by Sarah Cross
CHAPTER TWENTY
THE DENEUVES’ KITCHEN smelled like citrus instead of blood. In the clean light of early morning, it was hard to believe a Huntsman had gutted a rabbit on that table as a demonstration of how to kill a princess. Someone had washed the blood from the blond wood surface, and now there was a centerpiece where the carcass had been: a bowl of red apples, the same decoration that had been there for years.
Regina, dressed in workout clothes, her hair up in a ponytail that made her look younger, was juicing oranges by hand. A pair of white butterflies flurried through the garden, like white petals caught by the wind.
Last night’s bloody scene was erased by the bright chirps of birds and the cool, misty air. Like the world had taken a deep breath, ready to begin again. Henley felt wide awake, tired but almost painfully alert. He hadn’t slept well … he didn’t think he would for a while. His window of opportunity was closing. He only had so much time to make this work, to make sure everything happened exactly how he wanted it to.
“You stayed late last night.” Regina licked a dribble of juice off her finger. “Tying up loose ends?”
“I wanted to see where her head was at. If there was a chance for us.”
“And?”
“I’m here, aren’t I?” His eyes went to a groove in the table, where the wood was still dark with blood. “I used to think that if I could get her to trust me again, things would change. We’d go back to the way we were before. Now I know that won’t happen. But I still need her to trust me.”
“Oh?”
“I don’t want this to be any uglier than it has to be. I don’t want to hurt her. I want it to be a shock—so she barely feels it. That’s why I brought her away from the house last night. I want her to feel safe with me. To trust me. I think it’ll be less traumatic for both of us if she does.”
“Well. No one wants you to be traumatized.”
Regina carried the pitcher of orange juice to the table and set it down as carefully as if it were a vase of flowers. He rarely saw her do anything domestic and wondered if it was for his benefit or if she was a different person without Viv in the house.
“Help yourself,” she said with a smile. He just stared at the pitcher, not in the mood to drink anything, and Regina turned to sort through her cupboards. Usually the cupboards were bare. Now they were stocked with jars and bottles, like Regina was preparing for a hurricane. He saw honey and grenadine. He wasn’t sure what else.
“Also …” Henley cleared his throat. “There’s something I need from you.”
Her eyes were wide and attentive, like she would do whatever she could to help. “What is it?”
“I need your word that you won’t turn this over to the other Huntsman. Taking care of Viv … that’s my fate, not his. I need to know you can accept that.”
“Of course. I wouldn’t take that from you.”
“All right. Then … I’m trying to work out how I want to do it. This is something I’ll have to live with for the rest of my life. I don’t want to regret the way it happens. If that’s possible.”
“You won’t regret it,” she said. “It’s not like you didn’t try. It’s not like you didn’t try everything to make people see you as something other than your curse. But you are your curse. For a long time I thought … if I could be a good mom, a loving wife, care about craft projects and bake sales and schmoozing with the Royal bitches at Seven Oaks, people would see that my destiny didn’t fit me. But it does fit me. It just took me a while to realize that. My destiny is the only thing that gives me some semblance of power over my life.
“If I regret anything, it’s waiting as long as I did. Giving in to false hope. Because the whole time I was doing that—taking Viv to the movies, playing dolls—my husband was having sex with the same women who sneered at me at the grocery store when I was buying Viv ice cream. It didn’t matter how good I tried to be. Everyone knew what I was. I was the only one who didn’t know. But … there’s something freeing about finally giving in to your destiny. I know it’s been hard on you; I can see it. It’s been hard on me, too. You’ve probably thought of me as evil—maybe you still do—but there’s nothing evil about being happy. You’re doing what’s best for you. I’m doing what’s best for me. Viv’s doing what’s best for Viv. We can’t all get what we want.
“Once this is over, you can really move forward. You’ll find someone who’s worthy of you. Maybe one of those longsuffering girls who has to perform a task for seven years. Or maybe a normal girl, without any cursed baggage at all.”
“Maybe. It’s hard to think like that right now.”
