Isbe used to enjoy teasing her sister for her notions about love and marriage and, of course, the princes of Aubin. She always thought romance was a cloudy concept, like the steam over a pot of boiling stew—it smells of hearty ingredients, it warms the senses . . . but ultimately it dissolves. It won’t satisfy you and certainly won’t keep you alive. The soup of life is something else: it’s the things you do to build up who you are—exploration of the world and of your own mind. The important thing, then, is the soup. But like steam, romantic love in and of itself has no survivalist function. It’s just the excuse rich people use so they can marry and procreate and continue their lineages; so they can go on perpetuating the belief that their families deserve to live in giant, fully staffed palaces while every other family is forced to cling to any crust of bread they can get their hands on.
There are many things Isbe used to believe.
But similes elude her now. All she can fathom currently is the proximity of Prince William’s very literal, semi-unclothed body. Which is, now that she thinks about it, coated in completely nonmetaphorical steam.
That’s because they happen to be hiding out in a stone-walled sauna, deep in the cellars of the faerie Almandine’s estate, where a servant insisted they’d be least likely to be discovered. They’re sitting on benches on opposite walls facing each other, and William’s doublet is currently lying discarded somewhere. They were told nearly an hour ago to wait here for Annette, the head housemaid, who was supposed to come for them and show them to a safe room to sleep for the day, before commencing their travels.
“Perhaps we could at least remove a few of the rocks,” Isbe mutters now. The sauna is heated with hot stones from a fire that are then dunked in water, creating the steam that heats up the enclosed space. She’s glad for once that she chopped off her hair—at least she doesn’t have to feel it sticking wetly to her skin. Then again, the shorter locks make her feel more vulnerable too. More exposed.
“You heard what they said,” William replies. The mistress of the house likes everything maintained, apparently. She’d notice if the servants didn’t keep the sauna heated throughout the day and night. “Still, I suppose it’s a bit unfair for you.”
“Why for me?”
“Well, I don’t need to worry about modesty. I could be sitting here naked and you’d never know.” There’s a bit of laughter in his tone, though his words make her feel even more overheated.
“It is unfair,” she admits. “I have a feeling if I were to undress, you might notice.”
“I’m sorry to admit it, but I definitely would.”
If there was any doubt before, Isbe is fairly certain now that the prince is flirting with her. They are, in fact, flirting with each other. This has been happening more and more recently. Their conversations will stray from political strategy to philosophical musings to quick-fire banter without her realizing how they got there.
“Anyway,” she says now. “It doesn’t matter. It’s women who are taught to be modest, not men. You can do pretty much whatever you want without impunity.”
“Now that I disagree with,” William responds.
“Really? Imagine my surprise. You never disagree with me,” she says. “But do tell. For what action would you, as a man, risk censure?”
“For one thing, I can’t play the harpsichord in public. I would definitely receive censure for that.”
She laughs. Sometimes it startles her the way William makes her laugh, even though they are on a potentially deadly mission. She shouldn’t be happy, she tells herself. Not when her sister may not survive the sickness. Not when their country is being invaded by the forces of an evil faerie queen. Not when she is stuck in a morbidly hot chamber with a distractingly interesting prince who does not belong to her, and never can, and never will.
Then again, she’s heard peasants laugh openly and freely even during the cold of winter, when their bones practically protrude from their thin shifts. She’s heard a dying orphan squeal with secret glee. Happiness is funny like that. It’s not bound to circumstance.
She adjusts her dress, feeling how it clings to her, wishing she could just rip it off her body like she might have done when she was a child playing in the stream with Gilbert.
Gilbert. There’s another source of painful confusion. How can she feel what she’s feeling now in the presence of William and still know in her heart that she has never cared for any boy the way she cares for Gil? It’s possible she may never know for sure whether he survived, may live in half mourning until the day she dies.
