No matter what she tried, he wouldn’t or couldn’t wake. Sighing, she rose and stretched. Leaning over him one last time, she directed, “You stay here and don’t get any worse in my absence. I’m going to grab some stuff from the garden and make you something to drink.”
With one last concerned look, she headed for the herb garden. In her exploration, she had noticed that not only did the back plot contain kitchen herbs, but it also contained medicinal herbs.
Gathering what she needed, the knot of worry in Bell’s stomach tightened. Something wasn’t right. Her thoughts propelled her to move faster. She all but ran back to the kitchen, where she started making a large pot of fever tea. Belladonna was determined to get it inside Alder, even if she had to pour it down his throat herself.
Before she even entered the bedroom, she could hear his cough. Approaching the bed, a red stain caused her to falter. In her absence, Alder had rolled onto his side and started coughing up blood.
Spilling half the tea down her arm in her rush to get to him, Bell crouched to inspect his mouth. Blood was still dripping from the edge of his it. Terror gripped her as she rolled him onto his back. He had stopped coughing, but his breathing was still labored. His forehead glistened with sweat again, too hot to the touch.
“What the hell am I supposed to do?”
Chapter Twelve
By the third day, Bell knew that Alder was dying.
He hadn’t awoken since his fever came on, and despite her constant ministrations, he had only continued to decline. Roughly twenty-four hours in his bloody cough had turned into vomiting up a mixture of thick tacky black sludge and blood. Bell had a bin next to the bed, ready to catch the putrid mixture at a moment’s notice. No matter how much tea or ice she dribbled into his mouth, his body regurgitated it back up, refusing to keep anything down. With his fever so high and for such a prolonged time, Bell wasn’t sure if he’d have the fever sickness that made individuals simpler when he woke up. If he woke up.
Cradling Alder’s hand, she spoke to him. “I don’t know what to do to help you. I’ve done everything I know, and it doesn’t seem to be enough. Fluffy needs you here – I need you here. Please.” Bell waited for a sign that he had heard her. Seconds ticked by, and he didn’t move.
Fluffy whined from his position on the bed. Alder didn’t move.
Tears of frustration and fear started leaking out of her burning eyes. Barely noticing them, she did nothing to wipe them away, instead staring at the scars crisscrossing his flesh. Once, they had stood out against his warm skin, contrastingly pale. Now they blended in, the color of his skin having leeched out of him.
A cold nose nudged her. Looking down, she saw Fluffy holding her mirror gently in his jaws.
“Thank you, Fluffy, but I can’t do anything with this. This isn’t going to…” Bell trailed off, staring at the small mirror. “Yes!” Bell feverishly tapped it. “Sidero! Sidero! Sidero! I need to see you!” Nothing happened. Dropping the mirror in her haste to find the Fae, Bell raced out of the room and down to the entrance hall.
Out of breath, she stood in the middle of the echoing chamber. “Sidero! Sidero, I want to use my last favor! Please!” She waited, staring at the grand front doors. “Sidero!”
“Goodness, girl. There is no need to holler.” Twirling Bell found Sidero stalking down the staircase. “I see you have finally decided to ask for something. What is it you want? You are such a curious thing I am almost excited to see what you ask for.” Her lips spread in her cold smile as she stepped onto the marble floor.
“Alder is sick. Actually, he’s dying as we speak.”
Sidero’s smile faltered and then fell slightly. “Yes. I know.”
“I don’t understand why,” Bell whispered.
The Fae stared at her for a long moment. “Beast, or Alder as you’ve christened him, has been here for a very long time. He’s been here almost as long as I’ve been a consort of the King. Up until now, he’s been kept alive by the magic that twines through this place – but a human is not a Fae. Each Fae is created by magic itself, and can, therefore, manipulate it. Magic is a poison for humans. A slow, almost imperceptible poison, but a poison nonetheless.”
Bell was trying to understand, but Sidero’s words seemed to be stuck somewhere in her ears, refusing to move onward into her mind.
“He’s been here too long,” she put it simply. “The very magic that has kept him alive all these years has now poisoned him past recovery.”
“Save him,” Bell commanded, past caring how offended the Fae would be at her impertinence. “That’s what I want my last favor to be – save him. Please.”
Sidero closed her eyes. “Do you understand what that means, Belladonna? Do you know the cost you must pay? Is the imprisonment you voluntarily took to save your father not enough?”
“I don’t care. Whatever the price is, I’ll pay it. Just please, save him. Don’t let him die here.”
Snapping her eyes open, a steely glint now present, Sidero grabbed Bell’s arm and pulled her towards the front door. “Fine. We do not have any time to waste. Hurry.”
Every step that Sidero took was equivalent to three or four of Bell’s – she had to run to keep up with Sidero’s long strides. The coldness from the Fae’s hand clamped on her arm made it go numb almost instantly.
Glancing up, Bell found that they were at the maze. Instead of seeing the twisting paths once they entered, a straight path stretched out to the center. Sidero stopped when they reached the rose bush. She approached the plant. Only one petal remained attached, the rest littering the flower bed.
Staring at the now mangled flower, Bell whispered, “What happened to the rose?”
