As if reading my thoughts, Sophie answered, “He wishes to be alone.”
I found myself nodding and I turned away, hearing the door click as she closed it behind her.
Anger grew to panic, turning my stomach. How was I going to find the ring now? I had to assume that he kept something so important on his person.
But if he doesn’t, a part of me thought, then this will the perfect opportunity to search the castle for it.
It was a bad idea; I knew it the moment it popped into my head. But I couldn’t think of a single reason not to do it. Besides, I had to admit that I was a bit curious. It seemed like this place held its fair share of secrets, and I was sure my sisters would still be safe for a couple of days. At least, I hoped they would. But I couldn’t think like that. My father was looking after them, and Thomas wouldn’t go back on his deal with me when it was something so important to him. They were fine.
They had to be.
~
I awoke the next morning for the second time not in my own bed.
In my sleep-deprived state—for nightmares of a beast with Thomas’ face had plagued me—I couldn’t remember how I’d gotten here. But then it all came back to me, like a cold gust of winter wind: my father’s return and betrayal, Thomas’ ultimatum, the wolf attack in the Black Forest, the Beast.
It was disorienting, recalling all of this at once, and I felt like I might throw up.
I hobbled to the bathroom, still leaning heavily on my unbroken leg though there was less pain in it today, and turned the sink on to splash icy water on my cheeks. I was shaking again and I clenched my fists. Not for the first time, I was glad there were no mirrors; I didn’t want to see the lines on my pale face and the worry in my russet eyes. I’m sure I looked worse than usual.
When my stomach had settled, I went back into the bedroom.
My body felt a little better than the night before, but there were still muscles and bones that ached. Part of me wanted to stay in bed, but I didn’t have the luxury of wasting such precious time.
I’d slept in my undergarments, so I put on the pants and tunic from the day before and hobbled out into the corridor. There was a tray of food outside my door when I opened it, and the silverware immediately started to clink against itself, as if sensing I was there. It made me smile and I shook my head in disbelief that last night had actually happened, that magic was real.
Or, at least it was real here.
I went to reach for a piece of toast, the plate scooting itself closer to my outstretched hand, but my stomach twisted in a way that said it wouldn’t like that very much. I gave the tray a forlorn look and continued on.
Low fog made the morning light eerie as it slipped through the slight, high windows. I crossed my arms to keep from shivering in the cold and limped the halls barefoot until I found myself in the same dining room from the night before. The emptiness of it was amplified without the presence of the Beast in it. A place had never felt as hollow to me as this castle did without its master.
I looked around for Sophie, but there was no one. Uncrossing my arms, my heart in my throat, I crept towards the hall towards where the Beast had disappeared the night before, knowing I needed to take advantage of every moment I was alone.
Just as I was about to turn the first corner, Sophie appeared in front of me—I reared back, nearly knocking into the wall, pain shooting up my injured leg. She smiled sweetly, but I could tell she knew where I was going and wasn’t going to allow it.
“There you are, dear,” she said sweetly. “I noticed your door was open but you weren’t there. Are you hungry?”
I was about to ask her how she could’ve possibly noticed my open door and gotten to this part of the castle before me, but instead I said, “No, I’m not.” She looked disappointed for a moment, so I amended, “But perhaps later?”
She brightened before continuing, “Bastian wants me to show you something today in his absence.” She held her arm out for me to take, as if we were long-time friends. “Shall we?”
I hesitated only for a moment, reasoning that I could simply come back to this part of the castle later that night, when Sophie was asleep. And a part of me was curious about what the Beast wanted Sophie to show me. Maybe there would be a clue to where the ring was. It was a small hope, but it was all I had. I smiled genuinely at Sophie and hooked my arm with hers. Oddly enough, I felt very comfortable with her. She was my only tie to a world where there was no magic, as she didn’t seem to possess any of her own.
We started across the dining room, towards a part of the castle I’d not yet seen, when Sophie stopped.
“Oh, I almost forgot!” Stepping back from me and dropping my arm, she produced a large black silk handkerchief from her apron. “He requested you be blindfolded.” She chuckled. “Bastian always did have a flare for the dramatic.”
Then she sighed in a way that made me think she was always humoring him, and I realized that she always referred to him by his true name. She was much closer with him than I would’ve thought.
Sophie held out the handkerchief and I considered my options. I didn’t think she was leading me into a trap, but I’d been unusually trusting since waking up here. Maybe it was because I was almost certain that the Beast had saved my life, or because Sophie came off as the sweet yet fierce grandmother I’d never had, but I finally turned around for her to put the blindfold on. What did I have to lose?
Once it was tied securely and all I could see was the blackness of the cloth, she led me carefully down one twisted corridor after another. She was surprisingly quick for her age, but then, I couldn’t be sure how old she actually was. There were so many things I wanted to know about her, but felt like it would be rude to ask.
Her footsteps echoed loudly against the stone, and I thought she was going to lead me straight out of the castle when we stopped suddenly. Still sightless, I felt her reach behind me and untie the blindfold. As the fabric slipped from my eyes, I noticed that we weren’t in the depths of the castle, but we weren’t outside either.