“I know. Believe me. I can hardly imagine what it’ll feel like after. Our whole lives have been building to this moment.”
He stood up, rubbed his eyes. “I need to try to sleep. I was up all night. Waiting for her and then … thinking about this.”
“Oh, before you go, look”—Regina took a black-lacquered box from the cupboard—“I had a box made.”
Her eyes glittered like she was holding a treasure chest, and she flipped the hinged lid up to reveal an interior lined with bloodred velvet, just large enough to hold a girl’s heart. “Beautiful, isn’t it?”
“It’s perfect.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
SNOWFLAKES DRIFTED FROM THE DARKNESS overhead and frost glittered on the silver trees. The guests wore tiny bells on their shoes, diamonds on their cheeks. Their lips were painted white or silver; their peppermint breath fogged the air.
Viv hadn’t realized the Winter theme would be so literal—she wore a thin white gown, more appropriate for a Greek goddess than a winter wonderland. But she wasn’t the only one, and servants were busy passing out velvet cloaks to the underdressed guests. Jewel wore hers over a white bustier and tight white pants. Frosty white eyeliner shimmered on her dark brown skin.
Viv handed over two cartons of cigarettes—tied with a silver bow, topped with a sparkly snowflake—and finally got a real smile out of Owen.
Inside the nightclub, ice glazed the mirrored black walls. Part of the dance floor had been transformed into an ice rink. The black benches had been replaced by sleighs where guests could curl up with a mug of hot cocoa or cider. Bartenders mixed drinks at a bar made of solid ice.
The last time Viv had been here, the club had been hellish and loud—red lights glowing like an oven, sweat dripping off the dancers. Tonight, the guests hid beneath layers of fur and velvet, and the music was softer, floating under the conversations instead of preventing them.
A Snow Queen had wrapped a teenage boy in her cloak, and was kissing his face, leaving ice-blue lip prints on his cheeks. A man with white-blond hair and black eyes was dancing with a blindfolded girl. He was probably a polar bear by day, and the blindfold was there to keep the girl from seeing his true form—a loophole in the curse.
Viv pointed the couple out to Jewel. “Kink? Or East of the Sun, West of the Moon curse?”
“Both,” Jewel said. “Definitely a curse, but any of those lover is a monster by day, can’t look at him at night curses are inherently kinky. I mean, you don’t know what you’re sleeping with, but you do it, anyway, because the guy climbs in your bed at night?”
“She always looks at him eventually.”
“Yeah, but then he wakes up because she’s dripping hot candle wax on his body. That’s kinky.”
“Point.”
Jewel pressed her handkerchief to her mouth, tears leaking from her eyes as she coughed up a string of white foxgloves. “Should we find your prince, or do you want to talk about kinky bears some more?”
“Nah, you probably hear enough of that from Luxe.”
“Luxe didn’t do anything with those bears!”
Viv did her best Luxe impression—“It’s too big! It’s too fuzzy!”—then ran away laughing before Jewel could smack her.
She dashed through the crowd, darting past Prince Charmings dressed for a trip to the Arctic and a Beauty who’d scooped snow into a champagne buc
ket and was throwing snowballs at the other guests. A clump of snow exploded against Viv’s shoulder and she ducked to avoid the next one. As she came up, Jasper grabbed her cloak and spun her to face him.
“Who are you running from?” he asked. His cheeks were flushed.
“My friend Jewel. I insinuated some things about her girlfriend and the three bears.”
“None of which were true,” Jewel said as she caught up to them. Diamonds spilled from her handkerchief, sprinkling the floor like hail.
“Jewel,” Jasper said. “You have a Diamonds and Toads curse.”
“What gave it away? The reckless way I drop gems all over the floor?”
He laughed. “I’m Jasper. I’m so glad you came.”
Another snowball arced over their heads.
“Should we get out of this war zone?” Viv asked.
