Tear You Apart

by Sarah Cross

  “But … you’re still here.”

  “I didn’t know if I’d be able to get back here once the door was sealed. So I locked the door from the underworld side. I’ve been hiding. Waiting for my opportunity to save you. I couldn’t walk away from you. I just … I couldn’t do it.”

  “Then how are you supposed to leave? The one door you could get through is gone. Are you stuck here?”

  She felt the muscles in his arms tense. “Don’t worry about that.”

  “Don’t worry about it?” she hissed. “Are you serious?”

  “Look, we don’t have another choice right now. If I’m stuck here, I’m stuck. But you can still get out. You’ll take my cloak, sneak past the guards, and climb through the door to Beau Rivage. Or hell, any of them. The first door you find.”

  “Unless the magic keeps me from leaving,” Viv said as it dawned on her. “Everyone I invited was blocked from entering. The troll already told me I can’t leave. Why wouldn’t he have a little magical insurance?”

  Henley swore under his breath. His hands curled into fists, like he wanted to break something, but that would make noise, and they were trying not to get caught. Viv pried his fists open and wove her fingers between his; making him hold her hands instead, trying to reassure him with her touch.

  “What do we do?” he said finally.

  “We try, anyway. And if we fail, we fail together. I’m not leaving you again.”

  “No. If you have a chance—”

  “Henley.” She pulled his face down to hers. Kissed him once, hard. “I am never leaving you again.”

  The blood-and-cake reception had given way to a debauched after-party. Nothing made Cursed want to live it up like death. The red-hot iron shoes, the twisted end—it was a reminder that their own ends could come unexpectedly.

  The chairs that had turned the main hall into a chapel had been cleared away, and now it looked more like an out-of-control house party. Half-naked fairies intertwined on the staircase. Couples danced to the music spilling from the ballroom, and drank champagne out of glass slippers or straight from the bottle.

  A young girl ran barefoot through a stream of liquor, kicking at clumps of white rice and rose petals.

  A group of Royals had cornered a fragile-looking teenage girl and harassed her to the point of tears. They watched in delight as pearls squeezed from the corners of her eyes and rolled down her cheeks.

  Viv quick-stepped through the chaos, her hand tight around Henley’s invisible one, and prayed she’d go unnoticed.

  The seven ravens on the chandelier started cawing when she passed beneath it, but only got a bottle hurled at them for their troubles. No one grabbed Viv’s arm and asked, Princess, where are you going? A few guests bumped into Henley, but must have been too drunk to care. No one called for the guards; Viv and Henley made it through the palace unscathed.

  They made it all the way to the surface doors.

  And that was where their luck ran out.

  The doors would not open for them.

  They tried all of them: the doors that looked out through mirrors, through fireplaces and wardrobes and hollow trees. Viv could see the alley in Beau Rivage, a moonlit garden, a fancy parlor, but couldn’t reach through to touch any of those places. She was stopped by a barrier every time. She and Henley tried forcing their way through—throwing their bodies against the doors—but it was no use. The magic held.

  “There might be another way,” Viv said.

  “Another door?” Henley had shed his invisibility cloak, as if he wanted to be ready to throw it across her shoulders, and she could see him: his forehead damp, the nervous way he kept biting his lip.

  Viv started toward the lake, trusting him to follow.

  “When I first came to the underworld, a horseman brought me through the well in my backyard. I ended up here.” She pointed to the lake.

  “It’s underwater?”

  “I don’t know exactly where the door is. I thought I was drowning at the time. But I think it was somewhere around here. By the shore.”

  “So … what, we swim down? Look for a hole and hope we come out on the other side?”

  “We can’t get through the other doors, Henley.”

  “Yeah, but this—”

  She knew why he didn’t want to do it. They’d probably drown before they found a way out. But what choice did they have?

  Viv waded knee-deep into the water. “I’m not scared of dying. If that’s what you’re worried about.”

  “Don’t say shit like that. I’ll look for it. You go hide.”

