The stair led to another door, and this time the Beast stopped. He dropped back down onto all fours as Yeva approached, and he paused. His eyes flicked back over his shoulder at her, and she saw indecision written there, recognized his hesitation as clearly as she would’ve on one of her sister’s faces. Then he gave himself a shake and reached out with one paw toward the latch.
She’d never quite seen how he managed many of the things he did—though it’d become quite obvious that no one else lived in the castle and that the Beast must have cooked her food while she was in the cell, lit her lanterns, locked and unlocked her chains. No beast with only paws and teeth could do such things, and Yeva had to admit the role that magic played in every aspect of the Beast’s existence. Perhaps he merely did it with a wave of his paw, the same way he simply walked on top of the snow as if it were solid ground, or turned his own scent off like a tap to hide himself from nature.
But this time, as she watched, he changed. His paw seemed to shimmer before her eyes, rippling like hot air escaping a door into a frosty morning. Her eyes ached with the need to look away, but she forced herself to watch, ordering herself not to miss it this time. The furry toes lengthened, the claws shortening, the whole wrist joint shifting up. It was not a hand, nor a paw, but something in between. And it held a key.
He unlocked the door deftly, and the key vanished somewhere about his person. By the time he put his hand back down it was a paw again, and he glanced back at her as if nothing strange had taken place. “Come,” he said again, more gently this time.
She followed him into the room.
The room was round and held four windows, shuttered tightly against the winter outside. The ceiling above was peaked, supported by wooden crossbeams that had been repaired and replaced over the years, each one stained a slightly different shade by time. Like the one below the castle, this room was obviously lived in. Unlike that one, however, the furnishings here were not cobbled together from whatever bits and pieces were least destroyed throughout the castle’s many rooms—here they were of a kind. A low daybed divan stretched along one wall below a shuttered window, bordered on each side by matching end tables. Odds and ends scattered their surfaces: a rabbit’s skull hung with beads and feathers; a tiny box inlaid with mother-of-pearl; a small stone figurine of a knight such as a child might play with, worn shiny with use. Rugs of thick blue shag covered the floor, and the hearth at the far side of the room glowed with fresh coals.
The Beast turned to a wardrobe that stood near the divan, and sank bank on his haunches so he could reach with both paws to open the wardrobe doors. The air shimmered again, but this time it was easier to watch as he shifted enough to grasp at the door handles. She expected to see what one normally finds inside a wardrobe: cloaks, dresses, shoes, hatboxes—or else, she supposed, tunics and leggings, if the masculine decor spoke to the room’s original occupant.
Instead the wardrobe was full of books.
Unlike those in the library below, the leather of these spines was bright with color, showing the original dyes, and their titles were stamped deep. Though the gold and silver leaf was worn from some of them, others she could read. Still others were written in languages she had never seen before.
She felt her breath leave her, and before she knew what she was doing, she came up beside the Beast so she could lift the lantern higher and scan the collection. There were maybe thirty or forty of them—nothing to how many were in the ruined library—but these had been cared for, protected and preserved against the years. And though they showed wear, cracked spines and corners rubbed such that the dye had faded, it was the kind of wear from use, the wear her own family’s books had shown before they sold them. These books were read, many times. These books were loved.
The Beast shifted at her side, his fur brushing her arm and making her shiver. He was warm, warmer even than the coals in the hearth.
Yeva’s mind spun. The spines that she could read bore the names of old knights’ tales, the cataloging of magical creatures, adventures in distant lands she’d never heard of. No dry scholar’s texts—all stories.
“You . . .” Yeva was so taken by surprise that she found it difficult to speak. “You—you saved these?”
The Beast’s eyes slid from the contents of the wardrobe to Yeva’s face, then back again. “Someone else used to live here,” he said finally. “It was he who rescued these from the damp.”
Yeva tore her eyes from the books so she could study the Beast’s profile. When she looked again at the room she saw details she hadn’t noticed before. The shag carpet lying before the fire was worn more than the others, flattened and thickened with fine pale-gray hairs, the same color as those coating the Beast’s underbelly. The inside of the door was grooved with scratches, such as might be left by someone with claws before he remembered how to use a latch.
“You live here,” she whispered, turning in a slow circle as her gaze flew about the round tower room. “This is where you stay when you don’t stay in the cave.”
The Beast’s eyes fell to the floor. “Yes.”
“But . . . why show me this now? These books, the trinkets . . . they’re yours. Why keep it from me before?”
The Beast didn’t answer. She could not see his eyes, for his head was dropped down and gaze fixed to the floor. The Beast remained silent for a time, and if it weren’t for the way his chest rose and fell with increasing speed, Yeva would think he was ignoring her. But his emotions were rising, his breathing quickening, and she waited.
“You would not have cared,” he burst out in a snarl. “We have no desire to change your opinion of us. You are our weapon. Nothing more. That you stay because you are waiting for the chance to kill us only serves our ends, to keep you here for our task.”
Once, Yeva would have shrunk from his temper. Once, that snarl would have made her tremble. Now she just stared at him, a thousand questions spinning in her mind. Though her lips kept trying to shape the questions into words, there were too many for her to sort through, and she could only stand there, mouth opening and closing.
