by Sarah Cross
The garden was restless with the hum of insects, the rustling of nocturnal animals making their way across the grass. He’d come to see Viv, and he’d been lurking below her balcony, trying to decide if he should call her or go home when Regina opened the back door.
He meant to tell her no and leave, but found himself moving toward the door, into the same kitchen where Viv had told him about her prince. A moth fluttered in after him and flew up to hover around the light above the sink. The rest of the kitchen was dark. The scent of jasmine blew in through the screens, and Henley could hear bats in the garden. He should have known Viv was gone—none of the bats had flown into her bedroom. They were always getting tangled up in her curtains when she was there.
“I’d offer to make coffee, but we don’t have any,” Regina said. “Vodka?”
He shook his head. “No thanks.”
“That’s right. You’re health-conscious—except for that smoking habit.”
“I’m not. If I cared about my health, I wouldn’t be with Viv.”
Regina laughed. “I’d always assumed you were because you take care of your body. But I guess you could have a different reason for doing that.”
“It’s just something to do.” He shrugged, embarrassed to tell her the truth. He worked out when he was stressed, and because it had become a habit after years of doing it. But he had started because he wanted to be ready to protect Viv. So that no matter how big or tough her Huntsman was, he’d be able to stop him.
Oh, the irony, his friend Jack Tran would say.
“Sit down,” Regina said. “You don’t have to worry about Viv finding you here. She’ll be gone all night.”
Henley’s eyes burned like someone had blown sand into them. “She went. She went, anyway.”
Before they’d separated after spending the day at Jewel’s, he’d held her close and whispered, Don’t go. And she’d hugged him the way she did when she was sorry about something. He’d thought that had meant okay.
“You asked her not to?”
He nodded, not sure why he was confiding in Regina. Maybe because his mother would say Forget her, you can do better. His father would shrug and say This is the way it works.
Regina would offer a solution. It would be a solution he didn’t like … but at least she would act like there was something he could do.
“And you’re surprised?” she asked. “Or hurt?”
He didn’t answer. He lit a cigarette and busied himself with smoking instead.
Regina reached for the pack he’d left on the table, and drew one out with her bloodred nails. She rolled it between her fingers.
“When I was your age, I thought I was a Snow White princess. I used to long for my prince to come the way a martyr longs for sacrifice. I was willing to suffer for it if I had to. Because I wanted to matter. And a princess always matters—especially if she suffers. That’s not the case for all of us.
“I’m sure you can relate. You wanted to be her hero. You wanted to be something you were never meant to be. Cruel, cruel fate.” She leaned her head on her hands. Smiled like they were in this together. “Do you mind if I get that vodka?”
“No, go ahead.”
She moved through the kitchen like a boat rocking on water, hips swaying like a pendulum.
“The thing about this curse … is that it makes us not matter. We revolve around the princess. We play a role and then send her to her happily ever after. If she lives, I’ll die. The queen always dies unless she wins. And you … your heart will be broken. Viv and her prince will send you a Christmas card every year to be nice: Here’s how we’re doing. Look how big our kids are getting. Aren’t they cute? And you’ll wonder, What the hell did I do wrong? Why did she pick that idiot over me? I know because I’ve been there. I get those cards. It sucks.”
Henley closed his eyes and tried to picture the family photo Viv might send him in ten years. Smug prince in a reindeer sweater. Two prissy kids and a golden retriever. Viv sitting off to the side, her face retouched to give her a smile. It seemed impossible that she could be with someone else. Build a life with someone else.
Regina tipped some vodka into a glass. “That’s our fate, Henley. We are not the chosen ones. Sure you don’t want any?”
He shook his head, dragged on his cigarette. He was afraid his voice would come out broken if he said anything. Even a simple I’m okay would snap in his throat.
“I was always the wrong girl. I’d date a cursed guy, we’d get along great … but there was a princess waiting just around the corner. His perfect match. Destiny. And once he found her … I was the mistake. You’re about to be the mistake, Henley. The first love who wasn’t her real love. That’s what she’ll say to her prince, you know. When he asks her about your relationship. I didn’t know real love until I met you.”
“Viv wouldn’t say that. Even if—she’d probably tell him it was none of his business.”
“Oh, you’d be surprised what a girl will say. She’s tough with you, but that’s because she doesn’t want to impress you anymore. With her prince, it’ll be different.”
He thought of all the princes Viv had used to make him crazy. What would she be like with her prince?
“A lot can happen in a night,” Regina said. “If you let things go on, if you don’t step in and do something, she won’t even be the girl you remember. You’ll lose her. In every way.”
Pain pierced his temples. “I can’t kill her.”
“Yes, you can. Look at those big hands. That body. You weren’t built for playing the piano, Henley.”
“I don’t want to, then.”
“Of course you do. You want it more than anything, or you wouldn’t be here.”