They headed to the ice bar and ordered drinks that nearly froze their throats on the way down. A horseman dressed entirely in white, with skin, hair, and eyes the color of milk, stood there drinking a tall glass of vodka. On the bar stool next to him was an old woman Viv guessed was Baba Yaga. The old woman’s white tiger-print dress didn’t scream witch, but her wild white hair was pinned down by a tiara made of crystals and finger bones, and she was using a mortar and pestle to muddle fruit for her drink. The mortar and pestle were her trademark.
Next to Baba Yaga was an old man with a skeletal face, a tanning-booth tan, and scars on his arms in the shape of chains. He looked about seventy but wore a shirt that was unbuttoned to show his chest, leather pants, and a ring on every finger, including one that was topped with a Fabergé egg.
As they were leaving the bar, the old man whistled at Jewel. “Hey, sweetheart. You like older men?”
“No,” Jewel said, gagging on a winter rose.
“That’s Koschei the Deathless,” Jasper said. “He was chained up in a basement for a few years. He just got out.”
“I guess he wants everyone to know he’s available,” Viv said.
Koschei wrote his phone number on a napkin and tried to give it to Jewel, then Viv, then Jasper, until finally Baba Yaga grabbed it and ground it up with her pestle.
After a while Jasper asked if they wanted to skate. Jewel declined, saying she didn’t think falling gems played well with ice skates, but told them to go ahead.
Mounds of snow bordered the rink—smooth and rounded like perfect scoops of ice cream. Viv sat down on a bench to put on her skates, and Jasper knelt in front of her to make sure the laces were tight.
“Are you good at skating?” she asked, while he pressed on her toes to check the fit.
“I skate about once a month—whenever we do Winter. I’m good enough not to fall all the time.”
“Sounds like you’re better than I am.”
“We’ll help each other.”
Jasper offered his arm and they chop-stepped onto the ice, then slowly worked their way up to gliding. It was a nice feeling to be side by side like that, strangely warm in the frigid air, cozy from the velvet and the heat that raced through her when they touched. Every time their eyes met, Jasper was smiling. “I’m so happy you’re here,” he said. “I can’t wait to show you, every day, how lucky I am to have you.”
“Every day? I think you’ll get bored of that.”
“No. I’ll never get tired of showing you. I won’t be able to help myself.”
Once they’d finished skating, Viv excused herself to use the restroom. On the way there she passed the Twelve Dancing Princesses and eleven underworld princes—twining together like sparkling ice and untouched snow. Minuet was solo waltzing with a glass of wine in her hand. She tilted the glass backward, far enough that it should have spilled, but didn’t.
And yet … some wine was definitely missing when she righted her glass. Two, maybe three swallows were gone. And Minuet was grinning like the Cheshire cat. Or like a cursed princess playing games with her invisible rescuer. Feeding him wine while he sidestepped the princes.
There was a suitor in the club, wearing an invisibility cloak, getting cocky. Viv had no idea who he might be—the fairies who bestowed the Twelve Dancing Princesses curse marked twelve princesses and their partners, but not the hero who’d eventually break the curse. Anyone could volunteer—but a suitor who failed to break the curse after three days was beheaded. And, unlike in the fairy tale, the suitor had to figure out how to seal the door that led the princesses to the underworld, so they could never return. Only then would he get his reward: marriage to one of the princesses and half her father’s wealth.
Was the suitor’s cockiness a celebration? Did he know how to end this?
Viv didn’t say anything when she caught up with Jasper and Jewel, in case Jasper was obligated to inform on the invisible trespasser. She caught them mid-conversation.
“I understand changing your name to fit your curse,” Jewel was saying. “I did; my birth certificate says Renee. But those are some odd choices.”
“We’re talking about the twelve princesses’ names,” Jasper said.
“Oh.” Viv supposed it was a natural thing to be curious about, but she’d never asked. She’d never asked Jasper about his brothers’ names, either. They fell into her category of too many children in one family, even though they might be her in-laws one day.
“They’re named after dances,” Jewel said.
