Sunblind Serpent: The Zodiac Without A House

Marek noticed the stitching on Mara’s jacket while she was still eating. The tear along the shoulder had been repaired with gray thread, mostly in short, neat stitches except for one longer pull near the end where whoever had sewn it had clearly gotten tired and decided the fabric would survive anyway.

He had seen that exact pattern on school uniforms, pillowcases, grocery bags, and one pair of trousers his mother had repaired so many times that the original seam had almost disappeared.

He stared long enough that Mara lowered the bowl and followed his eyes. ”What?”

Marek pointed at the repaired shoulder. ”Mom fixed that.”

Mara touched the seam with two fingers, and the amusement left her face. ”Yeah. When she found me. She just used a hospital thread to stitch it up. Kind of like DIY.”

Marek had already known Amara reached Mara before he did. He had read the note, followed the records, and spent enough time reconstructing his mother’s route that the fact should not have affected him anymore. The stitch made it different. His mother had been close enough to sit beside Mara, thread a needle, probably complain about the lighting, and tell her not to move while she repaired something that could have waited.

Marek looked at the uneven final stitch and said, ”She was tired.”

”Very,” Mara replied.

She set the bowl aside before Marek could inspect the noodles again and leaned against the greenhouse wall. Across the courtyard, Venielle was supervising several younger Gemini Astrants through a basic mirror exercise while Rhovan had gone with Rafe to check the western roads.

Mara glanced down at her sleeve. ”Mom walked in, saw me, and slapped my arm. Then she hugged me, and after that she slapped me again.”

Marek thought about it for a moment. ”Good. The second slap was probably deserved too.”

Mara stared at him in offended disbelief. ”You’re terrible. You started traveling around with Rhovan, and you barely knew him either.”

”That was different.”

”You met him this week.”

Marek opened his mouth to argue, but the fact that she was technically right made finding a useful response more difficult than he wanted to admit. ”Fine. That still doesn’t mean I’m supposed to approve of you doing the same thing.”

Mara smiled. ”So it’s only okay when you do it.”

”I didn’t say that.”

Mara smiled for a moment, but it faded when she continued. ”Mom cried. A lot more than I expected. I don’t think I’ve ever seen Mom cry like that before.”

Marek became quiet. He had seen her like that before, but only when his mother didn’t know he was watching.

After their father, Tomas, disappeared, she learned to cry in places where two children were unlikely to find her: the bathroom with the faucet running, the laundry area behind hanging sheets, and once beside the stove while dinner slowly burned in a pan she had forgotten to turn off. Marek had walked into the kitchen and seen her with one hand over her mouth.

The moment she noticed him, she wiped her face, asked whether he had finished his homework, and returned to cooking as if grief could be postponed until the children slept.

He had answered yes. He had not finished the homework, and he had never told her he saw her crying.

Mara watched his expression and sighed. ”You know exactly what I mean.”

”Unfortunately.”

She folded her knees toward her chest. ”Mom asked Lady Venielle if she could take me with her—to our home—to us. But I told her no.”

Marek had expected that answer, but hearing it directly still hurt. He looked toward the courtyard. ”Why?”

”Because home isn’t really home right now, and I still don’t understand what’s happening to me.” Mara lifted both hands. The paired Gemini patterns across her palms glimmered faintly before extending toward her wrists. ”Lady Venielle does. Earth doesn’t. She showed me what happens when I answer a reflection without keeping track of which relationship I’m maintaining. She also showed me two House mirrors that reacted to me before I even knew what they were.”

Marek looked back at her. ”House mirrors? From the House of Gemini, I assume?”

Mara nodded.

”You did not feel even a bit afraid of them?” he asked.

”I did not know they were ancient House mirrors until the lady told me they were.”

Marek stared at her. ”That somehow makes it worse.”

”I know that now.” Mara gave him a look that warned him not to start lecturing her again. ”Mom asked the same things you would’ve asked. Where I’d sleep, what I’d eat, who was allowed to order me around, whether the House of Gemini could claim me somehow, and whether they could marry me off to someone because of some House arrangement.”

Marek turned sharply. ”What did that lady say?”

Mara laughed. ”No. Very clearly. Mom asked twice anyway.”

”Good.”

”Then she asked whether the House of Gemini could alter my memories.”

Marek’s face turned dark. ”Can they?”

”Lady Venielle said high-Cycle Gemini Authority can interfere with identity, reference, and correspondence strongly enough that memories can become attached to the wrong person or route. She also said that’s not the same as rewriting memories, and that Pisces would be much better at direct dream or perception interference.”

Marek’s expression hardened as one hand slowly closed into a fist. ”That is not comforting to hear at all.”

”Mom said almost the same thing.” Mara nudged his arm with her shoulder and continued, ”But Mom didn’t stay because Lady Venielle convinced her. She stayed until I convinced her that I wanted to remain. There’s a difference.”

Marek nodded slowly. ”She believed you.”

”Yeah. She made Lady Venielle promise I could leave if I changed my mind, then she asked me three more times if I was sure.” Mara paused. ”Before she left, she told me something about you.”

Marek waited.

”She said you’d blame yourself for not finding me sooner.”

Marek did not answer. Mara looked directly at him until pretending not to understand became pointless.

”She said none of us knew where anybody was,” Mara continued. ”You didn’t abandon us. Mom didn’t abandon us. I didn’t abandon either of you. We were all moving through a city that stopped obeying its own map.”

”That doesn’t change the result.”

”What result?”

”You were alone for more than a week. Mom was alone. I was somewhere else.”

”So were millions of people.”

”I’m not responsible for millions.”

Mara’s expression softened. ”No. You just keep trying to be responsible for us. Mom said you started doing that after Dad disappeared.”

Marek’s jaw tightened. ”Doing what?”

”Acting like being the oldest meant you had to notice every problem before it reached us. Mom told me you were a lot like Dad.”

He remembered red hands from laundry detergent, bills beneath a chipped cup, Mara asleep beside schoolbooks, and an eight-year-old boy learning how to heat food because his mother sometimes returned from work too exhausted to stand. He had never considered any of that unusual responsibility. It had simply been what happened next.

Mara touched his sleeve. ”You were eight.”

”You were three,” he countered.

”Exactly. Neither of us was supposed to be in charge.”

Marek looked at her. ”You still aren’t. You’re only fourteen.”

”That argument becomes less convincing every year.”

Marek almost smiled, but Mara leaned her head against his shoulder before he could. He didn’t move, letting her rest against him.

”Mom knew you’d come,” Mara said after a while.

”How?” Marek asked.

Mara shrugged. ”She said you were too stubborn not to.”

”That sounds more like Mom being stubborn,” Marek replied.

When Venielle called Mara back to training, Mara stood and lightly touched the repaired seam on her shoulder.

”Mom really was here,” she said. ”I’m not lying.”

Marek looked at the stitches. ”Yeah.”

Then, Mara walked away.

She had to train her powers. She wanted to understand her abilities and Authority. She wanted to get stronger so their mother wouldn’t always come home exhausted. She wanted to give her the best life she thought their mother deserved.

For the rest of the light period, every time Mara turned, Marek noticed the stitches along her shoulder and imagined his mother’s tired hands carefully repairing the torn jacket. Somehow, seeing something Amara had fixed with her own hands made her feel closer than all the notes and records he had followed across Linden.