So I let her cry and no part of me rejoices that she can’t see the weave or work the looms. I always thought it would be a relief to know my sister couldn’t be a Spinster, but my fears have only been replaced by her pain.

“I have an idea,” I say. “Let’s sneak into the kitchen and find some chocolate.”

Her eyes meet mine and a smile creeps over my sister’s face as she nods. I pull her gently to her feet and we walk arm in arm down the hall. As we pass the studios, I notice what I missed before: heavy bolts and security panels—even on the rationing and weather studios.

I’m not the only one under tight control.

No wonder they’re whispering that Cormac’s mad, that the Whorl is coming. A month of this would make anyone dream of change. No one stops us as we duck into the kitchen. A few maids bustle past and a young girl stops to point us in the direction of the sweets.

“Mom would never let us have chocolate this late at night,” I whisper to Amie conspiratorially. She giggles and I join her, choosing to ignore the dull ache in my chest at the thought of our mother.

I open the cupboard to discover a stack of chocolate bars, bonbons, and truffles. More chocolate than the entire sugar ration allotted in our childhood. I whip around to show off my discovery but Amie’s back is turned.

“Ta-da!” I call out. But she doesn’t turn toward me. Taking a step closer to her, I place a hand on her shoulder, urging her to look at me. Instead she steps to the side, revealing a large white cake with lacy lines of frosting that dip and weave delicately across its surface.

I can almost feel the too-sweet sting of the icing in the back of my throat.

“Why does this cake make my heart feel like it’s going to explode?” Amie asks in a small voice.

I can barely tear my eyes from it to look at her, but when I do the pain is written across her face. They’ve taken the memory but not the pain.

“There was a cake the night I was retrieved,” I remind her.

“I can’t remember,” she says. “Why can’t I remember?”

“What?”

“Mom. Dad. They’re here.” She taps her forehead. “But they’re not.”

I have a choice. I can tell her the truth about Cormac and alteration. I can tell her he has stripped her of most of her childhood and adjusted her life to leave out the horrific events of that night. Or I can continue to lie to her.

“Because you miss them,” I tell her, and in a way it’s the truth.

“What happened to them?” This time her question is demanding. I know Cormac fed her a story about them. Given that she’s been altered on more than one occasion, he’s probably told her several stories about her life. But I don’t know what she remembers or how she remembers it. I can’t anticipate how she’ll react to the information she desperately wants.

Telling Amie the truth serves no purpose. It might turn her against Cormac, but in the end, if I can’t find a way to save Mom, then she’ll also have to live with the knowledge of what’s been done to our mother. Amie’s innocence has already been twisted enough by Cormac. I must carry the burden alone. “They’re dead. They died when I tried to escape from the retrieval squad.”

Amie takes a step back as though I’ve hit her. “They died because you ran?”

In many ways this is what happened, but the guilt pressing on my chest tells me that even I can’t blame myself entirely. Amie remembers little about our parents, even less than I knew that night. But I can’t bring myself to tell her they had connections to the Agenda any more than I can tell her about Dante or that our mother is still alive. There’s so much more to the story that it wouldn’t help if she could remember it. It doesn’t matter, though, because Amie believes the little I’ve told her. And she hates me for it. I can see it in her green eyes, the cool, hard emerald—she looks exactly like our mother when she’s angry.

“How could you?” she asks.

“I didn’t want this life.” Even though I’m willing to protect her from the story of what happened to our parents, I’m not willing to pretend a Spinster is more than a false ideal. She needs to know there is a world so much larger than this.

“What’s wrong with this life?” a soft voice asks behind us. Startled, Amie and I turn to find Pryana watching us.

“It’s a lie,” I tell her.

Pryana already knows this. She’s smart enough to have always known.

Before Pryana can speak again, Amie chokes back a sob and rushes toward the door. I begin to stop her, but the weight of the truth holds me back. It’s better this way.

“Every life is a lie we tell ourselves to help us sleep,” Pryana says with a mirthless laugh.

“I never chose this lie.”

Pryana takes a step closer to me and I can smell coconut on her skin. “I have news for you, Adelice. Every life is a choice. We don’t get to pretend like we’re forced into this world, this job, anymore. You chose to come back. I chose to play along.”

“You’re right,” I say, meeting her steady gaze. “We have choices—you and I and Cormac. But there’s a good part of the population who are powerless to stand up to the Guild, and they don’t have a choice. You know that.”

“Of course I do. I think of nothing else,” Pryana says.

My breath catches in my throat not because she’s agreeing with me, but because of the implication of her words.