by Sarah Cross
“I don’t think any floor is really made for glass slippers,” Viv said. She felt short of breath from the shock of almost falling—and hot, like she was blushing all over, but she didn’t know why.
His smile, which had started out smooth and welcoming, got wider. “No, you’re probably right.” He checked that she was steady on her feet, then let her go. The heat faded like a shiver.
When he stepped back she saw a silver sash peeking out of his pocket. A signet ring flashed on his finger, imprinted with a crown.
He was an underworld prince. And he was the only person, besides Viv, who was wearing black instead of silver.
“Did you invite me?”
The prince’s smile broke free again. “I did. Do you mind?”
She wasn’t sure what to say.
“I don’t get it.” She gestured to the crowd of dancing princesses and princes, and the twelfth princess in particular. “Don’t you have a princess already?”
“The Twelve Dancing Princesses curse isn’t mine.”
“Then … what is your curse? Why am I here?”
“Why are you here?” He leaned in, so close she could see the silver flecks in his dark gray eyes. “You’re here because I got tired of waiting for you to die.”
CHAPTER TWELVE
VIV’S PULSE POUNDED IN HER SKULL. Her mouth felt dry and the words came out shaky. “You can keep waiting. Because I don’t plan on dying anytime soon.”
She started away from him and he followed, the two of them weaving through the crowd of dancers. Running was impossible when every step in the glass shoes threatened to send her sprawling. She finally stopped to pry the mini black glass coffins off her feet and flung them under one of the benches.
Barefoot, she kept going until she was out of the club, then at the edge of the hillside, her feet aching like every stone gave her another bruise.
There were no gondolas on this side of the lake. No way back, except—maybe through the forest? Who knew what was in there. But it was better than swimming back.
She started down the hill, picking her way carefully across the rocks—and the prince in the black tuxedo appeared, one of her black glass slippers in his hands. Guests crowded into the alcove behind him, eager to witness the drama, and the prince turned sharply and ordered them inside. He seemed agitated; he held the shoe awkwardly, like it was the wrong prop—an embarrassing fairy-tale symbol of the girl who got away.
Once they were alone, he said, “You didn’t have to run out like that.”
“Stay away from me,” she warned, backing down the hill.
He matched her step for step. “Vivian, please. Will you let me explain?”
“No. I’m leaving.”
When she reached the lakeshore, she turned and saw that two of the gondolas were halfway across the lake, each carrying two passengers. The prince raised his arm and signaled to the boatmen, who then began to row the other way.
Viv tried to make another signal—a get back here wave—but the boatmen ignored her. The prince let the glass shoe fall to the ground, and sighed. It was too thick to shatter.
“All I said was—”
“What the hell was that?” She gestured to the retreating gondolas. “I want to go home, and you—”
She stumbled back as he came toward her, the silver water splashing her legs as she stepped into the lake. Something rib-bony slithered around her ankle and she darted back onto the shore.
It felt like a snake had wound around her calf, but she looked and saw that it was a dirty necktie. She kicked to fling it off her, but the wet silk clung to her skin.
“Someone must have lost this.” The prince crouched to untangle the wet tie, then threw it into the lake, like it was an all-purpose dumping ground. “Don’t go in the lake if you can help it. It’s deeper than it looks.”
“I’ve already been in there. The door the horseman took me through lets out underwater. I thought I was going to drown.”
Alarm flickered across the prince’s face. “Well, if you come back—”
“I won’t.”
“If you come back, I’ll make sure he doesn’t bring you through that door again.”
“Good,” she said. “Not that it matters.”
She glanced at the boatmen on the opposite shore—the escape he’d denied her. “Are we done? Will you summon a gondola for me now? Or are you still hoping I’ll die?”
“I never said I wanted you to die. I said I was tired of waiting for it. And I didn’t mean real death, I meant your enchantment. Your glass-coffin death. I thought you’d know that.”
Her chest went tight with apprehension. “Why would you wait for that?”
“Because that’s when I’m supposed to save you.”
He took her cold hands in his and a shock of heat brushed through her. It flowed up her arms, through her chest, and then all through her body. It was like the sudden flush she’d felt when he’d held her in the club, only now she knew what it meant.
Recognition was what some people called it. The heat that burned between a prince and princess bound by the same curse. A cute little touch the fairies had added. A sign. Magic. Manipulative, definitely. But it had the desired effect. It made her breathless, and a little scared, because this was her prince and he wasn’t supposed to be here. This wasn’t supposed to be real yet.
She pulled her hands free and the warmth receded like a tide. “I don’t understand. We’re not supposed to meet until—”
“I told you, I got tired of waiting.”
Viv knew princes who were dreamy romantic types, who looked forward to the day they’d save their princess like it was the most important thing they’d ever do. But there were just as many princes who treated their single years like an extended bachelor party, a chance to have as much fun as they could before being tied down by happily ever after.
She’d always pictured her prince as belonging to the second group. Or maybe a subset of that group: a sick offshoot of princes who were biding their time until they found the dead-looking princess they’d been dreaming of.
