CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

AFTER THE SHOW, half the club spilled out of Stroke of Midnight and followed Rafe to a promised blowout on the beach. Blue tried not to think of Mira: why she’d left the club early, what Felix had said to make her go to him. It was after midnight, close to 2 A.M., so it was officially her birthday. … He wanted to wish her a happy birthday, but he didn’t want to be angry or depressed right now—which was how he’d feel if he saw her with his brother, and she said, I’m happy. Can’t you let me be happy?

He was grateful for distraction. He threw himself into the party wholeheartedly: drinking, mocking people who were drunker than he was.

Girls trailed after Freddie like seagulls stalking a fishing boat … and seemed to find it cute when he fled in terror. Jewel slipped away with a blonde named Luxe, one of the jaded, ever-bratty Kinders, who’d laid her claim to fairy-tale infamy back when she was a preteen, after pissing off and robbing a house full of bears. The two girls kissed for a few minutes, then came up for air so Jewel could wipe the gems from her lips and push them into Luxe’s pockets. Rafe pounded empty beer cans against his forehead until he wore a crown of bruises.

And Blue missed Mira. He wished she were there to ask him why he was friends with Rafe. Or so he could tell her the Luxe-robbing-the-three-bears story, and make her laugh. Or stand in the surf with his arms around her, while she pretended not to like it.

Wills swung Viv around like a rag doll, his hands on her bare abdomen; he set her down to be confronted by Henley and suffered a punch to the face. Then all three Knight brothers ganged up on Henley, drunk and stupid with the hero gene, granting black eyes like wishes.

It turned into a brawl on the beach, with the lower-born Cursed coming to the Huntsman’s aid. Slick bad Wolves and cocky Jack-the-Giant-Killer types. Blue didn’t like fighting, but black eyes and bruises fit his anti-Romantic agenda, so he jumped into the fray for a few souvenirs. They fought until the cops came to break it up, and he and Freddie ran and hid until the chaos died down, feeling reckless and alive.

Dawn broke over the beach, chasing them home.

Blue and Freddie stood in front of the Dream, gaping at the sight before them.

The entire building was covered with thorns: spiked branches that scaled the hotel walls like razor-sharp ivy. A tangle of briars crisscrossed the glass entry doors and the windows, locking everyone in, locking them out. It wasn’t until Blue tried to touch one and a branch zipped out and scratched him, drawing blood, that he realized it wasn’t an illusion.

Mira’s curse.

Blue swore. He turned to Freddie, whose eyes were shining with excitement—one person’s tragedy being another person’s treasure, he guessed. “I’ll get my sword!” Freddie said.

“That sword isn’t going to do anything.” Blue groped for his phone. “I’ll get Henley to bring an axe.”

“Henley?” Freddie blanched. “But I—I hit him in the face with a piece of driftwood a few hours ago. Do you really think that’s a good idea?”

“Fine—get your sword. But hurry up!”

Freddie was already on his way. “Don’t worry!” he shouted—and took off running down the street. Freddie was Honor-bound; he finally had a princess to save, and nothing about that could be a bad thing, as far as Freddie was concerned.

Blue, on the other hand, didn’t like that fate had chosen today to strike. Mira’s sixteenth birthday; talk about ominous. It felt like everything was falling apart. …

There were more than fifteen hundred rooms in the Dream. Over a thousand places where Mira could have fallen asleep. But no matter how many rooms there were, there were only two or three places Mira was likely to be.

With Felix. With Felix. With Felix …

Viv’s phone went straight to voice mail, so Blue rang the Deneuves’ house phone—Regina would pick up. And she was enough of a bitch that she would happily disturb Viv’s beauty rest to make her talk to him.

Viv would love being woken up by her stepmother. But he could deal with her wrath. He was ready to promise her anything, kiss her ass for the next hundred years, personally taste-test every apple she was offered for the rest of her life, so long as she got Henley to come down to the Dream with an axe and get him past those briars.

He needed to get in there. Needed to find Mira and make sure she was okay.

Because there was sleep—and then there was Felix. And he had no idea which one had gotten to her first.

“I don’t think this’ll work,” Henley said. He’d arrived with an axe, a chain saw, and Viv in tow. Freddie wasn’t back yet—which was why Blue wanted Henley to try to chop through the briars now. When he’d told Freddie to hurry, he’d forgotten Freddie would interpret that as go ahead and shower and change and brush your teeth so you’re minty fresh for your destiny. Then hurry.