  “Those lights …” She squinted. There were lights dancing in the forest. No, not dancing: swaying in time with the steps of the men who held them. It was a search party. Light swept the forest and soon enough it would reach the lakeshore.

  “We have to find the door. We have to find it now!”

  Viv plunged into the lake, bitter cold up to her chest. She heard Henley splash in after her and she felt around for a hole, a depression, anything that might be the door. She found silt and gritty pebbles, tattered cloth that clung to her like algae. A shard of bone cut her foot and filled the water with a tuft of warm blood.

  Henley grabbed her arm. “You okay?”

  “Fine.”

  She tried to stay calm when the shouts started but the chill of the water and fear of capture made her shake. As the lanterns drew closer her foot found a dent, like a place an eel might live, and she dove down to pry at the sand, as if there might be a door or she might be able to make one. Fingers slipped and scraped at nothing. She dug until she had no breath. Under again. Under. And then she was swimming farther out, driven by shouts, the pounding of boots on the shore, the splashes that followed, until she was yanked up by her hair, gasping and choking.

  The guards already had Henley. There was blood on his face and hands. One of the guards was cutting up his cloak with a pair of scissors.

  The troll stood at the head of the search party, Jasper by his side.

  “Hog-tying my son and running away,” the troll mused. “This was not what I meant when I told you to give him a night he’d always remember.”

  “Let Henley go,” Viv said. “I’ll stay. I won’t try to leave again. Just let him go.”

  “No, I don’t think I will. In fact, considering how he’s shamed my son, I think a public beheading would make an excellent wedding gift. Well—for one of you. Would you like that?” he asked Jasper.

  Jasper didn’t answer. She was sure he was tempted to say yes, and the only thing that stopped him was knowing she would never forgive him if he did.

  “What will it take to save him?” Viv shouted. “Tell me! Let’s make a deal. What do you want? Henley lives, in exchange for—”

  “Your firstborn child? That will be mine, anyway. No, it will have to be something better.” The troll stroked his chin, as if he was thinking it over, but Viv had a feeling he knew exactly what he wanted.

  “Your tongue,” he finally said.

  “My—what?”

  “I will cut your tongue from your mouth. That is my price for your Huntsman’s life. He will be free to go—though not to return—and you, my dear, will be blessedly silent. No more smart remarks. No more adulterous kissing. And no more guessing.” He smiled. “It’s not the same if you just write the name down. If that were enough, this little book”—he produced her notebook of names, and made sure she recognized it before he threw it into the lake—“might have some power. Alas.”

  She watched it sink. “I get a chance to guess your name first. If I guess your name, I get everything.”

  “Yes. Yes, you do. Bravo. An informed customer! However … three days is a bit much. I don’t want your Huntsman in my underworld that long. I’ll give you three hours to guess my name.”

  “Three hours?”

  The troll shrugged. “If you don’t like my terms, I can cut off his head. It’s up to you.”

  “No.” She took a deep breath. “I’ll do it.”
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  CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN

  “IS IT RUMPELSTILTSKIN?”

  “That is not my name.”

  The troll lounged on his throne, one leg dangling over the armrest, like a joker pretending to be king. He wore his crown—solid gold and topped with spikes—and he’d dressed up for the occasion in an ivory suit dusted with gold, and a reddish-pink shirt the color of a human tongue. At the edges of the room, lined up like parade watchers, were the troll’s guards, the queen, the executioner, and Jasper and his brothers. Ten feet away from Viv, a bound-and-gagged Henley knelt on the floor, with guards on either side of him to ensure that he stayed there.

  The second hand of the clock ticked like a finger tapping her skull, reminding her that three hours was nothing.

  “Is your name Balthazar? Melchior? Is it Blake? Byron?”

  “No, no, no, and no, Princess.”

  “Is it James? Jamal? Evan? Edwin? Darwin? Andrew?”

  “Those are not my name.”