The playfulness evaporates from her heart, replaced with a tightness: guilt for joking about a harpsichord, let alone with Prince William, the man she is bringing home for her sister to marry. She fidgets, the heat starting to go to her head. It’s definitely hot in here . . . but she and William have become accustomed to hiding out in unusual places over the last week, ever since their rescue by Sisters Genevieve and Katherine. The two nuns had left them at a crossroads that night, just before dawn, with explicit directions to the first stop on the Veiled Road, though Sister Genevieve warned that if they didn’t arrive before sunup, they’d be as good as dead. Malfleur’s mercenaries in Isolé would by then have redoubled their efforts to locate Isbe and William, who wouldn’t stand a chance on their own in broad daylight.
And so for nearly a week they’ve been traveling like this, under the cover of night, from house to house along the Veiled Road, ushered in by servants who, increasingly, seem to have heard about them and their plans. Despite the fact that they previously understood the alliance to be deeply unpleasant to most of the serfdom, it turns out that the story of the bastard princess of Deluce and the third prince of Aubin has reached—and inspired—many throughout the land.
Many people no longer see Malfleur as a trumped-up threat invented by the council, but a real looming danger, thanks to her gruesome mercenaries raiding so many villages along the western and southern borders, threatening serfs, and killing nobles. And while the sleeping council is still out of favor among the masses, it seems many of the serving class are willing to look on an alliance with renewed optimism. It’s incredible, really, how terror can change the tides of a kingdom.
Which is how Isbe and William have come to find themselves in yet another secret chamber within the estate of a very rich noblewoman—and a faerie, at that. They were surprised at first to learn that Almandine’s home was a stop on the Veiled Road. They had, perhaps naively, assumed that much of the faerie population supported Malfleur, if for no other reason than the fact that they feared her retaliation if they didn’t. Then again, Almandine herself might simply have no knowledge that her servants are part of the anti-LaMorte resistance.
Beads of sweat drip down Isbe’s back.
“In all seriousness, Isabelle,” William says quietly; he seems to have noticed her mood darkening. “I may have many privileges, as a royal, and as a male. But I am not free to do whatever I would wish. I am not free, for example, to choose whom I marry—or to marry for love.”
The silence after his words is heavy. “I’m not sure what you mean,” Isbe finally responds. “You agreed to come with me. You agreed to marry Aurora. For the alliance. That was absolutely your choice. And . . .” She takes a breath, finding herself sick to her stomach to have to repeat this once again. “You will fall in love with her when you see her.”
And then the two of them will have the true love that is destined to undo the curse. This is the wild hope, like a hand in the dark, to which Isbe has been clinging ever since she and Gilbert left Binks’s study, which seems like it occurred in a former lifetime but was actually less than a fortnight ago.
William hesitates before responding. Isbe realizes that every time he pauses, every time he takes a breath, she unconsciously holds hers in, waiting. And when his words come, they rush to her, convincing and taut as a harpoon’s line, their point snagging her in the heart and pulling, pulling. . . . “Tell me something else about her,” William says.
Isbe leans against the wall, its cool, damp marble providing small relief to the overwhelming heat.
She can’t help it. She doesn’t want to talk about Aurora—not in this moment, not when she can feel the intensity of the prince’s gaze on her skin; not when the steam is wrapping itself around her senses, making her emotions slick and difficult to hold in, like if she lets her guard down for even a second, some secret truth may slip out that she’ll forever regret.
And yet the details pour out of her—because some parts of us never change. Some facts are inalterable. You cannot crack open Isbe’s heart without releasing the purest form of love she knows: her love for her sister.
She tells him about her favorite childhood memories, their secret language, the hidden passageway connecting their bedrooms, the snow sculptures and the games of make-believe, the stories they told each other, the tricks they played on the stuffiest of council members.
She even tells him some of the darker memories: how Queen Amélie used to scorn Isbe, sometimes refused to let her sit at the dinner table with the rest of the royal family, slapped her hands and face when she disobeyed her nurses, and found elaborate—almost hilarious—ways to place blame on her for absolutely everything, from the grand hall getting too drafty in winter to the beets being stewed too long, to King Henri withholding his affection from her (because, the queen argued, Isabelle reminded him of his former love—an absurd claim, when everyone knew he had countless flings, all meaningless and disposable, prior to marrying the queen).