It was a greenhouse.
Looking up, there were only a few clouds in the sky, and the sun filtered cleanly through the emerald glass above me, casting the room in a strange light. I took an involuntary shuffle forward but barely noticed the movement—I’d never been so enchanted before.
Reaching towards the back of the room was a long, thick wooden table lined with so many varieties of potted plants that I couldn’t even begin to name them all. And they were moving, all of them. They swayed at separate tempos, as if each one was caught in a different breeze or moving to the rhythm of varying melodies, reaching up for a taste of the sunlight. These plants had no flowers—they were completely devoid of any color except a deep, enchanting shade of evergreen that reminded me of the Black Forest trees near home when the sunlight hit them in the summer.
That was why another color caught my eye so easily, and my gaze found the edges of the greenhouse. Thick brown vines sprang up from they were rooted in the ground, crawling up the wall and along the ceiling until they intertwined with each other to create a sort of canopy. And living on these vines were the most beautiful red roses I’d ever seen.
Despite the town’s name of Briar, roses were extremely rare. The Regime didn’t allow the planting of flowers, or anything else, for the sake of beauty. I hadn’t seen a rose since before mother had died, when father had brought her a wild thorny rose he’d found growing near the edge of the Black Forest. That one had been a light shade of yellow that had bled into deep orange tips. It had lasted a long time sitting on our windowsill.
These ones, though, were red as blood.
I stepped toward the nearest bloom and reached out to it, my fingers seeming to touch soft velvet. Closing my eyes at the sensation, a memory flashed in my mind: my mother, tending to her own flowers in the tiny pots we kept hidden in the backyard, teaching me how to nurture them properly and take care of them. She told me to love them like they were my own little children,
so that they could grow big and strong, like me.
A tear slipped down my cheek, and I went to wipe it away—when a thorn on the stem of the rose pricked my finger. I hissed in pain and put my finger in my mouth to ease it, the copper taste of blood on my tongue.
When I could no longer taste the blood, I turned to Sophie and asked, “Is this all yours?”
“Mine?” she laughed. “Oh, heavens no! It’s his,” she explained, a small smile tugging at her lips, and I blinked in surprise. I hadn’t expected someone like the Beast to have the patience, much less the green thumb, to grow anything. Then again, it was obvious that magic was involved.
“The waving of the plants is new,” she continued thoughtfully. “I’m sure he thought it might impress you.”
I turned to hide my face from her. Why would the Beast want to impress me?
“But he’s always had a better hand with the roses,” she continued, oblivious to my inner turmoil, and spoke wistfully. “This was once his mother’s greenhouse, and I imagine he’ll want to bring you back here himself once he returns. This place was the only thing that could bring him out of his grief after the curse.” She paused. “It means a great deal to him.”
I felt a sudden rush of sadness remembering that, in the story, his mother had died giving birth to him. At least I’d known my mother, if only for a short time. But none of that excuses his tyrannical behavior in the past and his lack of leadership now, I reminded myself sternly.
It was strange how my opinion of the Beast was changing into something I wasn’t sure I understood. The confusion I felt was like a thick fog that refused to leave the confines of my mind.
“Come,” she said suddenly, and I turned to look at her again. “You must be hungry by now.”
I nodded and realized that I was hungry, now that I didn’t feel so nervous. My stomach grumbled in agreement.
It seemed to take less time to get back to the dining room, since I wasn’t blindfolded. But once we made it to the colder great room, I realized how tired I was. Seeing that my chair was still there from the night before, I went to sit down, my broken leg growing weak beneath me. But Sophie shook her head.
“Come now, child,” she said to me, nearly at the entrance to the corridor where I’d seen the dinner tray bustle out of the night before. “There’s no need to eat out here in this drafty hall when the king isn’t around.” Then she winked.
I smiled at her unwittingly and followed her, seeing that I’d been right about it being the way to the kitchen. Once we passed the first entryway to the corridor, there was a swinging wooden door at the end of it—the hinges creaked loudly when Sophie touched it.
When I saw what was inside, though, I stopped in my tracks. I couldn’t believe my own eyes, and I blinked a few times as if that would change what I was seeing. It was one thing for a single knife to cut a piece of meat or a couple plates to move themselves onto a table, but it was an entirely different thing to see the kitchenware creating the meals on their own. I felt for the wall behind me and leaned back on its warm stones, trying to catch my breath.
Sophie looked over at me, a twinkle in her eye. “Magical, isn’t it.”
I nodded, speechless as I watched a sharp, glinting kitchen knife thinly slice a zucchini, a ladle stir a gigantic silver pot on the stove, an iron take the wrinkles out of one of the dinner napkins—
“How is this possible?” I wondered aloud, and then looked over at Sophie. “How in the world did the Beast do all of this?”
Her face fell. “It came at a high price. At first, once he’d gotten a taste of the magic, he couldn’t get enough of it.” She slumped onto one of the wooden stools in front of the chopping block, the downward swing of a cleaver only narrowly missing her forearm. “His curse was immediate retribution for what he’d done to that witch, and he knew it. Using the magic book kept him from tearing himself to shreds because of what she’d turned him into; it gave him something to do, a skill to hone. He never saw the harm in any of it.” She sighed. “But magic—especially black magic—has a price. After enchanting nearly every object in the entire castle, he grew gravely ill. I thought—”
She clenched her jaw, continuing roughly, “When he couldn’t use the magic while he was sick, the effect it’d had on him slowly faded and he became well again.”
