“Right,” I said. “So I guess we’re telling him, then.”
“Telling me what?” Varian said. “And why wouldn’t you tell me?”
Rosalin lowered her voice, even though the four of us were the only ones left in the ballroom. “The fairy said not to tell you that she offered us a deal. She said she’ll keep us safe and comfortable in the castle, and in return, we have to spin for her. Our spinning will give her the strength she needs to keep the Thornwood at bay.”
“Hmm.” Varian’s eyes narrowed. “You think she can do it?”
“Fairies always keep their bargains,” Rosalin said.
“It may not be in her power to keep this one. The fairy queen is far stronger than she is.”
“But not stronger than all of us together,” Edwin said. “If we spin for her and give her our strength, she can protect us. She couldn’t have offered the bargain if that weren’t true.”
“You can’t be serious!” I said. “You’re really thinking about saying yes?”
Their silence was my answer.
“We can’t trust the fairy!” I protested. “Why do you think she suggested this? There must be something in it for her. We have no idea what she really wants.”
“I think,” Varian said slowly, “she’s afraid.”
“Of the fairy queen?” Rosalin said. “Then why doesn’t she run instead of staying here with us?”
“She can’t run from her queen. And even if she could…” Varian let out a breath. “The human world doesn’t have much space for fairies anymore. In the centuries that you’ve been gone, it’s been taken over by machines and metal. The magic has been…leached out of it.” His voice was heavy. “The fairies in my world hide, and do their best to keep humans from knowing they exist. They don’t get invited to balls. They don’t perform grand spells. They are heard of mostly in stories, and the majority of people—even the ones who come to see the Thornwood—don’t believe that those stories are true.”
He turned his head away, blinking as if to hold back tears.
“Then how do you know they exist?” I asked.
“Well,” Varian said, “one of them gave me a magic sword. So that was very convincing.”
Which made sense. But there was something too smooth about the way he said it.
He knows more about the fairies than he pretends.
“Enough,” Rosalin said. She took Varian’s hand. He looked at her, and she said, “When I saw you fall…when I thought you were…Oh, Varian. I’m sorry. It doesn’t matter to me what you are.”
Varian’s lips curved into a smile. “Good,” he murmured, and they bent their heads together.
Oh, great.
I looked pointedly away and caught Edwin doing the same. We both snickered. I jerked my head sideways and the two of us walked toward the tables.
In the corner, the flagstones were bulging. I examined the floor carefully—there were no branches getting through here, not yet—then looked up at Edwin.
“What were you going to tell me?” I asked.
He jerked his gaze from a slice of pecan pie. “What?”
“Before the music stopped. You said the minstrel told you something. What was it?”
He swallowed. “It’s…about your bird.”
“Twirtle? What does the minstrel—”
And then I remembered the first stanza the minstrel had sung, back when we had faced each other outside my sister’s room: Though all the birds and beasts have fled…
And the kennel boy: Someone unlocked the kennel gate, and there was no stopping them.
“He let them out,” I said. My voice echoed hollowly, so loud that across the room, Rosalin and Varian stopped with their lips still half an inch apart. Both of them looked up at me. “The minstrel let all the animals out before the curse took effect.”
“He said,” Edwin said quietly, “that you told him to.”
“What? Why would I—”
The memory came swift and sudden. I had been running from the spinning wheel, racing to get Rosalin, and I had slammed into the minstrel.
Let the animals go, I had told him. Twirtle is trapped in his cage. And the dogs…Let them out. Please. Just in case…
I gasped, panic and desperation washing over me all over again. And then, in their wake, a sharp stab of loss.
Twirtle was gone.
I could stop looking for him, stop listening for his soft, rising chirps. Stop being afraid that I would see yellow feathers caught in the thorns. Twirtle was safe. He had flown away before all this happened, into the vast blue sky in the human world. He had lived out his bird’s life and died hundreds of years ago.
But to me, it felt like it had just happened.
“Briony!” Rosalin said. “What’s going on?” She let go of Varian’s hands and rushed across the floor to me. I leaned awkwardly into her, burying my face in her ruffled gown, trying to get my tears under control.
“It’s all right,” I managed to say through my choked sobs. “It’s not…It’s just…It’s about my bird….”
But that wasn’t really true. I wasn’t crying just for myself. I was crying mostly for myself, of course, but I was also crying for everyone else in the castle: The ladies. The treasurer. The kennel boy. Everyone who had woken up and realized that someone they loved—that many people they loved—had died years ago and was gone forever.
The horror of it washed over me. I was glad, glad, glad the kitchen girls had escaped. To think that, even for a second, I had resented them for leaving! I should have helped them leave. I should have…
I should have stopped this somehow.
Instead, I had been a part of making it happen.
I have to save Rosalin. Nothing else matters. I had truly believed that, back then.
But I should have been worried for everyone in this castle. Not just my sister.
I sniffled, wiped my nose discreetly on Rosalin’s sleeve, and drew back. I looked at them all: Edwin, his brow drawn with concern; Varian, slightly panicked; Rosalin, discovering the snot on her sleeve and giving me an outraged glare.
I couldn’t do anything to give the people in this castle their past lives back. But maybe…maybe…I could make sure they