And how, amid all this, Aurora would sneak Isbe treats from the kitchen when she was sent to bed without supper, or bring thick feather-stuffed blankets from her room when the frigid air coming off the strait snuck under the doorframe and chilled her bones. Though she couldn’t stand up for Isbe by speaking, Aurora found countless ways big and small to remind Isbe that she did matter. Whatever happened, however hard things got, Isbe always knew that Aurora was there for her.
Isbe doesn’t notice the wetness at the corner of her eyes until she feels the heat of the sauna increase as William leans closer, his fingers grazing her cheek, wiping a tear away.
“Isabelle,” he says softly.
And just as quickly, she is shot forward from the past into the now. The memories burn off, and she can only think of how close the prince is, how steady and calm his voice is, how his fingers dance across her skin—not at all in the awkward, mechanical way he claims to play the harpsichord, but freely, as though he’s reading her expression the way she has read Gilbert’s and Aurora’s for years. He has moved to sit beside her on the same bench, and she’s uncomfortably aware of the fact that he is bare-chested. This man who teases her but also takes her so seriously . . .
This man who calls her by her full name.
This man who somehow blots out all reason, who makes her almost forget all of the impossible walls between them: Aurora. Gilbert. Status and rank and her formerly stalwart loathing for all things romantic. Not to mention the fate of both their kingdoms.
This prince who is not hers to fall for.
“Yes?” she says, to fill the space between them. She realizes now why she is always in such suspense when he speaks. It’s because he never finished saying what he wanted to tell her back when they were captured by Malfleur’s soldiers and thrown into the carriage bound for LaMorte. In the days that have passed since, he hasn’t brought it up.
“What if there’s another way to establish the alliance?” he asks hoarsely.
“Another way?”
“Please.” He puts his hand on her shoulder. “Don’t pretend to misunderstand me.”
“Pretend . . . I’m sorry . . . what?”
“Your sister may or may not awaken.”
She doesn’t like his tone, so weighty all of a sudden. The air around her feels thick. It’s hard to breathe. “She will. We have to try.”
“There are no guarantees. She may not wake up.”
“Stop saying that. You don’t think I know that?” The heat of the tiny room envelops her, rising up from within to choke her. “Giving up on Aurora is not an option. Not for me.” Her throat is so tight she’s not sure if she can continue speaking.
“I’m not saying I want to give up!” He lets go of her shoulder.
“Then what are you saying?”
“I want the alliance, like you do. We have agreed it’s mutually beneficial.” Mutually beneficial. Why does the phrase sting so much? The words ring cold in her ears like a piece of silverware that has clattered to the floor.
She swallows back her discomfort. “Yes. We have agreed.” Emphasis on agreed. He doesn’t seem like someone who would go back on his word, which is why she’s finding this turn in the conversation so perplexing.
“Well, this journey has allowed me to do some thinking since then.”
No. If he backs out now, she’s not sure what she’ll do. She’ll scream. She’ll explode. She’ll find the closest poniard and rip open his throat. Well, maybe not that. But she certainly wouldn’t be afraid to point its blade meaningfully at his neck.
He clears his throat. “And I’ve realized that I no longer want to marry Aurora.”
“You don’t . . . you don’t want to marry my sister? But that’s the whole point. How else can we undo the curse? How else do we convince the kingdoms? How else do we send a powerful enough message to Malfleur?”
“I’m not trying to talk politics.”
“What?” Now he really has her confused, and she’s beginning to think the sauna steam has melted her mind into little more than a puddle.
“Isabelle!” he says, exasperated. He grabs her hand. “My marital interests lie elsewhere now. Have you not considered it?”
Has she not considered it. Considered it. Considered . . . what? She feels nauseated.
“Let me rephrase that,” he adds quickly. “Will you consider it?”
“Will I consider . . .”
“Being my wife.”
