by Sarah Cross
Quick breaths rushed in and out of her chest. You could save Henley … you could save him and still guess the name.
No. He wouldn’t want that for her.
“Maybe some other time,” the troll said. She heard his footsteps moving away, and she trembled with relief. “Now go get your beauty sleep. You want to be the fairest on your wedding day, don’t you?”
She heard the click of his long toenails on the wooden floor of the corridor … heard them fade as he walked away. She waited a few more minutes, her body still curled into a crouch, her fingers frozen around the diamond branch, before she unfolded her shaky limbs and ran to her room.
CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
VIV STOOD IN FRONT OF THE MIRROR, eyes locked with the evil queen who stared back at her. White as frost, black as kohl, red as poison.
Tonight’s theme at the nightclub was Fairy Tale. It came up every few months, a more loaded, self-aware costume party, where Cursed discarded their roles and dressed their fantasies to the hilt. It was fun for princesses to slum it as the Little Match Girl, for older, experienced ladies to take on the innocence of Cinderella at her first ball, for Beauties to pretend to be Beasts.
Viv wasn’t in the mood to wear glass slippers, or to tiptoe around yawning, showing off the spindle prick on her finger and giving everyone bedroom eyes. And dressing up in a donkey’s skin or a coat made from the furs of a thousand animals was just disgusting. She didn’t want to be any kind of princess or prey. When the underworld seamstress had asked her what kind of costume she wanted, she’d told her to make her an evil queen.
Her dress was long and black with a high, stiff collar, the skirt slashed at the bottom to reveal ribbons of red silk that tangled around her legs when she walked. The wide sleeves extended past her knuckles, in jagged edges that resembled the webbed feet of a frog.
Last night, on her way back from the troll’s study, she’d broken a twig off one of the gold trees in the main hall. Now, while everyone else was getting ready, she slipped the diamond branch and the gold twig into a velvet pouch and bound it to the underside of her forearm—easy to conceal beneath her long, wide sleeves, and easy to release.
Jasper escorted her to the club. He was still angry with her, but they had to appear together as a triumphant couple now that he’d saved her from a public poisoning attempt. They danced mechanically for a few songs before Viv excused herself to go to the ladies’ room—the safest rendezvous spot. Jasper wasn’t likely to follow her.
She felt sick. She was afraid for so many reasons. Henley could be dead already. If he’d been at the club last night and had seen her bite into the poison apple, and he’d tried to get to her—tried to save her—and the guards had found him …
She waded through a sea of interpretations, passing a fairy-kei Gretel with tiny plastic cupcakes glued to her fingernails; a prince dressed as a wolf, delicately waltzing with a white cat in a Red Riding Hood costume; and an old man holding a blue satin pillow with a glass slipper on top of it, who kept exclaiming, “Still haven’t found her!” as if he’d planned it to be his catchphrase for the night.
Viv lingered near the Twelve Dancing Princesses to give Henley a chance to notice her. Already she was sweating through her dress, but she was cold, too. She hugged her arms to her chest, feeling the crush of the velvet pouch and the sharp edges of the branches. Either way, this was the end. The end of Henley would be the end of her. And if he lived, and broke the curse, their relationship would be over. Henley claimed he couldn’t be happy without her, and once she would have hated the idea of him being with someone else. But standing there, feeling the cold sweat of fear roll down her sides, all she wanted was for him to live, and be happy like he deserved.
She went into the empty bathroom, witch heels loud on the tile floor, wondering if the door had stayed open a few extra seconds before it swung shut—and got her answer when Henley shed the invisibility cloak. He appeared all at once, one eye-blink not there and then suddenly towering over her in the same tux he’d worn the first night. She barely had time to look before he was pulling her to him, and she felt his hands in her hair, tilting her head back, and then his mouth was on hers, like it all needed to happen now, because they wouldn’t be together very long.
He didn’t have a solution. He didn’t know how to break the curse, and he thought—
Viv wanted to tell him, but she was too busy kissing him. She threw her arms around his neck, and when she did he lifted her up; he grabbed her hips and pressed her back against the wall and one of her legs scissored up out of the slit in her dress. They went on kissing, his body pressing against hers. It would be so easy to lose herself, to forget everything else … but her kiss wouldn’t keep him safe.
Viv turned her head, the only way she knew to stop herself. His breath was heavy in her ear. “I thought you might be dead,” Henley said.
“I thought the same thing about you.”
“Jesus, Viv. Stay the hell away from poison apples.”
“I didn’t think Regina could get to me down here.”
“Your future in-laws don’t think I can get to you down here. But there are work-arounds.”
“Speaking of that …”
“This is our last night together.”
“I know,” she said. “But I think—I have an idea. Get invisible, and come with me.”
He looked unsure, but set her down and pulled the cloak across his shoulders. “Lead the way,” he said as he vanished.
She heard him laugh as she fixed her dress—straightened the skirt where it had twisted around her hips. “Some of us aren’t invisible,” she said.
