Layla stared at the silver-haired woman walking off the boat, barely able to breathe. Talia looked so different without the black dye that had disguised her true family. That  hair was just another lie. And finally—finally the truth was bare to see, glistening in her 'aunt's' silver hair.

Maia squeezed her hand. Layla had to lean on her sister for support. She didn't know—didn't know what had happened between the two in these past five years.

"Layla!" Talia-who-was-not exclaimed, rushing towards her. Layla took a step back and her not-aunt's face fell. "Layla?" She asked again. "Layla, what's wrong?"                                                         

"Traitor," she spat. "Traitor!"                                                        

"I-I did it for you." Talia said, shocked. "Everything-all of it-was to keep you safe. I didn't have a choice. She wouldn't accept anything other than their location. You're my Queen. You're my niece. You and Maia were the only things I had left. What else was I meant to do?"                          

"You didn't know I was your Queen then." Layla said, shaking her head. "And if you did, you should have listened to me. Because of you, tens of thousands of my people are in chains. You marched them all to the slaughter for one thirteen-year-old girl who couldn't even use her powers. You betrayed me, Vivienne. You betrayed your people."                      

"I entered her court," Talia said, shaking her head. "I did everything to save you, to help your people. Those hundred thousand there, their minds laid right open for the MindWeavers—which we would never have managed any other way—I got them for you. I worked with Lysandra for you. I'm not a traitor, Layla. Please. I love you. I'm your aunt." 

"You're no aunt of mine," Layla spat at her. "You sent my people to the slaughter because you were selfish. Because you couldn't bear to lose me, too. Don't pretend you did it for my benefit. Because I was queen. You did it because you were afraid of being alone."                             

"Layla—" her not-aunt, her enemy, the traitor, the liar, Vivienne Silverian begged. "Please, Layla. I love you. I did it all for you." Layla turned towards her, eyes filled with hate.                                                                                              

"You are a traitor, Vivienne Silverian. I loved you. I trusted you. You lied to me!"                                                                                  

"Layla," her not-aunt said. "Layla, please. I did it all for you."   

"Traitor," she spat. "Lilao vul waele. Uq vali neeven y lal lyrael rucan cal makar wa vul. Uq vali malro guljar salera y raran en vali gorran." She chanted the words of the ancient curse in Elfin. I exile you, traitor. May your people and the goddesses turn their backs on you. May you never find solace and drown in your guilt.

She meant every word.

Talia flinched, paling. Maia gasped in surprise. Layla didn't care. She walked away.

————————————————

She was a traitor. An exile. The first elfin exile since the Elfin Queen of legend, since no one else had the power to exile someone from the archipelago. Talia slowly retreated, deeper and deeper, into her own mind until she reached the crossroads.

Everyone's crossroads was different. It was a place in the centre of someone's mind where only a MindWeaver could go. Hidden within the crossroads were memories of the past, promises and wishes for the future, an eye through which a MindWeaver could see their present. From the crossroads someone with her ability could control, alter and read everything in someone's mind. For some people their crossroads took the shape of a forest. For others a library, a jungle, a vast city of thought.

Her crossroads was a lane of houses. In each one lived a person she used to be. In the first Vivienne Silverian lived with her grandfather, her mother, her father, her friends. Whenever Talia worked up the courage to enter that house she was transported to the Silvera of her past where she could wander the palace halls and find every memory of the first nine years of her life, up until the moment she hid herself as someone else entirely.

In the house opposite Talia Swallow, the real, original Talia Swallow that had been her look-alike and identical except for her night-black hair lived for the nine years of her short life. She had died mere days before Odin, Orion's father had found her and taken her into their life. The house was mostly bare and empty; all Talia knew of the first Talia was what Odin, Evelyn—his wife—and Orion had told her and no one liked to speak of dead children, especially to the girl masquerading as that dead child.

Next to Vivienne Silverian's house was the largest one of the street: the house of Talia Swallow. Inside she knew she would find her husband, Midas, her brother and sister-in-law, her two daughters-Naomi and Elaine—and a young Layla and Maia in Selene's arms. Along with the woman she had lost forever—the person that had existed before Julian's betrayal, before the earth shook and left her husband and two daughter dead.

Next to Talia's house was the house of the unnamed person she'd become in the seven years between the earthquake and Medea's invasion. Just bitter scraps of a girl, built from what she had left and the vengeance that howled in her soul. In the first floor of the house, Maia, Layla, Orion and Selene wandered.

The last house on the street also bore the eye of her mind. It was the person she was now. The fractured, broken person. This house had no Orion, no Selene. No Layla or Maia, because both girls had turned their backs on her. In that house, only Talia lived.

Alone. She had come so far, lived so many lives. Lost and gained names and people. She'd fought tooth and nail to hold onto to the few in the world who loved her. She'd sacrificed so much, lost everyone and everything she'd ever cared about.

Yet in the end, she was alone.