“Time,” Sidero said simply. “Time has mangled it. Roses, in general, are powerful magic objects – that’s why they have more or less gone extinct. The power that they live off of is no longer present the way it used to be. This one has been here as long as Beast.”
Comprehension began to dawn on Bell as she looked at the lone petal, scattered puzzle pieces finally came together, forming an image. “That flower is connected to him, isn’t it? When time kills the bud, Alder dies with it.”
“Yes.”
“What do I need to do?”
Sidero turned to Bell, her face holding the first real emotion Bell had seen on it. Genuine concern crinkled Sidero’s Fae face, creating a visage more human and more terrible than any Bell had witnessed. Feelings were not something any Fae could wear well.
“Before I do anything, I need you to understand what you are actually asking.”
“It doesn’t matter,” Bell said stubbornly. “Whatever it is, I’ll do it as long as you save him.”
Glaring at her, Sidero muttered, “You are either very brave or very foolish – I am not sure which. Listen closely – the magic of this place is knotted to keep a life here. Now that Beast is dying, the threads of magic wrapped around him have loosened enough that I think I can slip him out from the web. He cannot stay here; he has been exposed to too much magic for too long. If he stays, he will die no matter what I do. His system has simply reached its limit.”
A sinking feeling began in Bell’s stomach.
“I think I can slip him out, but someone must be slipped in so I can tighten the threads again. Without it, there’s no saving him. Do you understand what I am saying, Belladonna?”
She nodded. “I have to be slipped in. I have to trade places with him, and you will take him away, and he will live. And I will stay here until my body has reached the threshold of too much magic, and then I will die as he is dying now.”
Sidero nodded curtly, concern etching her face into a grotesque mask again.
“I want to add to my request, now that I know he will be taken away. When the two of you leave, take Fluffy with you and give them both a good life. I’ve seen what you did for my family – give him a good and happy life. And to make his life as happy as possible, make him forget all of this if you can. Including me. I don’t want him to be trappe
d in his mind out there the way he’s been trapped in here.”
“What of you? You want him to forget you, even though he loves you and you love him. Do you want to forget him as well?”
Without hesitation, Bell answered, “No. I want to remember still. I don’t want to forget our time together, even if I’m the only person in the world that remembers it existed.”
Gone was the concern, and the softened tone – Sidero’s voice was frozen again, the voice of an indifferent Fae. “You truly have been an entertaining distraction. If this is the course you want to take, then I will do as you ask. Pluck the last petal off and put it in your mouth like the last time. It’s the final bit of magic tied to him. I will do the rest.”
Turning her back so the Fae wouldn’t see the terror she knew was written plainly across her face, Bell approached the flower. With her hand poised, ready to pluck, Bell paused. “Thank you, Sidero. For everything you’ve done.” She plucked the petal and placed it on her tongue.
Opening her eyes, Bell stood before the front doors. They were ajar, but Bell didn’t have to enter to know that she was alone now. The silence that permeated the entire space echoed in her bones, no breathing object bouncing it back.
Cautiously she pushed open the door and entered. Bell headed upstairs to check Alder’s room and make sure Sidero had done as she asked. In every room she paused to call out for Fluffy and Alder until she reached his suite. The door was still shut from her mad rush downstairs.
Scared, Bell pressed her ear to the door, knowing that the thick wood would stifle any noise, even if there was someone within. Working up her courage slowly, Bell cracked open the door and peered inside. From where she was, she couldn’t see the bed.
“Alder? Fluffy?” she whispered, taking one step in. No response.
Bell shuffled towards the bed. It was empty of Alder, the only proof of his existence was the stains from his sickness still covering the sheets. Stretching out, she brushed her finger across the bed and felt the cool sheets. Bell didn’t know what she was expecting – maybe the sheets to still be warm – but she was disappointed.
Without warning, the weight of what she had done settled upon her. Staring blankly around, she realized there was nothing here for her anymore. The sheets would clean themselves. Her feet moved of their own accord, and Bell found her way back to her bedroom.
She climbed into bed without removing her sweaty and sick stained dress and pulled her comforter up to her chin. Images of Alder and Fluffy passed in her mind’s eye. This is what heartbreak felt like. No, worse than heartbreak, this was a complete and utter loss. Everyone she loved was dead to her – unreachable. Alder, Fluffy, Papa, Poppy, Geranium, her nieces and nephews, both the ones she currently had and any future ones she would never meet.
There was almost some grain of comfort in knowing that even if someone wasn’t with you, they were still out there alive, breathing, hopefully happy. But Bell didn’t have that luxury anymore. She could allow herself to believe that time outside hadn’t passed enough to have killed off everyone she loved, but eventually, she would have to give up that hope for her own sanity. It was better to accept this heartbreak now and learn to survive with it than to relive it time and time again. For a moment, Bell wished she possessed the type of personality where she could fool herself, but she had always been too practical – that was what had gotten her family through their destitution.
Had Poppy felt like this when Ashley died? That, with every breath, another piece of her heart shattered, stabbing her lungs? That every second she lived was a moment of pain, a wound that could never be healed? Somehow Bell doubted it; Ashley had never been a man Poppy hated, but she had never loved him as sincerely as she loved their children.