  Viv tried to remind herself that, no matter what, Henley would live. She kept licking her lips, starting to speak and then feeling her tongue move in her mouth, feeling the air slip around it, aware that it would soon be gone. Every part of her trembled in fear of the moment the troll would grasp it by the tip and slice it from her mouth. There would be a hot gush of blood she wouldn’t taste. And then her mouth would be a silent place, a carved-out shell.

  But he’ll live.

  Henley would live, and so would she—though what kind of life it would be was something she couldn’t bear to think about.

  “Is your name lago?”

  The troll’s grin stretched wider till she thought the corners of his mouth might split. “No.”

  Every time she looked at Henley she tried to say I love you with her eyes. I love you and Believe in me, but she barely believed in herself. Henley looked as broken as she felt. He’d been the one who’d believed they could fight fate. But they couldn’t fight this.

  “Is it Carl? Caleb? Ming? Mason? Alex? Lee? Dante? Dmitri?”

  “No, those are not my name.”

  The task before her was nearly impossible. Maybe once upon a time, when a person had one culture of names to choose from, and some gibberish like Rumpelstiltskin and Tom Tit Tot, it was easier to guess the right name. But even then, success usually came when the troll screwed up and let the secret slip.

  Malcolm was ready with his ax. The queen sat by his side, curled up on a cushion like a cat, clearly thrilled to have three hours with her firstborn son. From time to time she would shout a suggestion, but it was often a name Viv had already guessed. The troll didn’t seem worried about the queen’s “help,” and Viv found his confidence as distracting as the queen’s cries.

  The night the troll had caught her in his study, he’d quoted a few books; she guessed the names from those, just in case. “Is your name Ishmael? Melville? Herman? Ahab? Romeo? Shakespeare? William?”

  “I love the way your mouth looks when you’re wrong. No, those are not my name.”

  The minute hand on the clock slid forward as if it had been greased. One hour, and then two, and nothing she’d said had unsettled the troll. She felt her courage breaking down. She wanted to give up. She wanted to spend the last hour with Henley—holding him for the last time, kissing him for the last time, and just talking to him, just saying his name and saying I love you before they cut out her tongue. If this was hopeless, was it better to admit defeat and make the most of that last hour? They’d been in such a rush each time they’d met in the underworld—worried they’d be caught, needing to break a curse, to escape—that there had been no time to just be together.

  What would she regret more?

  She’d been quiet a few moments and now the troll shifted in his throne, leaning back, relaxed. “Are you out of names, Vivian? Shall we call it a night?”

  “No. No, I—” She closed her eyes, feeling almost dizzy. If she gave up now, she would have an hour to spend with Henley—but she would be handing victory to the troll. This final hour of guessing … it was all she could do to give them a future. And if she squandered that chance, she would never be able to forgive herself.

  Her voice, when it emerged again, was weak. It no longer had the strength of hope behind it. Only fear, and desperation, and the knowledge that each word she spoke was one of her last. “Is it Midas?”

  “No, it is not Midas.”

  “Is your name John?”—no—“Juan?”—no—“Hans?”—no—“Ivan?”

  No.

  Fifteen minutes slid by, then twenty, thirty. The pressure on her heart increased.

  “Edgar? Edward? Edison? Edwin?”

  “You guessed Edwin already—the answer is still no.” That smile—as if he couldn’t be more pleased.

  She felt like she was running to a destination she would never reach. Pushing a boulder up a hill, and then, just before she reached the top, watching it roll back down.

  “Sisyphus?” she guessed.

  The troll laughed. “No,” he said, wiping tears from his eyes. “That is not my name.”

  Viv followed the clock. She could see the block of time that was left to her—ten minutes that the second hand was swiftly carving down.

  “Victor?” she snapped out. Because he always won.

  The troll’s lips curled back to show his teeth. “No. But I like that one.”

  Every time Henley had tried to get up, the guards beat him back down. Whenever he’d tried to break free, he ended up with more blood on his face. He made a last, desperate attempt now that her time was running out—lunging at one of the guards, throwing his full weight against him, though Henley could barely stand, bound as he was.