I nodded, wondering how close the Beast had been to dying, when one of the trays rumbled cautiously towards me. Atop it was a white, creamy soup and a fresh bread roll.
“Thank you,” I said to it as I took the items from the tray, and immediately felt a bit foolish about thanking a piece of kitchenware, even if it wasn’t wholly inanimate. But it made some sort of tittering noise and rushed back towards a short wooden cabinet, like it was flustered by what I’d said. My stomach grumbled louder this time at the sight and smell of the food, and I ate quickly, the hot soup coating my dry throat. When I was finished, the tray came back for me to put the empty bowl on it, and shot over to the sink with a loud metal rumble.
“They seem to like you,” she commented, but didn’t sound too pleased about it.
I smiled at her with some effort. It was so much warmer in the kitchen than out in the castle. I knew it was because of the oven, but it was nice to feel like I wasn’t in a drafty, almost-empty fortress. With the heat of the fire and the warmth of the soup, I suddenly felt tired. Sophie must’ve noticed.
“You look exhausted, my dear,” she told me, coming to stand next to me and taking my arm in hers again. “Let’s get you back to your room. Your body’s still healing itself from the wolf attack.”
I wondered fleetingly how she knew that it had been a wolf attack that had inflicted these wounds, but then figured the Beast must’ve told her about it. Which was further proof that the Beast had been the one to save me in the Black Forest. I wondered how frightening he must have been to scare off three forest wolves.
As we left the kitchen, my gaze drifted towards the Beast’s corridor, and I decided that I should try to rest if I was going to come back later that night to find out if he was keeping the ring there. The greenhouse had been wonderful, and what Sophie had shared with me in the kitchen was something I’d remember for the rest of my life…but I couldn’t forget about my sisters. They were counting on me, and letting them down meant a fate worse than death, for all of us.
Chapter 12
Of Your Own Accord
BELLE
S unlight pierced my eyelids, and I sat up hurriedly—before falling back onto the pillows, lightheaded. Dammit. I’d missed my opportunity. I’d tried to make myself wake up sometime during the night, but I was more exhausted than I’d thought.
I stretched my legs and sighed at the mid-morning sun coming in through the stained-glass window, sucking in a stuttered breath when I felt the bone-deep ache and stinging pain of my injuries. Hopelessness enveloped me.
When am I going to heal? I wondered.
The returning thought of giving up and lying in bed all day was so tempting, but I couldn’t. Not with my sisters left in the care of our thoughtless father, who’d sooner sell us all off to the brothel than take any sort of responsibility. Fury raced through my veins like a current, and I knew I needed to get out of bed.
Today was more difficult than yesterday. As I flung the covers off and moved my legs over the side of the bed, touching my toes to the frozen stone floor, the cold was almost a relief from the pain. But the moment I put more pressure on my body, pain shot through me like an electric shock and I gasped.
I wondered if I should take another bath in the healing liquids that Sophie had given me that first day, though they clearly hadn’t worked as well as I’d thought.
Don’t give up, I heard Lila’s silly voice, clear and piercing in my mind. There’d been more than a few nights in the past year and a half after father left that had hit me hard. I’d tried to keep it from my sisters, but they were more observant than I gave them credit for. Em would always lecture me about my duties to the family since father wasn
’t around and I was the oldest, but Lila was the softest of us. When I was upset, she would crawl into my lap, put her arms around my neck, and whisper, “I love you, Belley. Don’t give up.” And that was all I’d ever needed to pick myself up again.
But Lila wasn’t here: I’d left her with our father. I’d needed her then—hell, I needed her now—but she needed me more.
Gritting my teeth, I stood in one fluid motion, ignoring the lightheadedness and the ache rattling through my bones. The first step was hard and I had to remind myself to breathe through the sharp pain. The second, though, was easier, and I reached out to steady myself on the doorknob. I was amazed by how much of the discomfort I could bear, but I didn’t want to push myself either. The fatigue was already beginning to settle on my body like the thick moisture before a thunderstorm.
I can do this. I can get myself out of this room and find the Beast’s ring.
Even though I’d missed my first opportunity to find the ring, I still had at least one more night to find my way to the Beast’s wing without him being there. The castle was huge; there had to be more places to explore. Mother had always told me that I was too curious for my own good—the thought made me smile and my mind was made up.
I put on my pants and tunic that I’d set at the foot of the bed, careful not to disturb the fraying cast around my leg, and took a step outside my room. I’d almost expected the tray to be there again today, trying to guilt me into eating, but the stone hallway was empty.
Standing there, I felt exposed—the castle was startlingly quiet. Not even the clinking of dishes or Sophie’s faint footsteps, just the rasps of my short, labored breaths. But I didn’t dare risk going down the Beast’s corridor during the day. I just needed to get my bearings.
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