No one came to get her for a long time—the candle in the washroom had burned down to nearly half. It was as if they had forgotten her. Every time she started to fall asleep she splashed a little of the water on her face (but not enough to wash it).

When the door finally opened it was by a new person: a thin, hollow-eyed girl who made even the neat black-and-scarlet servant’s dress she wore look drab and unappealing.

“The countess awaits you for dinner,” she whispered.

When Rapunzel pushed through the door, she saw that her old friend the footman was also there, obviously to prevent her escaping.

She began to have serious doubts that he was really a footman at all.

This was, despite all appearances, Rapunzel’s first noble-to-noble meeting and meal; she decided to act like it was voluntary. No—that it was her pleasure. She held herself tall and followed the girl at a decorous distance, though she desperately wanted to get close and whisper a thousand questions. The footman said nothing. He followed them both like this was the most normal thing in the world.

They came to a long and narrow feasting hall with a positively enormous fireplace—in which there burned a tiny, smoky fire in the middle of its mostly empty stones. The table was set for only two, with dishes and bowls decorated with sparkling jet and goblets of red crystal. There were no knives, only spoons, and their handles were bone.

Everything was horrible and ridiculous, tasteless and terrifying at the same time. A cup of goat milk poured into one of the glasses would look like creamy blood, Rapunzel realized. Disgusting.

The footman pulled out a chair and she sat, adjusting her simple woolen dress as if it were fancy robes and skirts. She was too busy looking at the things on the table and trying not to be nervous to notice her hostess actually arrive.

“Well, well. We finally meet.”

The countess—for it must have been she—lurked at the other end of the room, a decidedly fake smile set around her mouth and her hands clasped tightly like she was trying to keep something from escaping them. She was small but voluptuous and had a neck like a swan. Her skin, where it was exposed on her face and hands, was white as a cloud and flawless. She wore a white silk dress with gold at the cuffs, a bodice and overskirt of scarlet. Her snood was thickly netted gold wire set with pearls; more of a crown, really.

She would have been an absolute vision of loveliness if not for the malicious insanity in her eyes. It was so obvious, so decidedly there that it was shocking; Rapunzel looked at the servant and the footman to see if they noticed, but both had their faces turned down to the ground.

The corners of the woman’s perfect mouth twitched constantly.

“Countess Bathory, I presume,” Rapunzel said, not getting up—as Flynn would have reminded her, she was a royal princess and far outranked the villain in the corner. Until she could summon her powers (and somehow touch the other woman with her hair), she might as well play the one card she had.

The woman’s mouth twitched even more.

“Of course. And you are Princess Rapunzel, which fact is entirely irrelevant from here on out.”

The woman sat down. As if that was the signal, a servant came in with a plate of sliced meat, cheese, bread, grapes, and hard sausages. All easily eaten without a knife. At the countess’s seat was placed what looked like a piece of venison, barely roasted, pink to the bone. Two large knives were set next to it. One was a normal carving knife, the other a glittering thing that was more suited to violence than viands.

The countess immediately picked up the sinuous, evil-looking knife and began to saw through her meat with gusto and relish.

Rapunzel kept her hands at her sides.

“Well, go on,” the countess said, with a casual gesture of the knife. “It’s not poisoned. I could have you killed a thousand times already without lifting a finger. I wouldn’t need to poison you.”

Reluctantly, Rapunzel picked up a tiny piece of cheese and began to nibble on it.

“Why have you brought me here?” she asked as calmly as she could.

“Are you daft?” the countess asked, looking up, genuinely surprised. “Your hair. Your beautiful, magical hair that can kill. I’m going to rule all of Europe.”

And with that, the countess went back to attacking her meat and shoving it into her mouth.

Rapunzel blinked.

Flynn’s words came back to her: Whatd’ya think is more likely: a bunch of warring, creepy lords and ladies running all over enemy territory to re-imprison a dangerous girl…or trying to grab her for their own use?

He and Gina had been right. Rapunzel wasn’t a prisoner because she was dangerous; she was a treasure kept safe because of her power. They all wanted her for her hair—somehow they all knew what it could do. But…

“It doesn’t work like that,” Rapunzel said despite herself.

“It had better,” the countess said with a shrug. “Otherwise you’re dead.”

