“Does it look like it’s fading?” I said. Outside the window, a broken branch scraped against the windowsill, a scrap of white velvet clinging to its tip. “Don’t the stories say it will disappear once you cut your way through it? Or at least once you kiss Rosalin? Something is wrong.”
Varian looked over Rosalin’s head at me. His eyes were troubled, in contradiction to his reassuring tone. “There are dozens of stories. They don’t all agree. And they’re obviously not complete. I mean…” He gave me an apologetic look. “None of them mentions you.”
I did my best to look like I didn’t care.
“In the town,” Varian admitted, “they did believe the Thornwood would disappear as soon as the spell was broken.”
I straightened. “The town? You mean the village? It’s still there?”
“Oh, yes,” Varian said. “It’s grown quite large.”
I bit my lip on a small smile. I loved the village, even though I didn’t get to go there very often. I’d once had a governess who was being courted by the village tailor, and she had snuck me over a few times, disguising me as common girl. I’d been able to run around the square, barefoot and dirty. I had learned how to play dice. It was the most fun I’d ever had in my life.
I wasn’t sure why it felt so important that the village was still there. The people in it, the other children I had played with, even my governess, would be dead by now. But it was good to know there were people out there, beyond the forest of thorns, who knew about us and what had happened to us.
“But if the castle is surrounded by thorns,” Rosalin said, pulling away from him, “what do the people in the village do?”
Varian shrugged. “There are princes who come there, to try to fight their way through the Thornwood and wake the beautiful princess sleeping in the castle. They need places to sleep, stables for their horses, and all that. Then, after they fail, they generally need new weapons. And new clothes. And lots of ale…”
“That’s what the villagers do now?” Rosalin looked like she wasn’t sure whether to be delighted or horrified. “They provide services for heroes?”
“Partly. There aren’t as many heroes as you might think. But there are a lot of ordinary people who want to see the Thornwood. Every fall there’s a big ceremony when people throw items into the Thornwood and watch them get torn to bits. They say it’s very helpful for those trying to get rid of bad memories. Visitors come from all over. And in the summer, there’s a music festival….” He stopped, finally noticing that Rosalin had settled on horrified. “Um. Maybe when we get out of here, I’ll take you to it. They have some very nice songs about you.”
“Can we focus on the part where we get out of here?” I said. “Do you have any heroic plans for accomplishing that?”
It came out nasty—even I could hear it. But that was the only way I could keep my voice from trembling. The fear had lodged in my throat, and it wasn’t going away.
Because the magic sword—the one Varian had used to get to us—was gone. Which meant we had no way to get through the Thornwood.
If we were trapped within the walls of this castle, what was the point of waking up? Just so we could all die when our food ran out?
Varian didn’t seem to notice my tone. “I’ll find a way,” he said. To Rosalin, not to me. “Even if I have to fight my way through the entire forest. I won’t let anything happen to you.”
“That’s brave,” I said. “But it doesn’t seem very practical. We need to find our parents and tell them—”
Neither of them was listening to me. Rosalin looked up at the prince, her eyes wide and her lashes trembling. He pulled her closer.
The door to the room burst open, and half a dozen ladies-in-waiting spilled in.
Varian and Rosalin jumped apart. I wasn’t sure why. It wasn’t a secret to anyone that there had been kissing going on in this room.
“Your Highness!”
“What happened?”
“Are you all right?”
“Did…did the curse…”
They descended on Rosalin and the prince in a flurry of colorful silk and strong perfume. They weren’t all Rosalin’s ladies-in-waiting—two of them were mine—but not one of them glanced at me.
Which gave me a chance to slip out of the room.
This isn’t what’s supposed to happen.
I hurried down the corridor, my mind whirling. The spell was finally broken. The prince had saved us. We were supposed to be safe. We were supposed to be free.
Something had gone terribly wrong. But what?
Whatever it was, it couldn’t have happened while we were asleep. It must have happened either after we woke or before the spell struck. If I could just remember…
“Watch it!” a familiar voice shouted, and I had just enough time to jerk my head up before I slammed into someone running along the corridor toward my sister’s room.
We both landed on the floor. I skidded across the rug and hit my head on the tapestry-covered wall.
The other person got it even worse. He had been carrying a lute, and he clutched it to his chest as he fell, protecting the instrument rather than himself. As a result, he slammed down flat on his back. The thud made me wince despite my own pain.
“I’m sorry!” I gasped, scrambling to my feet. I recognized the person I had bumped into: the court minstrel, dressed all in black, clutching his polished wooden lute.
I wasn’t surprised that he was here: he was obsessed with Rosalin’s legend, and convinced that the songs he wrote about it would make him famous. Rosalin was the sole reason he had accepted a post in my father’s castle.