Papa, on the other hand, had loved their mother with all his soul. He hadn’t been immune to her many flaws, like lack of concern for her daughters, but he had loved her despite them. When she had died, Bell knew her father had collapsed into himself, emerging a shell of who he had once been.
Would she emerge a shell of herself? Bell decided she probably would – she felt as though there was nothing left inside. Truthfully, she didn’t know if she even wanted to emerge from this.
If she emerged, did that mean there was a day she no longer remembered the voices of her family? Their faces? Would her mind no longer release her loved ones into her dreams? If she was mourning forever, she would never forget them.
Turning over, Bell sighed. Everything had an expiration date – her pain, her life, her loved ones. Even here where time didn’t pass – no, she had learned it moved very slowly – there would be an end. It was inevitable. Someday, many many lifetimes from now, she would join everyone she loved, if she was lucky. She didn’t even think she would mind dying the way Alder had been dying if it meant that she was done with her sentence here.
Bell closed her eyes, welcoming the darkness even if sleep still eluded her.
Even if Bell hadn’t been broken-hearted, she didn’t think she would have been able to figure out how long she had been alone in the Palace. Being alone – indeed, entirely alone – caused things like time to blur and mix even more than they had before. With her only distraction from grief herself, she found that often she got lost inside her own head, replaying memories over and over again.
Staring at her reflection in the mirror, Bell finally understood what Alder had meant about going mad in such a place. Even without regret, for Bell would make the same choices that brought her here time and again, the silence and emptiness made her question what was real. The only face she saw was her own, and looking at the pale, wane features didn’t bring her any comfort.
She spent her days walking endlessly, aimlessly. If she was moving, she could keep her thoughts at bay, but the moment her feet stopped, memories flooded forward, drowning her, pulling her down, down, down. Bell had found out the hard way that she needed to be physically exhausted to sleep at night. Most evenings, that wasn’t even enough – she had to drink the drugged tea if she wanted even an hour of unconsciousness. The combination was enough to send her off into fitful dreams haunted by her loved ones.
Absently Bell found herself on the last few steps of the tower staircase, her feet having taken her on the well-trod path without her knowledge. Icicles of dread drove through her at the sight of the art room’s door. Bell froze, straining her ears. If she tried hard enough, she could almost hear the ghost of noise, a remembered conversation between herself and Alder. Her head knew the only sound at the top of this tower was her own pounding heart and rapid breathing, but for a moment, it felt good to pretend Alder was just on the other side, waiting for her.
A small spark of hope warmed her chest, melting some of the icy dread causing her to stand still. It was silly, she knew it was, but she approached the door apprehensively. Pushing it open, Bell stood in the doorway for only a second before tears began. After all the crying she had done, she had thought she didn’t have any more tears to shed.
The room was empty, as she had known it would be. Her only company was the portraits left by Alder. Their faces stared up at her frozen in time. In their midst, Bell felt less alone, even if she felt a bit silly. Deciding on the spot, she grabbed the nearest painting and wiped the dust off. It was a candid painting of a maid laughing with a small boy. Bell turned and headed down to her rooms.
The sun had set before Bell was finished moving every painting down to her suite. She was dusty, sweaty, and utterly exhausted. The only picture she had left was her own – it reminded her too much of Alder, and she couldn’t look at it every day. It had as much of him in it as it had her.
Bell had moved back into her own suite her first night alone. Laying in the bed where she had comforted Alder every night would have been impossible even if the stains on the sheets and floor weren’t still there. The dark streaks of blood and sticky black substance on the white sheets mirrored a gaping wound too closely for her to be comfortable.
Settled in for the night, Bell glanc
ed over at her nightstand. Her looking mirror sat there, cracked right down the center from when she had dropped it in her hurry to find Sidero. As much as she wanted to, she hadn’t tried using it since she found it. Deep inside, she believed that the mirror would work if she tried, but that it wouldn’t work well or correctly. It was better to live in uncertainty than to live, not knowing if what she had seen had been real.
Rising the next morning, or perhaps it was several mornings later, Bell pulled one of the few dresses in her closet down. There didn’t seem to be a breakfast tray waiting for her. Walking all the way to the kitchen was an unappealing thought, but her stomach demanded something. As this was the first time she had felt hunger in weeks, Belladonna decided she better take the opportunity to eat, even if it meant going all the way to the kitchen.
Padding downstairs, Bell entered the kitchen and absentmindedly reached for something off the tray on the counter. Bell’s hand hit the cold countertop. There was no tray filled with food waiting for her. Bemused, Bell looked to the more intimate table she and Alder had used every day and saw that her usual pot of tea was missing as well.
Annoyance writhed in Bell. She couldn’t believe that the Palace had decided to be so contrary. Before she allowed herself to get angrier, she took a deep breath and started making tea. As weird as it sounded, the Palace was her only “living” companion, and getting angry at it wouldn’t make her day any better.
While she waited for the water to boil, Bell grabbed an apple from the pantry. She put everything on a tray and headed to the library. Alder’s presence was strongest there; it always seemed as if he had just walked out the door.
Rose Bound Magic Page 15
