have magic of some kind. You could tell by looking at me that I didn’t, couldn’t you?”
Adagio blinked, keeping her face purposefully unyielding. “What leads you to that conclusion?”
“If I were one of the only people with magic around, I’d be pretty proud of that. Seeing someone else who looks just like me but doesn’t have that special something… well, ‘a lump of clay pretending to be marble’ was how you put it, I believe.”
The feeling of being backed into a corner was not an appreciated one. Adagio rolled her eyes, feigning a lack of interest. “Where are you going with all this, exactly?”
“Oh, that’s…” The imposter laughed again, twirling a strand of hair around her finger. “That’s about all I had worked out, actually. This magic stuff’s more exciting than it is easy.”
Adagio almost rolled her eyes again.
“But I was actually wondering if there was any way you could get it back.”
“What do you want that my magic would give you?”
“Sometimes I’m not sure I know the answer to that myself.” The imposter smiled—it wasn’t quite a sinister one, but neither was it half as vapid as before. “I envy you, though.” She glanced about the room, raked her eyes over every bit of luxury in sight. “I hear about the life you’ve lived and I just can’t stop myself from wanting most of it.”
“You’re wasting your time. My magic belongs to me and my sisters.” A satisfied smirk came to Adagio’s face. “You could never use it yourself.” She didn’t know that, strictly speaking, but she had a hunch her gem would agree with her.
Her double, though, hardly seemed bothered by that information—whether that was stubbornness or a lack of ambition was hard to say. “Let me help you get back what you’ve lost, then.”
What would I need you to help me with that? Adagio thought, but she held her tongue for a moment. Sunset had seen something beautiful earlier that day, she said, but… did that mean she would hand the rubies over, if she were asked? She still thought they could be dangerous, or else she would not have withheld that information.
So if it came to taking the gems back without permission—that thought made her uneasy, and she scolded herself for not having taken measures to stop it from doing that.
But if it did come to that… her double had broken into a home once, and seemingly done so many times before. And Sunset seemed not to mind her—maybe, then, she really did have a better shot at getting the rubies.
“Awfully reckless of you, isn’t it?” Adagio said, to both herself and her double. “You don’t even know what I’d do with my magic if I did get it back.” And I don’t know what you would do either.
“Call me desperate, then.”
Adagio knitted her brow. Desperation had driven her to do a lot of things as of late, not all of them in her favor. That quality in her double could be either wonderful or horrible. “Desperate for what?”
A moment of quiet thought and a gulp of wine. Her double idly scratched at her left ear. “Escape, I guess you could say.”
That, Adagio could almost sympathize with. Almost. She could if she wanted to, certainly. She sipped from her own glass. “You’ll have to tell me more about yourself, one of these days.”
“Maybe one day I will. Right now, though, I want to help you.”
And though she didn’t like to admit it, Adagio thought that perhaps her imposter could do exactly that. “You want something in return, I take it?”
Hesitation flickered across the imposter’s face. “Yes. I… want to see…” She bit her lip, filled up her glass again, took a long gulp, breathed deeply and then spoke clearly. “You have two sisters, Sunset tells me. I want to see them.”
Adagio’s eyes narrowed. “Why?”
Her double shrugged, as if what she'd said carried no more importance than if she'd asked for a weather report. "I'm curious what they're like, after seeing you."
Adagio’s hand clenched. Letting someone she barely trusted herself go anywhere near her sisters… what was there to gain from that? If the gems came back to her, she would be able to provide for them everything they needed.
But… On the other hand, though, what was there to lose? They could handle themselves, certainly. Her double would more likely be compliant if she was trusted with a little, and she must have known that there was nobody else she could barter with for what she wanted.
“You’re looking for shards. Rubies. I would start with Sunset.” A nagging doubt coiled in her stomach, but she pushed past it. “I’ll point you towards my sisters.”