The storm has lasted days, and Aurora has yet to fully understand what happened: the kiss that made its mark on her, irremovable—not exactly a wound, but something that she senses will never fully heal or disappear. Her whole body still aches from it. She finds she is trembling as she lies alone in her room, unable to sleep. And yet . . . she thought she’d know when true love happened, like she told Heath. But there are no answers, only more questions, more unfulfilled yearnings, more fears.
In one instance, though, the truth has crystalized.
She was thirteen; Isbe fifteen. It was raining then too. Aurora was going through a phase of always wanting to dress her older sister up, encourage her to look and act more like a princess and less like a ruffian who happened to stumble into the palace on a stray wind. Isbe, of course, couldn’t have been less interested, but that didn’t stop Aurora from trying. Lately, Aurora had come to see her sister as the object of an unfolding romance, and the thought fascinated her to no end. This had come about largely due to the secret love letters they had discovered in a cracked stone just outside Isbe’s bedroom wall, and which Aurora had read and interpreted to Isbe. They were never addressed to a particular person, and they weren’t signed either.
The mystery lit Aurora on fire. Isbe, being blind, could not read. Nor could most women in the palace. Aurora was an exception—without a voice, she was left with long hours during which she’d taught herself the alphabet and a vocabulary of which she was very proud. As for the men, it was likely that only one of highborn blood had the skill of penmanship to write these secret letters. Several distant but not unattractive dignitaries had been visiting court for the past month, and Aurora knew it had to be one of them.
Isbe, predictably, denied the notion that any of the young men might have noticed her favorably, but it was the only explanation, and Aurora was both terrified and thrilled. What would happen if someone asked for her sister’s hand in marriage? Would they be separated? She at once longed for the romantic drama to unfold and ached for things to remain the same forever.
On this one particular rainy morning, Aurora had uncovered a chest in a seldom-used visiting room in the west hall, containing lavishly embroidered hennins with long-flowing veils, bejeweled buckles, and sumptuous surcoats lined in ermine and fox, much of which had belonged to her mother, Queen Amélie. The council had ordered most of the queen’s personal furnishings and possessions burned a year prior, in an effort to ward off a return of the plague that killed her. But that didn’t scare Aurora. She was thrilled to discover that something of her mother’s had remained intact. It was a touchy subject between the sisters: when the queen was alive, she had made it no secret that she resented Isbe’s presence, a constant reminder of the king’s earlier dalliances. But Aurora always felt that they would have learned to love each other, had each given the other a chance. She mourned not only the loss of her mother but the missed chance for Isbe to see her as she had.
Still, belonging to the queen or not, these garments would be perfect for Isbe to try on. Perhaps Aurora might even convince her to parade in them through the quarters where the youngest of the dignitaries was staying.
With one of the sapphire-studded tiaras still in her hand, Aurora dashed to Isbe’s room to share the exciting news, shoving open the door without knocking. The sisters never knocked; more often than not they came through the hidden passageway connecting their bedrooms.
She entered and dropped the tiara in surprise. It fell to the floor with a loud clatter. Isbe was not in her room—but Gilbert was. He turned at the sound and blushed deeply. He’d gone through his growth spurt only recently and didn’t yet seem to own the breadth of his shoulders. His red hair was matted and wet with rain—he’d clearly climbed in through the window, which was still open. In his hand was a folded piece of thin vellum.
Aurora stared.
It couldn’t be. Gil couldn’t even write, let alone afford vellum and ink! Besides, Aurora knew the two of them had become very close, but only as friends. Her sister would never entertain the affections of a stableboy, would she? It didn’t make any sense.
“Aurora,” Gil said quietly.
She cocked her head at him. Her expression must have been all too plain: what are you doing?
“I . . . please. Don’t tell.” He rushed one hand through his dripping hair.
Aurora’s forehead crinkled.
“I know. She can’t even read them. I realize how ridiculous it seems. I never meant for her to read them anyway. Not really. I have no hope that . . .”
Aurora still stared, confused.
“Roul helped me find a courier to write them out for me.”
Disappointment settled into her like a low cloud, dampening all her amorous fantasies. So Isbe had been right—there was no foreign dignitary madly in love with her. There was no secret paramour. There was just Gilbert, the stableboy.
Indignation trumped disappointment. How dare he risk the injury of her sister’s heart? How dare he crush Isbe’s hopes? Though even as she asked herself, she knew that she and not Isbe was the one crushed, not by the dashed dream of love but by the unpleasantly ordinary end to the grand story she’d been concocting in her head.
And though she couldn’t speak, her body language as she slammed open the door and held it wide for Gilbert said everything: get out.
He hurried away, and Aurora seethed, vowing not to tell Isbe what she had learned, hoping that by keeping it a secret, she was in some way keeping safe the belief that one day her sister would find true love—that true love did exist.
As the night fire burns down to embers in a corner of her tower room, sending up tufts of smoke as rain filters in from the chimney, Aurora realizes her error, over and over, like the echoing gong of a bell.
Gilbert helped Isbe escape in the dead of winter when the council meant to send her away. He is likely with her sister even now. He has always watched out for her when Aurora could not. It is suddenly clear as polished crystal to Aurora: Gilbert is, and always has been, in love with Isbe.
And Aurora, in expressing her silent disapproval on that embarrassing day three years ago, is likely the reason he never since acted on those feelings.
Though the dashing paramour of Aurora’s thirteen-year-old imagination had never existed, someone did pine for her sister, did spend time and hard-earned money writing his feelings down on vellum, with no expectation of a return of affection. There was no fantasy, just a real-life boy.
Aurora had been naive then, but she isn’t anymore.
And she knows too—has known since seeing the servant girl’s aghast face in the gallery—that Wren is in love with Heath.
But she hasn’t said anything. She has held the truth close to her, like a love letter that’s never meant to be read.
Heath told her he didn’t believe in true love, that he never really felt he had a choice before. Now Aurora can’t help but wonder whether, if circumstances were different, he’d choose her.
That’s nonsense, she reminds herself. She can’t be with Heath. She’s a princess and her kingdom needs her. She must return home to marry the third prince of Aubin.
But this fact no longer remains a fixed point in her mind. Like a firefly, when she tries to look directly at the truth, tries to reach for it, its glow blinks out, allowing the idea to swim mysteriously away, lighter than air. Home is not the thing she longs for. Home is a kind of death now—a coffin, walled on all sides, to which she must resign herself forever. For surely her faerie tithes will hold in the real world.
She will no longer have her voice.
She will no longer feel.
She will have to release the fantasy of—maybe, almost—falling in love with Heath.
But how can she stay? Sommeil is dying, starving. Aurora has probably broken the heart of the one girl here who has shown her the most kindness and support. And Heath himself has confessed that he wants to believe in love—but wanting to is not the same as believing. In truth, he has given Aurora no promise at all of his feelings or intentions.
And then there’s the queen, waiting forever for the impossible return of someone she loves—of Charles Blackthorn, Aurora’s almost sure—to set her free.
But that can’t be the full story, Aurora realizes as she sits up in bed, her long hair tangled all around her shoulders. What is she missing?
Something must have come between Charles and Belcoeur. Or someone.