The Beast looked up finally to see her dumbfounded expression, and the too-human eyes faltered for an instant, brows lifting from fury into pain. Then he turned on his heels and stalked toward the door.
“Beast!” Yeva tore her feet from the ground and ran to throw herself between him and the door. “Wait.”
The Beast paused, head dropping low, so low his muzzle nearly brushed the carpet. Yeva knew the body language from years of caring for Doe-Eyes and Pelei—shame. He regretted his outburst.
“Thank you . . . for showing me this,” Yeva said.
The Beast’s head swung round until he could fix those staring eyes on her, and this time they were round with surprise. Yeva had never thanked him for anything before, not since learning the truth of what he was. “You—” His voice deepened. “You may come here to read whenever you wish. I will leave the door unlocked.”
Yeva’s heart pounded as the Beast made his departure, his paw pads whispering against the stone as he went. She was wrong—she had thanked him once before, when he’d brought her a deer and called her Beauty.
She’d meant it then.
She meant it now, too. And that, more than the Beast’s temper, more than the snarl of his fangs and the snap of his jaws, made her shiver. The reason he’d never shown her this room before was because he had no reason to do so. She was his captive, kept for his purpose. And he’d revealed this room now, this part of himself, simply because she had been sad . . . because he’d seen, in the way she looked at the ruined library, how much a room like this would mean to her.
Her vision blurred and she swiped angrily at her eyes. She ought to throw every one of these cared-for books into the fire. She ought to smash every keepsake and memento in this room. She ought to want to hurt the Beast in any way she could.
She crouched on the floor, burying her face in her arms. She couldn’t stay here any longer. Each answer she found led her fur
ther from destroying this creature, this murderer, this thing that had killed her father. He was the reason she’d never hear her father read to her again. He was the reason her sisters must believe she was dead. He was the reason for everything. She could not let a place like this change any of that.
Doe-Eyes nuzzled at her elbow until she lifted her head, stroking absently behind her dog’s ears. Her eyes fell upon the hearth, on the rug before it and its coating of fine hairs from the Beast’s coat. She gazed at it for a long time, enough time for her thoughts to still and her pulse to quiet. The pieces were slow to connect, and she felt them sliding into place with something almost like dread.
For in showing her this room, the Beast had given her exactly what she’d been trying to find all these long months.
She’d known from the lack of tracks outside that he was not spending his nights in the dark den below the foundation. But she knew now where he slept in the castle, where he was at his most vulnerable.
She wasn’t fast enough or skilled enough to kill him, not when he was awake and watching her, alert to her every movement. But if he were asleep . . .
Yeva forced herself to remember that moment in the forest all those weeks and months ago when she’d found her father’s body. She forced herself to remember the surge of nausea when she realized that the Beast had killed him, that the blood spattered around that clearing was her father’s. She made her mind flood with images of blood, and revenge, and hatred. She’d never hear her father read to her again, and the Beast had reminded her of it. Perhaps he felt guilty, and that was what prompted these little kindnesses, and there was a part of Yeva that needled her to think of using them against him—but she was stronger than the Beast, and she was harder, and she could outlast his guilt without caving to her own sympathy for his plight. She let the needles stab at her, again and again, until she felt numbed to their sting.
Because now she had the means to make everything right. She’d be able to go home, to her sisters and to Albe and to Solmir, though she could not think of them, not yet, not until it was done. It would not be tonight, nor tomorrow, but soon.
Soon she’d be able to kill the Beast.
BEAST
We see the way she looks at us. We are not blind.
She hates. When she forgets herself the hate retreats, like the river’s waters in summer, but the damp sandy scars that stretch through the valley tell of the groundwater still there, still carving its course through the forest. And her hatred is still there, and its scars mark her face every time she sees us.
She must not know the truth. All we need is for her to stay, and complete her task, and if the thirst for revenge is what will keep her at our side, well, then we’ve thirsted enough to know she will stay until time robs her of youth and leaves her bent and trembling.
I wish just once she would look at me without hate.
But wishing is for men. Wanting is what brought us here. Desire and greed are human traits.
We are the Beast.
And yet . . . I wish.
SIXTEEN
WHEN THE STORMS RETREATED, the Beast began to take Yeva hunting again. Yeva had expected the weather to shift, for by her makeshift calendar she’d spent many months here, and spring ought to have begun creeping delicately in at the edges of the forest. But the valley remained blanketed with snow, a new dusting falling every few days to erase their tracks and give them a fresh canvas from which to work.
Yeva began to use that glimpse of magic the Beast had shown her, and slowly she became better at it. Soon she could track the Beast for leagues before she lost his trail, and the thrill of hunting prey that could outwit her, outsmart her, quickened her steps and sharpened the air in her lungs. She slept more soundly and deeply than she had in weeks cooped up in the castle.
Sometimes the Beast would spring from nowhere, shortly after she lost his trail, and demonstrate that he’d been two paces behind her for the last half hour, and Yeva would let herself laugh. The sound seemed to hearten the Beast, and Yeva felt his body language shifting, his manner warming. Spring had not come to the wood, but it was coming to the Beast’s heart. And at the same time, she hardened her own.
