It wasn’t until we were on our way back to the ballroom that she said, “This is a disaster, Briony. And we’re handling it all wrong.”
Well, that was one place to start.
“Our family has a duty to the people in this castle,” Rosalin went on. “We should be protecting them.”
“That’s what we’re doing,” I said.
“No it’s not! Our subjects don’t know any of the things we know. They haven’t been in the Thornwood. They haven’t spoken to my fairy godmother. They have no way of understanding just how much danger we’re all in.”
A thorn-covered vine snagged my hair, and I ripped it free. Sharp pain shot through my scalp, bringing tears to my eyes.
“I think,” I said, “they probably have some sense of it.”
Rosalin raised one hand to her shorn hair, then dropped it. “What if they make the wrong decision? Have you even thought about that?”
She was taking such long strides that I had to scurry to catch up. “And you’re so sure you know what the right decision is?”
“I trust myself more than I do a random collection of people who don’t know what’s going on!”
“And you think,” I said, “that we know what’s going on?”
“I think this is our fault, and we need to fix it!”
I stopped walking. I knew my sister, and I knew when she was about to cry.
Rosalin pressed her knuckles to her eyes, took two heaving breaths, and went on. “Our people…I wasn’t even thinking about them, Briony, when we went to the spinning wheel. I could feel the fairy queen reaching for me. I was imagining what it would feel like when she killed me. My fairy godmother told me that the queen is ancient and bored and cruel, that she likes…she likes pain…”
“Rosalin,” I whispered.
“I was so scared, Briony.” Now she was crying. “All I could think about was escaping. I wasn’t thinking about anyone else.”
“Neither was I,” I admitted. And though I didn’t have all my memories back, I knew it was true. Watching my sister sob with terror, I knew I would do anything to save her; that in the moment when we’d stood together and seen the spinning wheel, I, too, had not been thinking about anyone else.
“No wonder they hate me,” Rosalin said. “They should.”
“No,” I said firmly. “They shouldn’t.”
Rosalin wrapped her arms around herself.
“That’s in the past,” I said. “We have to decide what to do now. And this time, let’s not be the only ones deciding.” I tried to smile. “That way, if things go disastrously wrong, at least it won’t be entirely our fault.”
Rosalin pressed her lips together angrily, and we walked the rest of the way to the ballroom in the silence we should have stuck to in the first place.
In the ballroom, only two of the tables were filled—one fewer than at the ball. Either we hadn’t managed to find everyone, or not everyone had been willing to come. But most of the remaining inhabitants of the castle were waiting around the tables. A few stable boys had chosen to sit near the empty fireplace instead, and the minstrel was strumming his lute while murmuring under his breath, “Princess…Blincess? Mincess?”
The gardener stomped in a few minutes later and went to stand in a corner.
Only three members of my father’s personal guard were there, but it looked like almost all the squires had come. The kennel boy was scowling darkly; he glanced at Varian and then ignored us. There was also a group of foreign courtiers—Derkholmian, by their dress—who probably hadn’t known enough about the curse to get out in time.
They all stayed far from the windows, where the heavy velvet curtains had been shredded to bits. Thorns wove over and around stray bits of fabric, dragging them across the marble floor.
My parents weren’t in the ballroom, and neither was the royal wizard. Varian and Edwin had intended to track them down, but when I asked, Edwin shook his head.
“Last anyone heard,” he said, “they went with the royal wizard to work on a spell that could save us all. The royal wizard’s door was locked, but we could smell incense and hear the chanting from the other end of the hall. Varian and I knocked and shouted as loudly as we could, but they couldn’t hear us.”
“It’s probably just as well,” I said, feeling guiltily relieved. “I don’t think they would be thrilled with this plan.”
“I’m sure they wouldn’t be,” Rosalin said, “since it’s a terrible plan. And also probably treason.”
I rolled my eyes and turned to the crowd.
“Ladies and gentlemen of the court!” I cried.
There was no reaction. Everyone continued milling about, talking in low murmurs and picking at the leftover food.
“We have called you here—” I began more loudly, but I was interrupted by a laundress having a coughing fit. One of the guards pounded her on the back until the fit stopped.
Rosalin climbed onto a chair.
“Good people!” she cried. “I beg you to listen to me!”
Instantly, everyone went silent.
Rosalin clasped her hands. Her gown was ripped, her hair was ragged, and thin scratches marked one of her cheeks, but she was still beautiful.
She drew in a breath and choked out, “I am sorry.”
I’d thought the room was silent before. That was because I hadn’t known what true silence sounded like.
“I’m sorry,” Rosalin said again. Tears rolled down her cheeks, and her voice shook. “I know you’re all here because of my curse and my decisions. My…my selfishness. It is too late to change what I did, and I won’t ask for your forgiveness. All I will say is that I am truly, terribly sorry.”
Everyone underestimated my sister. Even me.
She didn’t wait for a reaction. She went on, her voice wavering. “And now you—we—have a choice to make. A terrible choice, but one we must face together.”
It took them an hour
