Морган Райс - A Throne for Sisters

Kate stood there in shock for a moment or two. She’d always thought that she and Sophia were unique; that they were alone in the world in that sense as well as all the others. The thought that there might be someone who could send her thoughts across to Kate was enough to make her freeze, trying to make sense of it.

What are you waiting for? Jump!

Kate flung herself forward, and even in springtime, the water was enough to knock the breath from her. They hadn’t bothered teaching the girls to swim in the orphanage, so Kate spent a moment flailing before her hand closed around the pole the other girl was holding out.

She was stronger than she looked, reeling Kate in with the pole the way someone else might have hauled in a fish. Kate gasped as she pulled her way onto the barge.

“Here,” the girl said, holding out a blanket. “You look like you need it.”

Kate took it, gratefully. While she wrapped it around herself, she looked at the other girl, who was small, blonde, and streaked with the dirt of the things she shepherded down the river. She wore a leather apron over a dress that had probably been blue once, although now it was closer to brown.

“I’m Kate,” she managed.

The other girl smiled. “Emeline. Quiet now. Whoever’s after you, they won’t see us in the mist.”

Kate huddled down in the stern of the boat, watching the docks, or at least what she could see of them. They were quickly fading away behind a wall of fog as the barge kept moving.

As they disappeared from view completely, Kate dared to breathe a sigh of relief. She’d done it.

She’d escaped them.

Sophia could hardly believe that she was inside the palace. Back at the House of the Unclaimed, it had seemed like a magical place; another world that the likes of her could only hope to set foot in if they found themselves indentured to the right nobles through some special skill.

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