She held the door open so Henley had a chance to slip through, then picked a path across the crowded dance floor, trusting him to follow. Tonight, more than ever, walking through the club was like passing through a dreamscape: pastel princesses, James Bond–style princes, a girl covered in honey and feathers, a gothic Sleeping Beauty holding a baby doll in each arm, a man whose upper body bristled with bloody hedgehog spines, and more than one Snow White blithely admiring an apple, her red lipstick gleaming under the lights, her face powdered as white as a slice of Wonder Bread.
By the time Viv got out of the club she felt like she’d run a fairy-tale gauntlet. The train of her evil queen dress swept over dark stone now, instead of a floor sprinkled with gold glitter and rose petals. She reached behind her and felt Henley’s fingers close around hers. Secure that he was with her, she started down the path that cleaved the rocky hillside.
A few latecomers straggled by, passing on Viv’s left while Henley kept to her right; she saw a couple small stones get dislodged by his footsteps and go skittering down the hill. The latecomers didn’t notice. They were busy talking, praising one another’s costumes and fishing for compliments about their own.
At the lakeshore, Viv turned and headed into the silver forest, walking until the shadows and bladelike trunks were thick enough to shield them from view. She reached up and snapped a silver twig from one of the trees.
“Hold this,” she said.
Henley took the twig, and the silver was swallowed up by the magic of the cloak.
“I wish I could see you,” she said. “But don’t!—don’t take that off.”
Viv freed the velvet pouch from her forearm. “I was thinking about how you could break the curse,” she said, opening the pouch and taking out the twigs, “and I was thinking about the fairy tale, the three twigs the soldier brings back to the princesses’ father. You have a silver one. There’s a diamond and gold one here. I don’t know what we can do with them, but I thought … maybe they’re involved in breaking the curse somehow.”
“I can’t see anything I’m holding with this on,” Henley muttered. He reappeared as he pulled the cloak from his shoulders and draped it over the crook of his arm. “Can I see those?”
“Here, take them.”
He held all three in his hand, spread out on his palm like they might reveal their secrets to him. “I’d li
ke to think there’s something to this. I don’t have any other leads. The princesses seem like they want the curse to be over, but they don’t know anything about breaking it. And the princes, they don’t know anything, either?”
“They’ve never said. Once you were here, I was afraid to ask. I didn’t want them to start looking for someone. I know what they’d do if they found you. Put your cloak back on.”
“Wait a minute. No one can see us back here.”
She glanced in the direction of the club. “You’d better hope not.”
Henley closed his hand around the branches and sighed. “I don’t know, Viv. I don’t know what to do with these. I think I might just—”
“No,” she said. “There has to be a way. We still have all of tonight.”
“You can’t be gone all night. Your prince will look for you.”
“Well, I’ll make it so he doesn’t find me.”
“I want you to take my cloak. Get out of here. If this is it for me, then you might as well—” He stopped and looked at his closed hand. “Something’s happening.”
Henley uncurled his fingers. The three twigs had rolled together in his fist, and now they stayed that way, melded. Viv leaned closer and saw that the gold, silver, and diamond twigs were intertwined, and the metal and diamond leaves were reforming into the teeth of a key.
A delicate gold-diamond-and-silver key, so fine it looked like it would snap inside a lock if you tried to use it, the same way the branches had snapped off the trees.
But magic objects—like Cinderella’s glass slippers, and Rapunzel’s braid—were never as fragile as they appeared.
“Damn,” Henley said, still staring at the key in his hand. “Should we try it?”
“Not until the princesses are back in their bedroom. You have to lock them out of the underworld, not into it, and I doubt that key will hold up to multiple uses.”
“No … probably not. So I’ll leave it till the last minute—”
“And see if it works. Yeah.”
They both breathed heavy sighs. Viv felt jittery.
“Put it away,” she said. “Don’t lose it.”
Henley tucked the key into an inside pocket of his tux. “I just want to try it already.”
“I know.”
They stood watching each other, both nervous.
Viv bit her lip. “So … congratulations. This is big for you.”
“If this works, I get to keep my head.”
“That’s not what I meant. But yeah, that, too. Priorities, I guess. Heads before hos.”
Henley sighed. “Viv …”
“When you pick your princess … just don’t pick a stupid one. And don’t call her Viv when you’re making out. Girls hate that.”
“Remember that heart someone drew on my hand? That you hated?” He took her left hand in his. “I hate this more.” She felt a tug on her engagement ring—a small jerk that pulled it over her knuckle, then one more light scrape before he got it off her finger. Her hand felt suddenly naked without the heavy clawlike band.
“Henley—” She reached for it instinctively, but he was taller, faster—and had a better throwing arm. She was still jumping for it when Henley sent her ring sailing over the treetops, toward the lake. She pictured it hitting the silver water, sinking to the bottom, and coming to rest inside the rib cage of some long-dead suitor.
She held out her ringless hand. “Like that won’t be suspicious.”
“I have something better for you to wear.” He moved to drape the cloak over her shoulders—and she darted out from under it.
“Are you crazy?”
“If that key breaks the curse, I don’t have to worry about showing my face on the surface. I can go back. And I want you to go with me.”
“We don’t know that it’ll work. And anyway—”
She felt like a six-year-old trying to run away from a boy who wanted to drop a frog down her shirt. He wouldn’t let up with the cloak. He was determined to make her wear it. And she was determined not to.