“Just try,” Blue said. “Try before I throw myself through the briars. The last thing I need is Knight freeing my entrapped dead body with his sword.”

“I’m just saying,” Henley went on, “these briars are enchanted. They’re only supposed to part for a prince. Hnnh!” Henley swung his axe, and the thorny branches cleaved in half at the touch of the blade, then shrank apart, turning silver and brittle. The glass door cracked from the force of the axe.

Viv examined a dead-looking branch. She touched one of the thorns, and it crumbled into dust. “Is Mira sick?” she said. “I don’t think the briars are supposed to be this weak. Unless there’s something wrong with her …”

“Axe in hand. Get. Out. Of. My. Way. Vivian,” Henley ordered, readying the axe for a second swing.

Sick. Weak. Wrong.

Blue found his hands curling into fists. He wanted to kill Felix. Kill him.

“Get the door open!” he snapped.

Heaving deep breaths, Blue stood back as Henley hacked through the rest of the briars—each branch curling back pitifully once it was severed.

Every crack of the glass made Blue’s heart jump. He needed to find Mira. Needed to believe she could be okay. That it wasn’t already too late.

The last of the briars gave way, and Henley kicked in the busted panes of glass.

They stepped through the hole into a silent nightmare.

Well, not quite silent.

The Dream was always alive. Always buzzing with excitement and despair, voices filling the air like the rush of a waterfall. No matter what hour of day or night.

Until now.

The slot machines still made the same electronic racket. Rows and rows of dinging machines, the sounds overlapping each other so there was never a scrap of silence, never a moment of calm.

But the players slumped in their seats, cheeks smushed against video poker screens, slots waiting for another spin. Fat plastic cups lay on the ground or overturned on sleeping laps, coins spilling to the floor.

The roulette wheels had stopped turning. Dice lay frozen on craps tables. Full houses went ignored. None of the blackjack players hit or stayed; instead, they slumped on the tables or on the floor, limbs at awkward angles, cards scattered.

The cocktail waitresses had dropped their trays and lay unconscious in pools of liquor and melted ice. Pit bosses watched nothing but their dreams.

Every last person in the casino was asleep.

It was like walking into an apocalypse. An end-of-the-world movie in which the machines kept going—even when the people were gone.

“Where do you think she is?” Viv asked, her eyes taking in the sleeping guests.

“I don’t know,” Blue said. “But—I have a few guesses.” He took out his wallet to get his passkey, identical to the key Felix had given Mira, and which he’d taken from her—and saw that one of the cards was missing.

She’d stolen it.

She must have taken it during the show. Because he’d had it before that; he remembered checking for it, paranoid that it would be gone.

So she had to be—

“You guys need to stay down here,” he said, his hand shaking as he returned his wallet to his pocket. “You can’t go where I’m going.”

“Oh, Blue, you don’t think …” Viv trailed off.

No one would finish the sentence.

They knew his tale; they knew the one place that was for bidden. And what went on there.

Henley took Viv’s hand, and for once, she seemed glad; she

curled into the space beneath his arm, fear in her dark eyes. Blue just nodded. He was afraid he’d lose it if he spoke. “You want the axe?” Henley said.

Blue shook his head. If he took the axe, he was afraid he’d use it on Felix. And no matter what Felix had done, no matter how much he wanted to hurt him, he knew he couldn’t kill his own brother. He didn’t need more regrets.

He turned and started running toward the elevators.

Suite 3013 was as tranquil as a tomb.

Spots of blood flecked the snow white carpet in a trail that led to the bedroom. A single sheet of paper lay on the floor. Everything else was in order.

But the bedroom door was shut.

Blue’s eyes went to the trail of blood and stayed there. As if it wasn’t enough to drain her. He’d hurt her, too.

Blue gritted his teeth and pressed his palms to his eyes. He breathed in and out a few times, trying to calm down. He couldn’t give in to despair. Not yet.

The scent of roses met him as he pushed into the bedroom, pressing against the door both steadily and gently, afraid there would be a limp body blocking the way. He didn’t want to disrespect it, harm it—even if all the life had been stolen.

