The dress rustled quietly as I moved down the path. Fairies flitted through the tree branches, whispering and laughing, their lights bobbing in and out of the branches. None of them noticed me, although not long ago, I’d helped to restore their starstone. Other than the fairies, the garden was empty.
I stopped walking to focus on the fairies. As I stood still, one of them flew to me and hovered, her tiny face scrunched with curiosity, her blonde hair wild and studded with periwinkle flowers.
“I know you,” she said. “Are you the one who saved my kind?” she asked in a small voice.
“Yes,” I answered. “How do you know me?”
Another fairy, a male, hovered closer. “All of our kind knows you. You are the one who saved our starstone.”
“I suppose word travels fast with fairies,” I said.
“Yes. We owe a debt to you,” the male said. “How can we assist you?”
My heart leapt. Perhaps this was my chance to escape. “Can you find Kull and get us out of here?”
They eyed each other and then looked at me. “Our magic is limited in this place. The witch only allows us here because we keep her flowers alive, but when we enter her grounds, our magic is weakened.”
As usual, nothing worked out for me. “I see.”
“But we will be here if you shall need us. You have but to ask.”
“Thank you,” I said.
They only nodded before flitting away, their lights diminishing as they flew toward the sky. My heart sank as I watched them go. Trouble always followed me. It seemed a constant in my life.
I put the fairies out of my mind and continued wandering through the garden. After reaching the hill’s base, I took in my new surroundings, standing on the edge of a cliff that dropped hundreds of feet below. Walking along the cliff’s edge, the sound of trickling water turned to a roar as the smaller streams combined to form a river.
Up ahead, under the silver moonlight, mist fogged the air where the river turned to a thundering waterfall. In the mist, I found a man standing on a rock wall. He faced away from me with his hands clasped behind his back as he stared over the edge.
Although he wore the same refined clothing as the rest of the gathering—a dark green tunic with jeweled collar and cuffs, dark pants, and tall boots—I knew him immediately.
“Kull,” I called, rushing toward him.
He rounded, his eyes wide with surprise as I neared the distance between us. As I approached, I almost didn’t recognize him. His eyes weren’t his. I stopped and drew back. He looked at me as if he didn’t know me.
My heart dropped.
“Kull?”
He blinked as if coming out of a trance, and the look disappeared. “Olive?”
Stepping off the ledge, he approached me, walking guardedly, and then stopped. We only stood a few feet apart, but to me, it felt like miles.
“Are you okay?” I asked him.
He forced a smile.
My insides squirmed. This was him, wasn’t it? It felt as if the shadow, that constant companion that had haunted him since his father’s death, that had only recently been lifted, was returning once again.
I went to him and hugged him gently, resting my head on his chest. His heart beat in steady, slow thumps. It was still him, and I refused to lose him again.
“Kull, what did she do to you?”
He took my shoulders and moved me away from him, then pulled down his tunic collar to reveal a band of stone around his neck.
“She’s trying to make me one of hers.”
A clammy sweat broke out over my skin. “We’ll stop her. I won’t let that happen to you. We can escape.”
He turned to stare at the waterfall. “There is a way,” he whispered, and then pointed. “Down there.”
I studied the water as it barreled over the edge. There was no way to tell what lay at the bottom, but the drop didn’t look survivable. “Is that the only way?”
He stepped closer to me, took my arm, and leaned toward my ear. The roaring water almost drowned out his voice.
“Listen carefully. You must meet me here after the ball. There is a hidden staircase that runs the length of the falls. We’ll escape together before she changes me.”
“Kull, I can’t.”
“Why not?”
“She said she’ll kill you if I try to escape.”
“Then we must go together. We’ll return to the ball for a time, and we must pretend to not know about the staircase. The queen is smart, but she’s overconfident. No one has escaped from this place, and so she thinks it’s not possible. But that’s only because she’s taken these people’s free will, so they have no reason to escape. She’s grown lax. That’s how I was able to find the staircase so easily.”
Glancing past him, I tried to see the hidden staircase but could only see the mist reflected in the moonlight. What if the collar were messing with Kull’s mind and making him see things that weren’t there?
“You’re sure there’s a staircase down there?” I asked.
“Yes, I discovered it earlier when she was away.”
“Are you sure we can use it to escape? What if it just leads to another part of the castle?”
“I don’t know, but I’m willing to try whatever it takes to escape this place.” Desperation shone in his eyes.
I wasn’t sure if I should follow him or not. It didn’t seem as if he were using sound judgment, but I couldn’t blame him—he was about to become the queen’s prisoner for the rest of eternity. Squeezing his hand, I knew I would follow him through hell and back if it meant we were together.
“All right,” I said. “After the ball, I’ll return here.”
Kull kissed my forehead, and I took in the familiar scent of his skin and hair, the wild essence of dark forests and sandalwood. We would survive this somehow. We always did.
He returned with me to the ballroom where a new melody played, a sound