Jasper pointed them out. “Minuet, Lindy, Mazurka. Chacha, Salsa, Rumba. Charleston, Calypso, Musette. And the inseparable trio of Waltz, Tango, and Foxtrot.”
“Are you making that up?” Viv asked.
“I swear I’m not.”
As the night stretched on, the lights that had kept the club white and shining dimmed to an icy blue, like the guests were on the cusp of night instead of deep inside it. Viv, Jasper, and Jewel sipped hot cocoa and danced to music that sounded like bells. When Viv began to get sleepy she leaned against Jasper, her arms wrapped loosely around his waist, and swayed with him like they were in the middle of a dream.
Toward the end of the night, the DJ played only love songs. The music seeped into her—familiar, comforting—and it wasn’t until the third or fourth track that Viv realized they were all songs she used to listen to. They could have been pulled from one of her old playlists: Love circa age fifteen. Soft, sweet, familiar love. Us-against-the-world love. Nothing can tear us apart.
The songs were soothing in their certainty, their love-is-forever sentiment, their just-try-to-stop-us loyalty. And once she recognized them, once she realized they’d been hers, she couldn’t stop the past from grabbing on to her. The songs stirred old memories—and the rush of tenderness they brought was painful.
Henley in her bedroom, freshman year. No one in the house but the two of them. A sheet hung over the mirror to keep it from purring out, “Exquisite!”
His body at sunset, ruddy light burnishing his face and chest, the hard muscle of his arms. A love song playing in the background like it was the soundtrack to their lives.
The way he looked at her and saw all of her. Not the fairest. Not the princess. Just the girl she was. He knew her like no one else did, and she’d thought she knew everything about him, too. Who he was. What he’d do.
Jasper was humming in her ear, content.
“Did the fairy give you one of my playlists?” Viv asked.
“She mentioned some songs that you liked. Was she wrong?”
“Not wrong. Just a few years out of date. I’d like to know how she even found them … but, then again, I don’t. Stop paying her, though. Seriously. If you want to know something about me, just ask.”
“I’m too polite to ask everything.” She couldn’t tell if he was wearing a smile or an expression of restraint.
By the time the DJ announced the last dance, Viv had relived her entire freshman-year date-night playlist, and Jewel had turned down another overture from Koschei the Deathless.
“He tried to give me his soul for safekeeping,” Jewel said. “He keeps it in a Fabergé egg, app
arently. I thought about taking it, for the good of the world, but … I think he was drunk when he offered. I didn’t want to give him an excuse to show up at my place and ask for it back.”
“A wise decision,” Jasper said, taking three invitations from his jacket. “However, I hope you will accept these. There are three this time, in case you want to bring your girlfriend.”
“These are for tomorrow night, or any time?” Jewel asked.
“Tomorrow night. They’ll turn to dust after that.”
“Got it.”
“Good night,” Jasper said, hugging them both. He hugged Viv until the heat burned between them, and then kissed her cheek.
Jasper summoned a boat for them, and Viv and Jewel dozed on the ride across, wrapped in their velvet cloaks, using each other’s heads as pillows. The mood on the opposite shore was sleepy and subdued. The guards were on alert, but the guests were relaxed, drifting down the path like leaves on a stream, their steps soft in the powdery snow.
“That was fun,” Jewel said. She yawned and plucked a red poppy from her mouth. “I’m exhausted, but that club is amazing. Deathless old dudes notwithstanding.”
“What did you think of Jasper?”
“He seems like a decent guy. Friendly, cute. But …”
“But?”
“I wonder how emotionally involved you could get. I think you could have fun with him, but it’s going to be hard to feel anything else while things are so unsettled with Henley.”
“I know.” Viv sighed. “Right now, when I think about being with Jasper, I think logistics: should I come to the underworld, and when? I don’t think about … being in his arms, and falling in love.”
“Well, yeah. Because you’re already in love.”
Viv swallowed. “But at the same time, Jasper and I are destined to be together. So maybe I’ll love him eventually and it’ll seem weird that I didn’t. That’s what I’m hoping. Because if I’m wrong about it—”