He’d been in this room once before, when he was thirteen. And Felix had never forgiven him. They’d never had a great relationship, but Blue’s intrusion into Felix’s most secret place had destroyed what little friendship they’d had. It had ripped the veil off Felix’s carefully hidden crimes—and destroyed the illusion that Felix was less of a monster than their father.

To enter a Romantic’s chamber was the ultimate invasion of privacy, and it came with a heavy price. For most, that price was death. With the exception of blood relatives who shared the curse—and the shame—no one who entered could be allowed to leave, to reveal the loathsome secret. Intruders had to be silenced, and added to the collection. And if the intruders didn’t love you, if you couldn’t silence them and strengthen yourself through the theft of their love and their life, then you silenced them in bloodier, more traditional ways.

Hence the so-called bloody chamber. The clotted blood on the floor, the women hanging from hooks in fairy tales, the slit throats. But Felix never had to take those measures. He was the quintessential charmer, suave and generous, handsome enough to overcome the centuries of mistrust blue hair had fostered. And Felix didn’t like getting his hands dirty. He would never cut someone unless he absolutely had to.

So if there was blood, Mira must have fought him. Or maybe she was stronger than most girls, because her blood thrummed with the magic of fairy tales, and he’d lost patience, panicked, feared there was no way to silence her except with violence.

It was too much to hope that she didn’t really love him. Blue had seen the effect his brother had on Mira; had witnessed her weakness with his own eyes. He’d sat beside her while she’d slept in his bed, unconscious and impossible to wake—his eyes on the slight flutter of her eyelashes, the faint up and down of her chest as she breathed.

He’d thought that had been agony.

This was infinitely worse.

When Blue had entered his brother’s chamber the first time, Felix had been seventeen. There had been two girls in the room then, both lovely and young—younger than Blue was now. They’d been lonely, friendless girls; pretty enough, but both so deeply wounded emotionally that they’d never found common ground with anyone else. And they’d gravitated to Felix, who accepted them, who knew exactly what they needed. Felix liked lost souls, orphans, runaways—just like their father did.

Because no one ever came looking for them.

Felix’s first two girlfriends were still there—their clothes and hairstyles about four years out of date—but they’d been joined by almost two dozen others. The girls who appeared to have acquiesced—no bruises, no signs of struggle—sat or lay neatly on the furniture, or curled against pillows. The girls who’d fought had received more careless treatment, and been flung wherever they would fit. Two girls had even been stuffed into a wardrobe that hung open, their limbs tangled together, legs battered as if Felix had slammed them with the door while trying to force it shut.

Blue remembered some of these girls. The ones who’d been nice to him. The ones he’d tried, with no success, to warn off. These girls had flitted into Felix’s life, and were soon radiant with love—but they never flitted out again.

They disappeared. And they stayed.

And then there was Mira.

Blue could barely see her through the canopy of roses that guarded her bed, a dense tangle of briars and bloodred blooms, covering her like a casket. Protecting her.

She lay perfectly still, her thick blond hair spread around her on the pillow, one hand resting on her chest, as passive and coldly beautiful as every other girl in the room. And when he reached to touch her—to claw through the briars to get to her—the branches slashed at him, pricked his skin in twenty different places, beads of his blood dripping onto her rose-print dress.

The thorns seized his arm like a trap; they wouldn’t allow him to touch her or get near her, or even to move away. No amount of struggle allowed him to free himself. And though he fought to get closer, to let his fingers hover above her lips, hoping to feel her breath, the thorns seized him and forced his arm in another direction, so that he became more deeply entangled, but no closer than before.

“Please be alive,” he whispered. “Please just be asleep.”

But there was no sign that she was either.

Felix had left her here. And Felix didn’t leave things unfinished.

He wouldn’t have left her alive.

These were the thoughts Blue kept coming back to during the hour he spent trapped in the briars. Thorny branches had tangled around his left wrist, his waist; his right arm was entirely imprisoned; thorns bit into his cheek. Blood dripped down his face, but he’d stopped feeling it. All he felt was despair, and the hopelessness of the situation.

He was staring at Mira’s lips, her chest—desperate to see some indication that she was breathing—when he heard the first solid crack against the outer door. He turned his head toward it, trying to see through the bedroom doorway, thorns raking fresh lines across his face; and he saw the outer door splinter inward, a chunk of wood stabbing into the room. Gradually, as more of the door fell away, he saw that Freddie was in the hallway, chopping through the door with Henley’s axe.