She chokes and leans forward, coughing. Her eyes water. She must have inhaled saliva. She must have also lost her hearing. She coughs again, and the coughing turns into a delirious sound that can only be described as deranged laughter.
“You think I’m joking?”
“No—I—” She breathes. “I got confused. I thought you were—”
“Proposing to you? I was. Trying to, at least.”
“What?” she blurts out, cheeks burning. “If that’s your idea of a proposal, then you should stick to playing the harpsichord.” She clears her throat, immediately regretting her reaction.
“I’m serious. I take it, however, that you are not interested.”
“Not interested?” She shakes her head, unable to process the wild mix of emotions—she’s elated and shocked and terrified. Confused and mortified and overwhelmed. All she can do is focus on his words. “What I’m interested in,” she says slowly, trying to make him understand, trying to make herself understand. “What I’m interested in doesn’t matter.”
Why does she feel so choked up? It’s the truth, anyway. The firmest thing she can hang on to. This journey isn’t about her. It’s about the kingdom. About her sister. About William, even, but not about her.
“Is that a no?” His voice has gotten quieter, his grip on her hands less certain. Now he lets them go, and she feels something inside her, something carefully constructed, beginning to splinter.
It’s a struggle to speak. The word no seems so heavy, so final. She shakes her head. “You’re marrying my sister.”
William slides away from her on the bench. “I see.”
Isbe wants to cry, or maybe to scream. “Apparently you don’t.”
How can she explain why his idea is so impossible? It just is. Aurora is the one to be wed. Aurora is the beautiful one, the crown princess, whose title matters—who matters, period. Prince William choosing Isbe would be laughable. No one would take it seriously. Isbe lives on the sidelines. Isbe stays in the shadows. Isbe is the shadow. Aurora is the light. These facts are as natural to her as the knowledge that the sun rises in the morning and sinks at night. Some things just are the way they are. It may not be fair, but she has learned to accept it, learned to live with it, learned not to want things she can’t have, because wanting those things hurts too much.
“I’m sorry, really. I didn’t mean to upset you,” he says.
“Well, you have,” she responds, the hurt—and the fear of that hurt—curling into a tight ball in her throat. “I really wish you hadn’t said such a foolish thing. It wasn’t thoughtful of you at all.”
“It didn’t occur to me that you’d be angry,” he answers roughly.
It didn’t occur to her, either. But she is angry. He knows so little about her, truly. He knows nothing of Gilbert, who might be dead. Gil, the person to whom she always believed she would give her heart, if she were ever to give it away.
And did William even consider what it must feel like for her to have to decline a proposal from a prince? A prince whose unexpected brashness thrills her. A prince whose bravery and steadiness have, in a very short time, become an intrinsic part of her own? A prince who is clumsy with musical instruments but swift with a weapon and full of grace when he touches marble, molding it into beauty—and too when he touches her. A prince who freely uses big words like variegated and susurrus. A prince who is willing to think differently than his brothers, than his countrymen, than anyone else she knows. Maybe if Isbe were the crown princess . . . or if William were not the last heir of Aubin . . . or if Aurora weren’t in trouble . . .
But none of those things are true. She opens her mouth to remind him so, when instead, the door of the sauna is thrown open and a burst of cold air shocks her into silence.
“Not to fear. It’s me, Annette,” says the woman who must be the head housemaid of the estate. She speaks elegantly, without the accent of many of the peasants Isbe and William have encountered on their journey. “You can come this way. And please do hurry.”
William couldn’t have stood up any faster even if his breeches had caught fire. He throws his doublet back on with a hasty thwack.
“We’re ever so flattered to be of service to you both,” Annette says, leading them through an elaborate maze of servants’ quarters, “and grateful for your efforts during these . . . difficult times.”
As they move through Lady Almandine’s estate, Annette explains that the household servants are all taught in the arts of massage and that their primary duties involve maintaining the various salt- and clear-water baths of differing temperatures. According to Annette, there is an entire room full of twigs, dedicated to “whipping the blood into a frenzy.” Lady Almandine apparently also has many personal trainers who keep her well practiced in the arts of riding and fencing and dancing. And then, there are the lovers.