Rapunzel tried not to panic at the casual, matter-of-fact way the woman had spoken.

“It’s been a while since I’ve had one of my baths,” the countess went on, suddenly admiring her right hand, turning it this way and that. The knife it held glinted. “Do you know what I discovered, when I was young?”

Rapunzel shook her head. She kept forcing herself to eat bits of cheese through her terror. Flynn—and Gina—would tell her not to show fear. To pretend she had the upper hand, was unconcerned.

It was hard.

“A clumsy servant cut herself with a fruit knife once, and where the blood landed on me, like magic, my skin was remade. Youthful, soft, moist, supple. It was a revelation—no, an inflection point, you might say.” She held her gaze on her hand for another moment, then shrugged and went back to eating.

“So I had her killed for her clumsiness and washed my entire body in her blood. And kept it up, with others. Works best with maidens, of course, but they are getting harder and harder to come by. I’ve used up almost all of them in Čachtice and have had to seek them further afield.

“So here is how it stands.

“You use your powers to help me defeat my enemies and conquer the land, or I cut you and bathe in your blood. And, probably, take your beautiful hair and have something woven out of it. A tapestry or a counterpane or something. Waste not, want not!”

Rapunzel swallowed, but suddenly the back of her throat was very dry.

This was the world outside her tower? This was a real thing that happened in it?

“Whoever told you about my hair didn’t understand its magic fully,” Rapunzel said slowly, forcing herself to pick up a piece of—dark red—sausage and eat it. Obviously and slowly, as if she were enjoying it.

“Well,” the countess said, thinking. “I would like to rule all of the land. If that doesn’t pan out, perhaps you will still be useful. I have been running out of ways to…subdue and drain my girls. It’s grown very boring. Perhaps you might make it interesting again!”

Rapunzel tried not to shudder, tried not to imagine her hair around the servant girl’s neck, being told to kill her like a bird.

“How, ah, how did you come to know about the secret of my hair?” she asked casually, using a spoon to pick up a grape. “I’ve been hidden from the world for nearly twenty years.”

“The information was imparted to a select few. You were put up for auction after we received trustworthy proof of your powers. The highest bidder would win your hand in marriage. Or, in my case, just your hand.”

Rapunzel nearly choked on her grape. Being sold into marriage wasn’t that surprising; it was a common occurrence in all the fairy tales and knights’ quests she had read. Princesses were always being handed off to the best fighter, or the foreign king with the most land, or whoever defeated the ogre, or whatnot.

It was more the idea that this group of people, these nameless nobles, had known all about her and her hair, and had been watching her—even if not directly—for years. Rapunzel had thought she was all alone in the tower. This was far worse: she wasn’t entirely alone. She imagined faceless heads surrounding her bedroom, looking in….

“So, ah, you won the auction,” Rapunzel stammered, trying to stay focused.

“No, it wasn’t even half over yet. We were in the middle of the second round of bidding. You fled.” She said this accusingly, levelling a knife at Rapunzel. “You escaped. A less trusting person might wonder if the disappearance was all contrived, to drive up the price or whatnot. I believe in the inherent goodness of people, however.”

Rapunzel couldn’t hide the expression on her face and was glad the countess was too busy picking a piece of gristle out of her meat to notice.

“We all set off like idiots through the countryside to find you—like that was our job. Like I don’t have better things to do. This was supposed to be neat and easy. Clean. But there it is. I happen to have a little more skill than my fellow lords and ladies at hunting down and rounding up wanted girls. My beloved vérhounds! So I found you first.

“And now that I’ve found you, I think I’ll keep you. To hell with the auction! If they don’t like it, well…good luck storming my castle, especially with my new weapon of mass destruction.”

The countess smiled (with dimples!), very pleased with herself.

After a moment, perhaps disappointed with Rapunzel’s lack of response, she added: “That’s you, you know.”

“I know,” Rapunzel said, trying not to sound exasperated. Couldn’t the countess be one thing—sadistic, disgusting, or evil? Not also boring and needy?

And there was one piece of the puzzle missing. Who arranged the auction? Who knew all about her powers, and all the other nobles? Who was it who managed this while keeping her locked up in secret for twenty years?

There was only one answer, of course, obvious and crushingly disappointing.

The king and queen—her parents.