Blue gritted his teeth. Felix wouldn’t forgive the intru-sion—even if it was Freddie. What to do then? Make Freddie go away, or tell him to hurry up and get in here, so they had a chance of saving Mira—who might already be gone?

Freddie was his best friend; Blue didn’t want to see him hurt. But Freddie was also Honor-bound, and if his princess was trapped beneath a prison of thorns, possibly lost, definitely hurt, he wasn’t going to leave just because Blue told him to. That decided it.

“Hurry!” Blue yelled.

“I’m almost through!” Freddie shouted back.

It seemed to take an eternity for Freddie to bust through the door, but at last, he made a hole large enough and rushed into the suite, axe in hand, a sword buckled to his belt. He was flushed and sweating, but had a determined look on his face as he strode toward the bedroom.

A look that faltered as soon as he crossed the threshold—and saw the dead girls inside.

“Oh god,” Freddie whispered. He blinked a few times, and his eyes grew glossy and then spilled over. It was horrifying even if you expected it—even if you’d been brought up to be the same kind of monster, like Blue had. Freddie was too softhearted a hero to stand it.

“Try not to look at them,” Blue said. “I know it’s hard. I know it’s horrible. But we need to help Mira. I don’t—I don’t know if we’re too late. But we have to try. Concentrate on Mira.”

And hope she’s alive, he thought. Because if she wasn’t—if Freddie had come here to be a hero only to discover she was dead—it would destroy him.

Freddie nodded, swallowing hard. “You’re right. I will.” It took some effort, but Freddie managed to tear his gaze away from the other girls. He approached the tangle of roses carefully, hand outstretched as if to ward off a dangerous beast—

And the thorns parted for him.

The branches curled back, tightening around Blue, and created a passage for Freddie at the side of the bed, so that he could reach Mira.

Blue held his breath and watched as his friend leaned in, strong and sure and every bit the hero. He’d never envied anyone more than he envied Freddie in that moment.

They looked perfect together: Mira, beautiful and still, lips slightly parted; Freddie, fiercely protective and golden, his features strengthened by love. If she was alive, if she was okay … Freddie could kiss her, and he would never hurt her. He had a kiss that healed, that broke enchantments and led to happily-ever-after. He was marked to be good, and he never had to be afraid that he was otherwise, that he was wicked, a murderer, evil.

Blue’s kiss could only take. Could only destroy.

He was almost grateful for the thorns trapping him, keeping him in place so he couldn’t stop it from happening.

Because he wanted to be the one to kiss her.

Instead, he forced himself to speak.

“Is she breathing?” Blue asked.

“I’m not sure,” Freddie said. His voice had turned quiet, both reverent and afraid. “She’s not moving. Or if she is, it’s so slight I can’t tell. But—she’s holding on to something….”

Freddie took Mira’s hand—the one that lay atop her chest—and pried open the curled fingers, revealing something silver. And a patch of scarlet on her skin.

Blue squinted to see past the thorns that crowded his vision. “What is it?”

“It’s a razor blade,” Freddie said, sounding troubled. “On a chain. And her hand is bloody. She was—clutching a razor blade … ?” He glanced up, his eyes meeting Blue’s through the thorns. “Do you think she—would you say that’s her trigger?

Why would she wear this, if she knew what it could do to her?”

“I don’t know,” Blue said. “She was supposed to—”

She was supposed to see Delilah.

It clicked for him then. Mira had gone to see Delilah that night, at the club, to find out what her trigger was. Blue had been so disappointed that she’d left before he had a chance to see her again, he’d completely forgotten that something besides her feelings for Felix—or her feelings for him—could have sent her fleeing the club like Cinderella after midnight.

What had Delilah told her? She couldn’t have spoken of the Valentines’ curse, but she must have said something. Something that had made Mira steal his key and enter a room she’d resisted entering until now.

Evil fairies were evil through and through; they didn’t have soft spots or emotional Achilles’ heels. Delilah hadn’t asked Mira for payment—because what she wanted from her was something only Felix could provide. And the fairy had to have known Felix had begun seeing Mira; Delilah made it a point to know these things, especially about Felix, who followed his curse perfectly, and whom Delilah adored for just that reason.