  He was doing it so they would kill him—so the deal would be broken. So Viv could keep her voice and guess another day, and still have that chance to be free.

  She went to him before he could become a sacrifice, threw her arms around his neck, and held him, as tightly as she could, because he couldn’t hold her. He was on his knees, and she was kissing his tears away faster than they could fall. Tasting salt and misery. She could feel the anger shaking through him—the helplessness.

  “It doesn’t matter,” she whispered. “It doesn’t matter. We still have everything.”

  By which she meant: the past. Memories. They were about to lose everything else.

  Henley couldn’t speak with the gag silencing him and she knew there were things he was desperate to say—she was desperate, too.…

  But when she started to untie the gag the troll ordered her to stop. Sword blades crossed at the edge of her vision—a second warning, in case she’d missed the first.

  She kissed Henley’s mouth through the gag. She held his face in her hands, cheeks and chin wet with tears and blood. “I’m sorry,” she whispered. “I want to say a million things, but I want to say that most of all. There will never be enough time to say all the things I need to say to you.”

  Viv glanced at the clock. Five minutes. She could spend that time kissing him, holding him, whispering words that would never be enough. Or—she could keep guessing while the troll laughed at her attempts.

  She got up off her knees and forced herself to walk away from Henley.

  “Done with your good-byes?” the troll asked.

  “I’m not finished with you,” she said.

  “Five more minutes if you want to speak to him. After that, you’ll have to wave.”

  Viv took a deep breath—and started to cry. Her mind was blank, a minefield of possibilities, like there were a million answers and also none. How had she let this happen?

  “Oh, Vivian, poor Vivian,” the troll crooned. “Will it really be so bad? Living with us? Wait. Don’t answer that. Of course it will.”

  She felt like something had been jarred loose in her. Like the bite of poison apple, knocked free from her throat.

  She looked at his mouth, the way his lips wormed and puckered as they shaped her name, like he wanted to make out with it. And no
wonder. Of course he did. Of course.

  “Vivian,” she said.

  “Talking to yourself? Is that really the best use of your time?” But she saw him twitch. She saw that ugly smile creep up and down.

  “Your name is Vivian,” she said—louder, sure this time.

  Because he always said it. Excessively. He threw it in her face like a slap. She’d thought he was taunting her, using her full name, knowing she didn’t like it, because it was one more thing he could do to her, one more thing she couldn’t stop. But no. He’d loved saying it because it was his dirty secret. A secret he’d revealed himself, like every other troll.

  Vivian. It had been a boy’s name before it was a girl’s. And it had been with her all this time.

  He didn’t have to tell her she was right.

  His body said it for him.

  It started at his hairline—a dribble of blood, a crack that began at his widow’s peak, as if his frustration required a physical release. The crack ran between his eyes, continued down the length of his nose, sliced straight through his lips. His eyes bulged with rage and disbelief … and then his long fingernails scratched wildly at his scalp, as if it were infested with fleas. He grabbed two greasy handfuls of his hair—and pulled, hard.

  His scalp split.

  His face tore in half—

  —not just his skin, all of it.

  And he howled.

  The queen howled along with him. And then she began to laugh and hop up and down. “Malcolm, look!”

  There was a sound like paper tearing, like gas bubbling in a swamp, as the troll split down the middle—his body opening like a locket, revealing two gleaming slabs of meat and cracked white bone. His last scream poured into the room like blood … and echoed after he was dead.

  The crown dropped from the riven corpse and cracked the marble floor.

  They all watched it for a second—this last symbol of the troll’s power—and then Viv picked it up. She placed the crown on her head carefully so it wouldn’t fall.

  Jasper had gone white with fear. One of the guards shrieked with delight, then fell to the floor and began to laugh. Malcolm laid down his ax. The mad queen clapped her hands, giggling like a little girl on her birthday. And Henley … Henley’s eyes conveyed the shock his mouth couldn’t.