Isbe blushes as Annette lowers her voice, continuing to gossip about her ladyship. “Lady gets all kinds of . . . private visitors,” she says. “Big, small, tall, short. Men, women, and some whose sex I couldn’t tell you if I tried. That’s why there are so many snaking halls throughout the house. Many ways for her . . . friends . . . to arrive and depart discreetly. It’s also why we’ve become one of the most important junctures on the Veiled Road,” she explains with pride.
“Ah,” Isbe says, though the last thing she wants to hear about at the moment is the intimate life of a deranged faerie, when all she can think of is William and his proposal. He is deathly silent during their tour through the underbelly of the estate.
“Though Lady Almandine hasn’t taken any visitors at all in the last week,” Annette goes on, her chatter becoming white noise in Isbe’s ears. “Acting strange lately, she has . . . not herself, that’s for sure . . .”
Only some of the words reach Isbe. What she’s really listening to is William’s silence.
“No pleasure in it,” Annette is saying. “None at all. Changed, that’s certain.”
Isbe can only assume William resents her now, maybe even hates her. Men, she knows, cannot stand to have their egos stomped on. But he had to be let down. He was the one in the wrong. He never should have said what he did. She can only hope the steam had gone to his head, like it had to hers, and that he’ll come to his senses and apologize. Then they can attempt to bridge the deep rift of awkwardness that has now come between them. But given his hard, angry stomps on the marble staircase as they make their way to the safe guest quarters, she’s not sure that day will come very soon.
Annette keeps talking, oblivious to the tension between her two charges. “Not since her visit to the faerie queen Malfleur,” she whispers.
“I’m sorry, what about Malfleur?” Isbe asks, finally tuning in to the housemaid’s voice.
“Oh, just speculation, of course. The lady went out to see her cousin in LaMorte almost a week ago for a so-called hunting trip, and we don’t know if she’s pledged her support for the evil queen or not. To tell the truth, none of us can get a sense of what really happened during that visit. Only that something has very much changed in the lady’s demeanor since her return, and she won’t stop muttering about long-beaked birds. Vultures.”
“Disconcerting,” Isbe agrees. Does this mean Almandine is pro-Malfleur? When they arrived here this morning, Isbe was full of hope. Maybe Almandine could even help them, she’d thought. If she was present at Aurora’s christening, it is possible she knows something about the curse and how it works. Now it’s clear that it would be far too dangerous to risk discovery.
Annette goes on to tell a horrifying story about one of their horses, who bolted a month ago only to be found days later on the side of the road, gutted by another animal—something with claws and fangs. Definitely wasn’t wolves, Annette says. Possibly some sort of mountain lion or wildcat, they couldn’t be sure. Meanwhile, Isbe goes back to focusing on the prince and his stubborn shroud of silence. She tries to remind herself that it doesn’t matter: he can hate her now, as long as he sees through his commitment to her. As long as he falls in love with her sister, kisses Aurora awake, and seals the alliance between their kingdoms. Nothing else is important: not their friendship, if that’s what they’d had up until a few moments ago.
And certainly of least importance is the way her chest feels like it’s been cleaved in two by a war hammer.
Annette finally stows them away in a clean room that smells of salt and roses. Winter sunlight penetrates the room through warbled crown glass, warming her face. There is, however, only one bed. Rather than discuss the issue, William, as he has often done these past few days, settles onto the floor. She hears the clinking buckles of his belt and boots as he tries to get comfortable, still not saying anything.
She climbs wordlessly into the bed, pulling the sheets up around her damp dress. All the heat from the sauna has fled from her body and left her feeling shivery and exhausted.
She’s surprised a little while later, and a bit disappointed, to hear William’s faint breathing on the floor beside the bed. He has fallen asleep. She can’t fathom how that’s possible. He has robbed her of that ability.
