“Don’t you dare,” Gretchen hissed at her sister, not at all willing to let her walk away yet even if Frida was fetching the letters as she had demanded. Reason, usually the driving force of Gretchen’s actions, had abandoned her now as readily as it had when she’d first stepped into that dark, secret passage with Freddie Prewett and began all this.

Reaching out to grab hold of Frida’s shoulder, determined to pull her back and find out precisely what she meant by destroyed, Gretchen instead caught hold of something smooth and delicate and far, far more brittle than either of them. Feeling wronged and reckless Gretchen pulled before she could stop herself.

The clasp of their mother’s necklace snapped as easily as a wax seal and pearls clattered to the floor, bouncing and scattering away from the sisters like a hailstorm. Gretchen uncurled her palm and let the few she had caught hold of drop to the floor to join their sisters, feeling no less furious for her own act of destruction.

“Get Meta or Sen to bring it to me before the ball and have the sense to disguise it. I don’t want to see you.”

---

Bee is tremendous, isn't she?