“Stop!” she said. “I’m not taking it!”
“Why? Do you want to stay here? Do you want to be miserable? If this is about punishing yourself—”
“It’s not. Why don’t you think about yourself for once? Even if the key does work, right now you’re still in the underworld—you still have to get out. And if anyone sees you—the guards, Jasper, his brothers … They. Will. Kill. You. So you need to wear that cloak until you’re back in the princesses’ bedroom. I don’t care how much you want to protect me. You don’t get to do that. I get to protect you.”
“You are so difficult,” he muttered.
“Excuse me if I don’t want you dead. Anyway … there’s still something I need to do here.”
“Swim to the bottom of the lake and get your engagement ring back?”
“No.” She made a face at him. “I need to find Jasper’s father’s name. And destroy him.”
“Uh—why?”
“He has a Rumpelstiltskin curse. He rules this place with an iron fist. No one will stand up to him. He steals babies and raises them to be his slaves—”
“What kind of place is this?”
“Exactly. I need to find his name and put an end to it all. I think maybe I can do it. He’s afraid of me. He wouldn’t threaten me if he wasn’t afraid.”
“He’s threatening you? You are not staying here.”
There was no compromise in her expression. She needed him to know she was serious. “We can’t both get out of here tonight. The difference is: If the guards see me in the underworld, they’ll go about their business. If they see you, they’ll cut off your head. It’s not that hard to decide which one of us should use your cloak.”
He sighed, brow furrowing in that frustrated way that made her think he was giving in. “How much time do you need to find this guy’s name?”
“I don’t know. I guess … I’ll be able to let you know … when I get it right.”
She watched him fight with himself: his hands in fists, head bowed, feet rooted to the ground. He didn’t want to die, and what she’d said made sense. But it didn’t change the fact that he didn’t like it.
When he finally looked at her, his dark eyes were full of loss. “I don’t know how to walk away from this. I don’t know how to walk away and leave you here.”
“Henley—”
“I came here to make sure you were safe. But you’re not safe. So how can I leave you?”
She didn’t know what to tell him. Nothing she could say would make it hurt less, or make him doubt himself less. She put her arms around his waist and hugged him with all her strength. A hug so tight it said, I’m with you. I’m here. Nothing can tear us apart.
“I love you,” she said, he said—laced together. They held each other, and they were one person against the world for a little while longer.
She could hear the rhythm of his heart, his breathing, the wind-chime whisper of the trees, and then—the crunch of shoes on sand.
“Cloak,” she whispered. “Someone’s coming.”
They broke apart, Henley donning his invisibility cloak as Viv turned to see who’d crept up on them. She narrowed her eyes; the lanterns that lit the forest were sparse this far from the lake, and shadows filled the spaces between the trees. She didn’t see anyone. Maybe her eyes passed right over them. It was hard to say.
“Hello?” she said. “Is someone there?”
She took a step in the direction of the club—in pursuit of the witness, at first—and then another, and another, until she was firm in her decision not to turn back—not to run and throw herself into Henley’s arms one last time. Neither one of them wanted to leave the other; that had been their strength and their weakness, always.
But she couldn’t risk exposing him. Couldn’t keep arguing, giving him a chance to convince her, making it more likely that he would be caught.
She had to let him go. Had to make him go.
Even though walking away, keepi
ng him safe, seemed crueler than anything she’d done to him before. Because they hadn’t really said good-bye. They were supposed to see each other again. But that hinged on the hope that the key would work, that Henley would still be in love with her, and not his princess, a month from now, a year from now—if that was how long it took her to find the troll’s name.
And if not, then it had ended when she walked away. Without warning, or last words.
Everything depended on the key.
CHAPTER FORTY-THREE
VIV HAD GONE TO THE KITCHEN in the hours between partying and dawn, and made herself coffee with the intention of staying awake until the following night—when the princesses’ door either opened, or proved itself sealed forever.
Until then, she couldn’t sleep, wouldn’t sleep, didn’t want to sleep. She sat surrounded by books, hunting names on every page, coffee carafe listing on her bedspread as she wrote. Caffeine rattled in her veins like turbulence. The pen was jumpy in her hand, and gave every word wings and jutting peaks.
She wasn’t sure what time it was when she heard the key turning in her lock. But she knew she didn’t want to see anyone. She definitely didn’t want to see Jasper.
He sauntered in with his hands behind his back. “Did you enjoy yourself tonight?”
“That was locked,” she said, going back to her books. “Don’t open the door when I lock it.”
“I asked if you enjoyed yourself.”
“I’m asking you to leave.”
“Not yet. I brought you a present.”
His hands had been clasped behind his back. Now he threw something in her face: a jagged rectangle of gray cloth, slippery to the touch, stained with blood.
One half of an invisibility cloak.
“Don’t try to use it,” Jasper said. “We cut it up so it doesn’t work anymore.”
Viv pushed it aside, to keep her hands from holding it too tenderly, fearfully.…
“I don’t know what this is,” she said.
“You told me he was dead. And I believed you.”