The more she lies there trying to sleep, the more awake, and restless, and angry she becomes. They are within riding distance of the Delucian palace at this point. The only two things stopping them from continuing the rest of their journey today are one, the fact that it’s still daylight, and therefore dangerous, and two, they still aren’t sure how they are going to protect themselves against the sleeping sickness. They don’t know how contagious it really is—nor, more importantly, how it passes from one person to another.
Up until now, Isbe’s goal has been theoretical at best. But it’s about to become all too real. Either they will make it to Aurora and succeed in waking her, or they will fail. Within a day or two at most, she’ll have her answer.
Her still-wet clothes cling to her, the fabric crawling over her skin like a thousand tiny ants. She tries to swallow, but her throat is parched.
She can’t sleep. Doesn’t want to. She’ll have plenty of time to sleep later, she thinks morbidly, if the sickness gets to her. What does it feel like, she wonders, to be trapped deep in the illness that is ravaging their country?
She’s got to get William to her sister. She’s suddenly intensely consumed with the urgency of it. She needs to see Aurora. She needs to save her. What has she been doing, spying on nuns and freeing a narwhal? Traipsing through the countryside and flirting with a prince? She’s no longer angry at William. She’s angry at herself. If she had just stayed the course, everything might have been different. She has to make things right.
Isbe throws back the covers. The sauna must have dehydrated her. She can’t think. She needs water, badly.
She stumbles out into the hallway, which is cold and echoey. She wraps her arms around herself and tries to remember which way they came. She’s pretty sure Annette pointed out where the kitchens are, but the layout of the house is unlike any other she’s been to. She turns left, then takes another left, then after about forty paces she feels around for the staircase she could swear was at the end of the next corridor. . . .
She’s not sure which wrong turn she has taken until it’s too late. She stumbles into a vast, bright room rich with moisture and minerals. She hears a tinkling sound like a gently flowing spring. This must be one of Almandine’s bathing chambers. She is about to back out, but then it occurs to her that perhaps the fountain is potable. Maybe she could just take a quick sip before finding her way back.
She takes a few steps toward the plashing fountain—and hears a gasp.
Isbe freezes in place, with no idea whether the other person in the room has spotted her.
There’s another gasp, and then the sound of a woman moaning.
Isbe’s ears blaze in alarm. Oh, no.
Has she walked in on Lady Almandine with one of her paramours? Isbe feels dizzy with humiliation and disgust. She has to get out of here somehow!
Carefully she takes one step backward, extending her hands to make sure she doesn’t bump into anything and make a noise.
Almandine releases another moan. Except it’s not exactly a moan, and certainly not one of pleasure. It’s more like a groan, and a little bit like a quiet sob.
As Isbe stands there trying to figure out how to make an exit without drawing notice, it becomes obvious that these are sounds of anguish. Isbe doesn’t know what to do. She would just bolt, but something keeps her rooted to the spot. She has never been at ease with people crying, and truth be told, it never occurred to her that the fae could cry. Maybe it isn’t the lady of the house after all. It might only be a troubled servant.
“Pardon me,” Isbe finds herself saying. “Can I . . . is there something I can do?”
Water swishing.
The person is in one of the baths.
She can’t imagine the household staff freely availing themselves of the mistress’s baths. Isbe swallows hard. So then it must be Lady Almandine.
The woman sucks in a breath. “Belcoeur?” she asks abruptly, her voice ragged and shaky. “How—” Almandine’s tone changes, hardens. “Your face . . . no. Who are you?” she demands.
“Madame, I apologize, I just—”
“Have you come to help me out of my bath? Here then, fetch my robe,” she commands in a husky whisper.
Isbe should really run out of the room, but part of her is riveted, tingling with curiosity. Besides, fleeing would make her seem suspicious. If the lady has mistaken Isbe for a servant, that’s far preferable to her discovering the truth. “Your robe? But . . .”
“Don’t be stupid. The robe, on the back of the Adonis!”
“I—where?” Isbe fumbles, trying to figure out how to explain. Lady Almandine has clearly not noticed what some find obvious—the blankness of Isbe’s eyes. The way they seem to wander, unseeing. She starts to walk to her right, and the faerie huffs. “That’s Apollo. The one under the west window.”
