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Mia finds Iris with her face swollen out in the garden of Fey Manor. She's been crying.
“What’s wrong?”
Iris wipes her face with her long sleeves and sniffles. “Nothing, Mystic Mia,” she says, forcing a smile. She's surprisingly good at it; the expression is a convincing one. Mia can't help but wonder how she got so good at this, how many times she's hidden her tears behind a smile before.
“Who was it?” Mia asks. She doesn't take no for an answer. It's part of her training not to — the future Master of Kurain Village must be strong and willful. Must be willing to take care of all of their family — their sisters, both young and old. Both dead and alive. And Mia has many sisters.
Iris doesn't say anything.
“Was it my mother? Yours?” A thought occurs to Mia. “Was it…Dahlia?”
Iris swallows. Though she still doesn't say anything, the motion draws Mia's attention like a beacon. That's another important thing about being the Master — her training involves a lot of being attuned to the smallest details, about being in connection with the world around her.
That includes with her family — her only world right now. The biggest part of her world.
“Dahlia…” Iris looks away, playing with a loose thread on her sleeve. Mia instinctively reaches out and takes her hand, stopping her from doing so. She wishes she could say that it's mainly because she wants to help Iris feel better, but unfortunately, that isn't the entire story.
The robes they wear are passed down from acolyte to acolyte. There are spirits woven into the cloth, into the thread. To desecrate the robes and destroy them would be to destroy their ancestors, so Mia has to stop Iris from doing so.
If Iris knows what Mia is doing, she doesn't say anything about it either way.
“Dahlia wants to leave,” she says.
For a moment, Mia isn't sure she's heard her right. “Leave? You mean…”
“Leave the village,” Iris clarifies. “Go out to the city. …Leave us behind.”
Leave me behind, Mia hears even though she doesn't say it. She doesn't take it personally, though. She knows that the bond between Iris and Dahlia is different than the one she herself shares with them. Twins are special, after all, and there is a difference between a real sister and a fake one.
It doesn't stop Mia from being the slightest bit jealous.
“I’m sure she doesn't mean it like that,” Mia says, but even to her own ears, it doesn't sound very convincing. And why should it be? Dahlia isn't quite tied to the village, not in the way the future Master herself is.
And though the outside world is foreign, a terrifying concept to all of them for generations, Mia has a feeling that if anyone could go out there and acclimate, could take their fate into their own hands like that, it would be Dahlia.
It's a quality about her cousin that she's never quite sure if she admires or fears.
Iris doesn't say anything to Mia's reassurances, so she tries again. “Would you...go with her?” she asks hesitantly. To be honest, she doesn't know what answer she is expecting, what she wants to hear. What she should support as their sister.
“It doesn't matter,” says Iris. “What I want, it doesn't matter. Not with Dahlia.”
And that, too, Mia knows is true. Dahlia has always been like that — and even her twin, the only person she's most likely to listen to, sometimes isn't enough to stop her.
“She'll take you with her,” Mia says. “I’m sure of it. And maybe...maybe I could come visit you both too.”
“That sounds nice,” says Iris.
Mia doesn't know which one of them is lying.