Sleeping Beauty’s original curse was to prick her finger and die—but the curse was always softened by a good fairy, who altered the princess’s enchantment so she was destined to fall into a deep sleep instead. But, of course, any evil fairy worth her wickedness wanted to see the Sleeping Beauty princess die. What better way to lead Mira toward her own destruction than by somehow tempting her to enter Felix’s forbidden chamber?

Felix, who would take care of that transgression the only way he was allowed.

Blue was so furious with himself he could barely breathe.

“Damn it,” he muttered. “I should have made her wait. I should have gone with her!”

“Blue?” Freddie frowned at him. Blue could see the worry in his friend’s eyes, the uncertainty that hadn’t been there before.

Blue took a deep breath to steady himself. “Freddie, you have to kiss her.”

“If she’s dead,” Freddie began, lips trembling as he turned back toward Mira, “I … I don’t know if I should. I’m not supposed to kiss the dead. I—I can’t even find a pulse. But … I have to try. I couldn’t forgive myself if I didn’t try….”

Freddie leaned in, his eyes closing, lips parting, a kiss in slow motion.

Blue tensed, every cut on his body burning anew. Every second of this was torture. Every second that he didn’t know.

The thorns gripped him fiercely, and …

Freddie kissed her.

The world trickled back slowly, in lovely increments.

Chiffon.

The scent of roses.

A kiss.

There were soft lips pressed to hers, kissing her, and Mira’s mouth fell in with the motion, as if kissing were the most natural thing in the world, akin to being alive.

Alive.

Her eyelids felt heavy. Her arms and legs felt distant, like her mind and her body were in two different places.

A hand touched her cheek, and it was so warm—almost burning her, but in a good way, infusing her with life—she didn’t ever want it to leave her. She was cold, freezing—as if someone had stolen her body heat while she was asleep.

Stolen.

Felix.

Her attempt to save herself had failed.

Her eyes jolted open, her lips fought to pry apart in a scream. She heard her blood rushing like an explosion in her head. A moan of protest came from her throat. Black clouds floated in front of her eyes, dark splotches replacing her vision. She was dying. She was dying. She’d thought something had stopped it, interrupted it—she had a vague recollection of nothingness, a murky pause—but she was wrong, she was dying again … must be …

“Mira, you’re all right, it’s all right,” a male voice hastened to say—a voice very close to her. He sounded worried and relieved all at once.

The second voice sounded weaker and farther away. “He’s gone, Mira. He can’t hurt you anymore.”

“Who?” she said. It was more a breath than a word.

“Felix. Felix is gone. Freddie and I are here. We won’t let anyone hurt you.”

Blue. Freddie and Blue were here. Her heart nearly broke from relief, and she started to cry.

“I can’t see,” she whispered. She let her emotions flood her, as if the tears would wash her blindness away, like Rapunzel’s tears had cured her prince after he’d fallen from the tower, and thorns had gouged out his eyes.

She felt someone pull her up off the bed, shift her body so that she sat cradled in warm arms, against a warm body; and from his build she guessed that this was Freddie, not Blue.

“Sorry. I hope you don’t mind,” Freddie said. “I couldn’t bear to look at you like that. Lying there, as if you were …” He held her close, and she let her body sink against him. She felt him shudder. “And you’re very cold.”

Mira sat curled up in his arms, not sure for how long. Time seemed to stand still. They were all very quiet; they’d been through something traumatic, and no one knew what to say yet. From time to time, Freddie kissed her forehead or her cheek, and a little flare of heat woke her limbs, sparked some feeling in them. Her eyes began to clear, the black clouds fading to gray, the gray dissipating and leaving behind a blur, so that she could see shapes and colors, but nothing distinct; until finally, she found herself staring at Blue, who was caught in a dense tangle of briars, watching her.

She had the impression he’d been watching for a while. And when her eyes cleared, and he realized she could see him, he exhaled. His body sank down as he relaxed, and the thorn branches scraped and crackled against each other, cutting his skin. A tear slipped from his eye, and he grinned almost painfully as it ran down his cheek.

“You’re crying,” Mira said, stunned. She’d never seen him like this. Even when he’d told her the story of his sixteenth birthday.

“These thorns hurt,” Blue said, still smiling—sheepishly this time. And she laughed. He was so full of it. Freddie laughed, too—that bell-like peal. They were all laughing and crying a little, and Freddie hugged her so tightly she lost her breath for a moment—but it wasn’t a scary feeling. She felt safe with them. She knew they would never hurt her.