“Are you disappointed?” he asked. “Were you hoping I’d be—”
“No. No, I just … didn’t expect this. Yet.” He was looking more and more nervous, so finally she said, “What’s your name?”
“Jasper.”
“Jasper…?”
“Just Jasper. No surname.”
“And you know that I’m—”
“Vivian. Vivian Deneuve.” He smiled. “All those v’s.”
“I go by Viv, actually.”
“Viv.” He said it like an apology. “I’ll remember that.”
She felt like they were on more neutral ground now—less emotionally fraught ground, anyway—and she wasn’t likely to burst out with I was afraid you’d be a necrophiliac, or To be honest, I’m not over my boyfriend-slash-ex-boyfriend-slash-boyfriend? And so your showing up like this just complicates things.
She had to think, to be practical, not to start confessing things her prince didn’t need to know.
“I’m going to need to see your mark,” she said. “To be sure.”
“Right. Um … best to do it over here.”
Jasper led her away from the lakeshore and into the silver forest, where metal trunks sliced up through the powdery gray earth, as cold and smooth as pieces of jewelry, their shining branches covered with thin silver blossoms. They stopped in a dim, deserted part of the forest, where hints of lantern light made it just bright enough to see, and the icy music sounded like a winter wind whistling through. There were no strange creatures in the forest. No creatures at all.
Viv snapped a silver twig off one of the trees, as a souvenir.
“Would you like an entire tree? I could have one dug up and sent home with you.”
“No, that’s okay,” she said, suddenly self-conscious. Breaking off a silver twig was a fairy-tale cliché and she tried to be above those. Like asking to touch Rapunzel’s hair, or trying on Cinderella’s shoes after
the fact. She never wanted to seem overly impressed by other people’s curses. That was for people who didn’t have their own.
“It’s all right,” Jasper said. “Everyone does it. If someone’s going to vandalize our forest, it might as well be my princess.”
Then, before she could respond, he said: “There’s no classy way to do this—sorry.”
He started taking off his clothes—efficiently, as if he were at a doctor’s office. He removed his jacket, bow tie, vest, and shirt, and hung them from the branches of the nearest tree. It still wasn’t enough to expose his märchen mark. The mark was on the small of his back, so he had to undo his pants and push them below his hips to show her.
He turned, and there it was, dark red against his skin: the apple-shaped mark. The sign of their curse. Henley had one, Regina had one, and Viv was sure the old Huntsman had one, but Jasper was a prince, so that apple mark meant he was a Snow White prince.
Her prince.
The stars on her dress winked on and off, speckling his torso with fairy lights.
She kept blinking, waiting for the mark to prove to be a shadow or hallucination. But it stayed, and her heart felt like it was filling her chest, like her body didn’t have the proper reaction for this. Her first sight of her prince was supposed to be when she opened her eyes, post-poisoning. After she’d almost died and lost everything. When his arms would seem like the only place to go.
“This is so weird. Surreal. Like I’m dreaming it.”
“It does feel a little like that.” Jasper lifted his shirt from where it hung, and slipped his arms into the sleeves. “I wanted to meet you sooner, but I’m not allowed to leave the underworld.”
“Not at all?”
“Not until it’s time to break your enchantment. I guess … the stars will align then, and I’ll be able to go.” He fastened his cuffs. “I didn’t know who you were until recently. I was trying to be patient, let things happen naturally … but finally I broke down and paid a fairy for information. She told me your name, gave me your picture—a school photo, I think. Sketched in a little background. Where you live, your father’s club, what you like, your animal blessing …”
Viv wondered if the fairy had told him about Henley. “That’s …”
“Creepy?” He smiled. “Don’t worry. She didn’t tell me your secrets. A fairy isn’t privy to everything. But it was a start. And once I knew who you were, I had to meet you. I needed to know you before it was too late.”
“Too late?”
“Not every Snow White princess survives. You know that. And based on what I know about your situation, your chances are worse than most.”
“My situation.” She waited for him to elaborate, but he didn’t. “What did the fairy tell you about my situation?”
“Well, you’re not …” He looked away. “I don’t want things to be awkward.”
“Not telling me is what’s going to make things awkward.”
“Your Huntsman,” Jasper said. “He’s … volatile. You’re not a child and he’s not a kindhearted old man who’ll be inclined to spare you. Your relationship is quite different. Can I leave it at that?”
“Please.” She wished she’d never asked.
“All right. Then … listen. I have an idea. It’s something I thought about a lot, before I invited you. So, hear me out before you decide it’s crazy.” He took a deep breath, then forged on. “Our fates are more or less decided for us. But we do have some choices to make in this curse. We can’t control what anyone else does, but we can take away their opportunities. We can make it harder for them.”
“What do you mean?”
“If you lived here, in the underworld—if you came to stay—I could protect you. I could keep your stepmother away from you. Make it so the Huntsman could never touch you. And your life wouldn’t be in their hands anymore, it would be in ours, and I would guard your life as if it were my own.”
“Jasper … that’s … you don’t even know me.”
“You’re my destiny. The person I’m meant to be happy with—forever. I don’t need to know you to want to protect you.”