Henley had only killed once, and that had been an accident. He’d hit a deer with his truck when he was driving with Viv—it had leapt right at them, its love for Viv negating any sense of self-preservation. He’d had just enough time to throw his arm up in front of her in case the deer went through the windshield—but they were lucky, and it didn’t. Viv had insisted on climbing out of the truck, dropping to her knees in the street, and putting her hands on the deer’s chest as if she had some kind of healing power—which she didn’t. Although it had seemed like she calmed it a little, like her presence put the deer at ease as it died.
Afterward, he’d wrapped his arms around her and she’d clung to him with bloody hands, her tiny body wracked by sobs. She was fragile in so many ways, but her emotions were fierce. She’d been devastated, so angry that her curse had done that. And he’d felt like it was his fault, too. Like he should have been able to save it for her.
He wasn’t a killer. And yet, he would have to become one if he wanted to be the one to end this.
His hand shook, and he ground the cigarette out on the table. He didn’t think Regina would care. She was asking him to murder her stepdaughter. A scorch mark was nothing compared to that.
“You matter, Henley. The curse might make you feel like you don’t, but you do. Ask yourself: Can you live without her? And if you can’t, is it right that she can live without you?”
The pain came back, the pressure in his head expanding, and he stared at the table, at the fingerprints Viv’s apple-sticky hand had left behind. A moth would batter itself against a light until it died. A deer would leap to its death for a chance to be close to Viv. And she would mourn them both. But she could walk away from him as if it were the most natural thing in the world. As if he should expect it and be okay with it, because that was fate.
The word caught in his throat like there were barbs attached to it.
“No.”
“Good,” Regina said. “There’s someone I want you to meet.”
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
THAT NIGHT, THE HORSEMAN didn’t throw Viv down the well.
Instead, he swept her onto his horse, and they rode, inhumanly fast, until they came to a stop in an alley that was cleaner than any alley should be. Shards from a broken perfume bottle littered the ground,
along with a misplaced tiara, but there was no other refuse, and the air smelled of roses, not overripe garbage. Guests in fire-colored evening attire waited in a line that led to an open manhole.
Viv turned to Night. “I have to jump into a sewer? I thought this was supposed to be a better option.”
“You don’t jump,” the horseman said. “There’s a ladder. And it doesn’t lead to a sewer. It’s a magic door. It leads to the underworld.”
Night’s horse stood beside them, heat radiating from its enormous body. The horse stretched its head forward to nuzzle the flame-shaped hair ornament of the woman in front of them. The horse’s teeth seized the orange netting, along with some of the woman’s hair. As she cried out, Night cautioned, “Don’t move your head.” But that was all the help he offered.
“You’re so friendly,” Viv told him.
Night regarded her with his unblinking black eyes, that smooth, dark face that could have been carved from jet. “I was not hired to be friendly.”
After a few minutes the horse grew bored with the netting and settled on snorting and pawing the ground. The woman with the flame hair ornament fled the line, and Night grabbed the reins to keep the horse from stomping.
“What is it doing?” Viv asked.
“He wants to crack the earth open. Like in your story of Persephone and Hades. Bringing girls to the underworld. He doesn’t understand that there are doors now.”
Viv pictured Night, or someone like him, abducting a girl from a field of flowers and carrying her through a rift in the earth. She was almost glad for the sewer.
Standing in line with a bunch of strangers, Viv suddenly felt alone. She never went out by herself. It felt weird to be dressed up and going to a club without any of her friends, to be purposely leaving Henley behind so she could spend time with another guy.
She hadn’t even told Henley she was definitely going to the underworld tonight. He’d asked her not to, and she hadn’t answered.
You should have told him. You should have made sure he knew.
She reached for her phone—but she’d left it in her room. No reception in the underworld, no sense in bringing it. She hugged her arms to her chest, feeling edgy now.
As they approached the manhole, Viv watched the guests climb down, as if watching them might make her feel better about doing it. Some of the women needed help getting their voluminous skirts through the opening. Others wore dresses so tight they had to be lowered onto the ladder.
Viv’s dress was somewhere between the two. It was short, with a strapless top and a puffy skirt, but it wouldn’t give her the trouble a gown would. It was red enough to be devilish, and she’d paired it with a glittery devil-horn headband and sparkly red shoes.
When she made it to the front of the line, she hesitated before the open manhole.
“You’ll know what to do from here,” Night said. “Don’t bypass the checkpoint.”
“You’re not coming with me?” He wasn’t very helpful, but she didn’t like the idea of being alone. She needed to ask Jasper for extra invitations.
“There’s no need.” Night closed his hands around her forearms, then lowered her through the manhole. Her shoes scraped the ladder once before finding purchase, and then she curled her fingers around an upper rung and Night let her go. She looked up to say something, but he was already gone.
The pain in her feet had eased since the morning. She still felt a tender discomfort each time one of the metal rungs dug into the sole of her shoe, but as she stepped off the ladder and joined the guests making their way down the wide stone staircase, the last of the pain disappeared. Maybe it was the atmosphere, the sudden excitement that came with being somewhere secret—or maybe it was the magic of the underworld.