It was no different from tracking him through the wood. Day by day she grew better, faster, more sensitive to the hints of magic that would alert her to his presence. And day by day, inch by grueling inch, he let down his guard.
One night Yeva returned to the castle after giving up on the Beast’s trail to find that he had beaten her back, and had moved a number of pieces of furniture from the underground room into the one she’d chosen for herself. The blue velvet divan was there, and the table, and a big flat cushion stuffed with wheat husks and hay had appeared before the hearth. It was onto this cushion that Doe-Eyes sprang immediately and rolled around until she could stretch all four snow-covered paws out toward the fire, which crackled merrily.
Yeva stood in the doorway, fingering the tip of her bow, which she had not yet unstrung. She stared, feeling vague and uneasy, heart rebelling at how swiftly she felt at home here. This was not, could never be, home.
“Is there anything else you wish for?” The Beast spoke from a few paces behind her.
Yeva swallowed. “It’s wonderful.”
The Beast hovered just beyond the doorway. His gaze was on her hands, which still gripped her father’s bow.
She took a deep breath and then slipped her leg between bow and string so she could bend it across her thigh and unstring it, there while the Beast watched. She set it in its corner and turned her back. She had to stop to remember how, and then, with effort, turned to smile at the Beast. “Thank you.”
The Beast’s ears flicked, flattened, then shot up again, which spoke to Yeva of surprise, then pleasure. He shuffled back a step, and before her eyes, he shimmered. It was the same eye-straining blur that occurred when he needed dexterity for locks or latches, but this time it was all of him, and for a moment he seemed like something else, someone else. Yeva heard a swell of music, like that she heard in the wood—only this was a song all his own, a thread she could separate and listen to and know.
Then the Beast shook himself and the mirage fell away like a shower of stray hairs. He took another step back.
“Good night, Beauty,” he said, and quickly hurried into the shadowy corridor.
Yeva waited, controlling her breathing with an effort. She knew the Beast would hear the sound of her quickening breath if she let him.
“Sleep well,” she whispered—then sat down to wait.
“Stay,” Yeva whispered to Doe-Eyes, catching and holding the dog’s gaze. She didn’t like asserting her dominance, for it made Doe-Eyes unhappy and uncertain, but Yeva couldn’t risk the dog coming after her anyway and alerting the Beast. Still, the fleet hound rose up, head cocked uncertainly, as Yeva moved toward the door. “Mind the house,” Yeva said automatically, the command that had for years stood for two things: that Doe-Eyes must stay, and, most importantly, that Yeva would return.
Doe-Eyes sat back down and then, with reluctance, dropped her head onto her paws.
Yeva slipped into the corridor, knife resting comfortably in her palm. It was the blade the Beast had given her for butchering and carving, and if it was not quite as sharp as her fletching knife, it was much larger, and she’d grown familiar with it over the months. She let it hang from her hand beneath her cloak, easy to hide should the Beast be awake and spot her.
He could be watching her even now, from the shadows—but Yeva did not think so. She felt certain if he were near, she’d hear that thread of magic, that song that was all his own. If he were watching her, she’d hear the way that song quickened when he saw her, quickened to match the rate of her own heartbeat. And though her heart was racing now, she could not hear the Beast’s song.
As she reached the hidden spiral stair leading to the turret, her heart pounded even harder. She wished she could control it as she could her breath, but she settled for controlling her speed, and moved quickly
up the stairs and through the door. She slipped to the right and pressed her body against the side of the wardrobe. The room was lit dimly by the remains of a fire, and she saw the bulk of the Beast on the daybed along the wall. The steady rise and fall of his outline told Yeva that he slept.
Or pretends to sleep.
She’d thought of bringing her bow, so she then wouldn’t have to risk crossing the room and getting close to the Beast. But even if her arrows could penetrate his hide, her best shot would be to perforate a lung, and it would take him far, far too long to suffocate to death. Enough time, certainly, to kill Yeva for what she’d done. Further, Yeva didn’t know the extent of his magic, and whether he’d be able to heal such a wound. Her attack would have to be decisive, and brutal in order to be final.
If she could kill him from here, though, she would not have to see his face. And he would never see hers. Never know who had struck the killing blow. Never know it was his Beauty that had ended him.
She forced herself to shed those thoughts. She would have to be close to him when she struck. Her best chance was to cut his throat. He would kill her instinctively unless she penetrated deeply enough to nick his spinal column and deaden his movements. But even a Beast would bleed to death in seconds if she could open his jugular. Too quick for any magic he might summon.
She crept closer, watching for the slightest change in the rise and fall of his body. She breathed silently, forbade herself from taking any deeper breaths, forbade herself from swallowing her nervousness, for the tiniest sound could wake him. Something tickled at the back of her mind that the scene wasn’t right, something about the proportions of the room that made her feel as though she were in a dream and watching the world distort. She felt too large, and the room too large as well. . . .
She realized what it was: the Beast was smaller.
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