Free Unraveled by Gennifer Albin Page A

we’re both in his possession.
    “What else do you like to eat?” I ask Amie, at a loss for what normal conversation
     would consist of between us. We can’t talk about the last two years of her life, and
     I have no clue what lies Cormac has fed her about me. But I do know the surest way
     to lose my sister is to try to find out. The last time I saw her, she called me a
     freak. I’m not sure if time or alteration has softened her toward me, but I can’t
     risk my second chance with her now.
    “Curry,” she says, her lips turning up at the edge again.
    “Me too.”
    “And I like the onion soup.”
    Cormac smirks at this revelation. I don’t tell her what I think of it. We manage a
     few more minutes of awkward conversation, but it only serves to remind me of the rift
     Cormac has created between us.
    Once she had been my sister. Then she was Riya, a little girl rewoven into another
     family, and now she is here—Amie again. But not my Amie. She would never be my Amie
     after what they had done to her. She was too quiet, her bubbliness replaced by a timid
     subservience. If my parents hadn’t trained me to resist the Guild, is this how I would
     have wound up: an obedient girl locked away in a tower?
    When the plates are cleared, the two of them stand to leave my quarters and for a
     moment I want to ask Amie to stay. There’s more than enough room and more can always
     be made. But I know Cormac will never allow it. He’ll oversee our interactions, listen
     to our conversations, and chaperone our time together. He can’t trust me not to undo
     all the work he’s put into Amie.
    “Will I get to see Pryana soon?” Amie asks Cormac.
    “Of course. She was asking about you,” he tells her. Amie bounces a little, clapping
     her hands, and I’m taken aback. Maybe the Amie I remembered wasn’t gone. Behind her
     Cormac smiles at me, revealing rows of perfect teeth.
    I can’t bring myself to ask her about Pryana, the one person in the Coventry who has
     a real reason to hate me. I’d been responsible for her sister’s death, at least in
     Pryana’s mind. She couldn’t see the lesson Maela wanted to teach us when she ripped
     most of an academy from Cypress: no one is safe from the Guild, and those at the loom
     least of all. Pryana had never forgiven me for my inaction. In truth, I’ve never forgiven
     myself, either.
    Amie is led away from my apartment, to her own quarters, and I watch her go, wishing
     I could think of something better to ask her than what foods she likes now. But the
     questions I have for her can never be asked in front of Cormac.
    Cormac pauses at my door, sliding his bow tie off his collar. For one horrible moment
     I think he’s going to kiss me as he leans in, but instead he whispers, “Consider my
     present a reminder of what you have to lose.”
    I let him leave without bothering to point out that I’ve already lost her, but when
     the door closes behind him I rush to the bathroom. It’s still the only place they
     don’t watch me. I reach under the sink and feel around the pipes until my fingers
     close over the blade. I hid it in my sleeve at my first dinner when I returned to
     the Coventry, scared and uncertain of what to expect. But now I’m not thinking about
     defending myself, I’m considering how and when to strike.
    I can’t unwind Cormac, especially now that Amie is finally close. Attacking him like
     that would only undermine Arras’s situation, and I don’t have everything I need yet.
     I have to wait for the right opportunity—keep playing along until I can access the
     alteration information I need to fix my mother and recover the soul strand I hope
     is kept somewhere in the Coventry’s repository. Once I do that, I’ll need to incapacitate
     him to put my final plan into place. Arras needs a rebirth and it must begin with
     Cormac. He must change. If he refuses, I can change his mind for him. I settle onto
     the floor, the knife cradled carefully in