As she continued down the staircase, several more stone staircases came into view, each leading from another door. As the groups from the different staircases merged, Viv caught snatches of foreign languages being spoken, and accents from the other cities around the world where Cursed gathered. Some of the guests were knocking snow from their boots. One woman was holding her torn skirt closed, complaining that she hated crawling through a fireplace to get here—her clothes were always getting ruined.
Viv followed the other guests along a path that wound through the silver trees, all the way to the checkpoint, where she presented her right arm to the guard. When he touched his ring to her silver mark, it vanished. The guard waved her through, and she headed toward the lakeshore.
She fit in tonight; she was dressed for the theme—and she wasn’t the only one who’d taken it literally. She counted a handful of guests wearing devil horns—some of the cheap Halloween variety, others crafted from metal and precious stones. A few people sported devil tails. One woman wore a dress patterned with creatures from a Hieronymus Bosch painting; she was Viv’s favorite. Her second favorite was the guy wearing a T-shirt that said HELL IS OTHER PEOPLE.
She estimated it was about eleven thirty, whereas the night before she’d arrived around two. The wait for the boats was a long one. There were fifteen gondolas, each with the ability to carry one or two passengers, and there were at least fifty guests ahead of her. Viv didn’t like waiting in line, so she made her way over to the boathouse to see if there was something they could do.
She had a face that was easy to remember: her curse was written all over it. If they’d seen her with Jasper last night, surely they’d know her now.
The boatman who’d rowed her to the club was there. He bowed at the waist.
“Princess,” he said. “You’re so much easier to recognize in clothes.”
“Is there any way I can cut the line?”
“Normally we only give special treatment to princesses who have eleven sisters. But I guess I could make an exception … since you remembered not to wear your pajamas.”
“Thanks,” she said. “I’d hate to have to get you fired.”
He waved his hand in a let’s go motion. “You’re misinformed if you think you can get me fired. There’s not exactly an endless supply of cheap labor down here. Maybe you’ve noticed the lack of a bustling metropolis.”
She had noticed, but hadn’t given it much thought. There were no houses, no shops … nothing but the palace and the nightclub. And the boathouse on this side of the lake. But she’d figured the rest of the underworld denizens lived farther away. That there was a city or a village somewhere.
The boatman began to row and the lake rippled like silver satin.
“Where is everyone?” Viv asked.
“In the club. On the shore.”
“No, I mean everyone else. The people who live here. Your family.”
“I don’t think I’m supposed to discuss that with you.”
“Oh please.” She thought he was joking.
The boatman stopped rowing for a moment, and the gondola drifted. A stagnant, wet-metal smell wafted up from the lake. “You’re going to be our princess. That’s the idea, isn’t it?”
“Well—one of them. Maybe.”
“No, you’ll be the only one. Someone always breaks the Twelve Dancing Princesses curse. And you’d have to be running from something pretty awful to stay here by choice.”
Viv made sure her face was composed before she said, “Why is that?”
“It’s more fun if you find out on your own, isn’t it?”
“No. Stop messing with me and tell me.”
“Look around you. There’s no life here. It’s party-all-night and then it’s a barren hole with some fancy buildings. Only one person lives here because he wants to. That alone should tell you something.”
“So you don’t want to be here?”
“No one wants to be here.”
He started to row again. He waited until they were nearly across the lake before he said,
“Every underworld curse—that I know of—involves getting new people to come here. The Twelve Dancing Princesses curse, obviously. And then there’s your curse. Prince Jasper is supposed to find you in
a coffin, right? And in your curse, the prince doesn’t kiss you to wake you up. His instinct is just to bring your body home. That’s why Snow White is perfect for the underworld. They need new people here so badly they’d take a dead girl.”
“Thanks for that disgusting comment,” Viv said. “Why do they need new people?”
“If you stay here long enough, the magic of the underworld gets into your blood. It changes you.”
“Changes you how?”
The gondola nudged the shore and the boatman braced the craft so Viv could get out. “I think that’s enough for tonight.”
“No. You don’t get to do that.” Viv stood, but didn’t leave the gondola. “This place could be my destiny. It’s not like I’m going home tomorrow and never coming back. I need to know what could happen to me.”
“Nothing will happen to you. You’re immune. That makes you quite the valuable commodity as far as the royal family’s concerned. You should leverage that as best you can. See what you can get out of them before you agree to any proposals.”
She didn’t like being called a commodity. Just the idea of it was nauseating. “I still want to know what kind of place this is.”
“And what will you give me that would make it worth my while to tell you? I don’t think your prince would appreciate my sharing secrets he’s still keeping from you.”
“What do you want, money?”
“Bring me a carton of cigarettes. A nice lighter, if you have one.” He took his own lighter out of his pocket. “This one’s trashed.”
“You know those things’ll kill you, right?”
“I won’t live to be twenty-five. Let them try to kill me before then.”
“Why won’t you live to be twenty-five?”
“I’m not special like you, Princess. My destiny doesn’t give me a free pass. Or a clean bill of health.”
“You’re sick?”
“Is that a yes to my cigarettes?”
“Yes, I’ll bring them. Just tell me what the hell you’re talking about.”