Ah, that helps at least. Isbe moves in the opposite direction—toward the hottest, brightest part of the room, where she can sense the sun has moved past its highest point in the sky. She bangs her shins on what seems to be a large marble vase out of which a small tree sprouts, then feels around, knocking into several more plants and trees until she finds a rather large sculpture that resembles a Greek god, one arm extended—on which hangs a thick knit-silk robe. She grabs it and hurries in the direction of Almandine’s voice—the lady has been muttering to herself, her voice like leather on leather.
Now, as Isbe approaches her cautiously, she makes out some of the words the faerie is saying. Daisy is as Daisy does. Always was. Always was. She tsks to herself. I should have known. She always was.
“I’m sorry?” Isbe asks as she approaches the vast marble pool in which the faerie has been bathing. No steam rises to greet Isbe’s hands, and she realizes the water is cold. And it’s the dead of winter. The woman must be freezing!
“I said I should have known!” Almandine bursts out, clearly distraught.
Isbe holds open the robe, averting her eyes out of politeness, the way Aurora taught her to do.
Lady Almandine stands up with a dripping swoosh and slides her arms into the robe’s sleeves. Isbe can feel how disturbingly thin the faerie is, all muscle and bone—and how she seems to shudder with cold. “I should have known,” the faerie repeats more quietly. “She always wanted what Daisy had.”
“Who’s Daisy?”
“It’s what she called her sister. You look a bit like her—your face, your . . .” She trails off.
“Whose sister?”
“Malfleur’s, of course,” the faerie practically spits. “Their silly flower nicknames. But she was too jealous. Always too jealous of Belcoeur. Belcoeur, who could make even the pestilent vines that pesked pesked pesked the forest and stung our ankles bloooooom with sweet blossoms. Malfleur couldn’t stand it.” Almandine grabs Isbe’s wrist with slender, clammy fingers. Isbe’s pulse races. “I should have known. After what Belcoeur did to her.”
“Let me build you a fire,” Isbe says, thinking quickly, hoping to urge Almandine on. The woman is clearly rattled, but Isbe is desperate to hear more. Belcoeur kind? Beautiful? The envy of Malfleur? It runs against everything she’s ever heard about the famous faerie twins. If she offers further service to the faerie, perhaps the lady will spill more details. “You are too cold.”
“Am I?” she murmurs. “I hadn’t noticed, I . . . It doesn’t matter. I should have . . .” Her listlessness unnerves Isbe. “No wonder her sister stayed in Sommeil. I would have too. I should have known.” That last utterance a stone plunked into a pool, its weight subsumed and silenced by the water.
“Known . . .”
“What Malfleur wanted. What she . . . what she took. What she’ll take. From all of us.” She leans closer to Isbe. “All of us,” she hisses.
Isbe shivers. She fears the woman may topple over and die in her presence. She sounds so weak. Her teeth are beginning to chatter. . . . “What is Sommeil?” Without thinking, Isbe places a reassuring hand on the faerie’s arm.
“Don’t!” Almandine screams. Her scream turns into a hacking cry. “Don’t touch me. Don’t ever touch me. I can’t take it. I can’t—” The woman is wracked with dry, choking heaves.
Isbe has no idea what to do. She recalls from Binks’s story that Almandine is the faerie whose tithe is touch. She’s a known sensualist. Just like Annette said. And yet . . . earlier, the housemaid was talking about Almandine having changed since her visit to LaMorte. Muttering about giant-beaked vultures coming to consume us all.
One thing is clear: whatever happened up there in LaMorte has destroyed Almandine. Which means the faerie queen Malfleur is just as powerful—and just as merciless—as they have feared.
As Almandine’s coarse weeping turns back into a low, unsteady murmuring, Isbe steps away from her and hurries to the exit. She doesn’t want to hear any more. She needs to find William and get out of here.
But the faerie’s words reach her even as she’s fumbling for the door, and they slither around her like poisoned vines.
“They’re coming. They’re coming. They’re coming.”