He believed what he was saying, she could see that. And maybe if she were a different person she would have cried tears of joy and said Yes! If he had the power to protect her, if he really could keep Regina away from her, he was offering her life, and a possible happy ending. What more was there for someone with her curse?
But as much as she feared Henley would betray her, the idea of cutting ties with him now, of losing him before she absolutely had to, filled her with panic and a feeling that her life would be over no matter what she did.
“I don’t expect you to give me an answer tonight,” Jasper said. “But I hope you’ll think about it. I want us to decide what happens to you. Not your stepmother. Not your Huntsman.” Viv hoped the panic was gone from her eyes. “Of course I’ll think about it.”
Jasper finished getting dressed, and they went back to the nightclub, where the guests who’d been eager to watch them fight now watched them dance among the Twelve Dancing Princesses and their partners. Viv tried not to be disturbed by the girls’ outbursts—the sobbing, and sudden cries of Don’t touch me!—or the abrupt switch to laughter and flirting, often while tears still ran down their faces.
Jasper did his best to lead, but Viv wasn’t good at ballroom dancing and she lacked the grace to fake it. She’d taken a class when she was thirteen, when her father had decided it was embarrassing she couldn’t waltz, but she’d skipped most of the lessons.
“You hate this, don’t you?” Jasper said.
“I’m not a ballroom dancer. I like—”
“I know what kind of music you like. The fairy told me.” He called out a request to the DJ, and the lovely, soaring ballad cut to a frantic pop song about dancing, drinking, and hating yourself.
“Much better!” She had to yell to be heard over the music.
The Twelve Dancing Princesses went on waltzing, or clinging to their partners and crying, but the guests did their best to adapt. Viv danced until her head was spinning and stars rained down from her dress and glittered at her feet. Heat pulsed at her wrists, in her chest; there was a surge of it, not every time they touched, but often enough to be a reminder: This is your destiny.
She stopped thinking, let the music fill her up, and every time she met his eyes he was looking at her like he wanted to know her. Not like she’d hurt him, or was about to. Here was a person she’d never abused, who wasn’t destined to choose between killing her or losing her.
They were destined for happily ever after. He wasn’t a sick prince with a thing for dead girls. He hadn’t found her in a glass box and decided to take her home. What was there to be afraid of?
By the end of the night, Viv was downing water to ward off delirium, and then Jasper was carrying her on his back down the hill to the lakeshore, his arms hooked under her knees, hoisting her higher, saying, “You’re choking me,” because she had her arms around his neck and was hanging there like deadweight. She was laughing about nothing, giddy-tired, a few stray stars gleaming on her legs. The lakeshore was knotted with guests, all waiting for the boats that would take them home. The party was over.
Jasper set her down some distance away from where the crowd had gathered. The smooth wet stones were cool against her bare feet and the chill woke her up, made her feel less out of it.
Jasper put his arm around her and signaled to one of the boatmen, who began rowing toward them. “The horseman will meet you on the other side. He’ll bring you back through a different door. You won’t have to go into the lake.”
“Good.” She turned her head to watch the boat’s progress, and Jasper spiraled his finger into her hair and twisted it playfully.
“Will you come again tomorrow night?”
“I don’t know about tomorrow.”
“Come for an hour, at least. That way I’ll know you’re okay.” He took an invitation from his pocket and handed it to her. “The theme is I
nferno.”
Viv ran her fingers over the silver scrawl of You’re Invited, the words as magical as the first time she’d seen them. “When will it do that thing, where it asks yes or no?”
“As soon as the underworld doors open tomorrow. Around eleven, your time. But you can give me your answer now, if it’s yes.” He smiled.
She took a chance. Why not?
“Okay,” she said. “Yes.”
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
VIV WOKE TO THE SOUND of the lawn mower at six thirty in the morning. Henley. God. She’d been asleep for maybe an hour, and her head felt like it was packed with mud. She hadn’t even bothered to change. Once the horseman had dropped her at home, she’d collapsed into bed in her starry-night dress and passed out before her head hit the pillow.
My dress …
There was something troubling about that thought. And as the fuzziness cleared from her head she realized it was because she wasn’t wearing one.
She was naked, and her sheets were covered with ashes.
The magic dress had disintegrated.
Last night, Viv had thought the fairy’s ash-to-dress transformation was a cute trick. Now her skin was covered with sooty black smears, and her bed looked like someone had burned a bonfire’s worth of stuff in it. She couldn’t go back to sleep like this. She itched and her bed was disgusting.
She forced herself to get up. Pain shot through her feet when they touched the floor; they were so sore she could barely walk on them. She dropped to her knees and crawled to her en suite bathroom, then into the shower, where she turned on the water and tried to fall asleep for a few more minutes.
When the water turned cold she woke up and shut it off. She wrapped a towel around her body and then crawled back to her bedroom and lay down on a patch of carpet that didn’t have ash all over it—and passed out.
“Viv. Viv! Are you drunk?”
Her eyes fluttered open. She wished she were hungover, instead of aching and exhausted because she’d spent the night in a place renowned for destroying people’s shoes. It was too hot in her room. She felt sick. And Henley was there, kneeling over her, shaking her.