by Sarah Cross
Henley peeled his cards off the table—an attempt at nonchalance. “Yeah, but I’ve already seen Viv naked. So like I said: boring.”
Viv’s cheeks flushed pinker—two fevered flares. Her hand flinched in front of her glass, like she wanted to break it, or throw it at him.
“You should learn to close your drapes, Viv,” Wills said coolly. He eyed Henley as he bit the tip of Viv’s ear. “You can’t trust the garden boy not to spy on you.”
“So … poker time?” Mira said—a little too loudly. She slapped her palms down on the table, gave the boys her best can-we-end-this-pissing-contest? glare, and Caspian flashed her a grateful smile—so maybe it worked.
In any case, they shut up and played.
An hour later, Viv and the Knight brothers stumbled upstairs to raid the kitchen, and Henley slipped out the back, lighting a cigarette and muttering shit about Wills—leaving Mira and Blue alone in the basement, surrounded by oil paintings of hunting parties, the glassy-eyed heads of long-dead animals, and furniture that reeked of cigars.
Blue was still wearing—and villainously twirling—the skinny fake mustache. He wore baggy pajama pants that were half soaked from the wet bathing suit underneath, topped off by a jester’s cap, and reindeer slippers that fit only halfway on his feet. A black silk necktie hung from his neck. He’d ditched his shirt a long time ago.
“I can’t believe they left you alone with this sexy miscreant,” he said.
She touched her hand to her heart in mock distress. “Neither can I. Your curse is that girls fall for you … right before you tie them to train tracks, right?”
“Muahaha … exactly.” Blue twirled his fake mustache—until it fell off.
Above them, someone stomped or fell hard against the floor. Drunken laughter broke out, and it was probably only a matter of minutes before Mrs. Knight arrived to scold the revelers.
Mira thought of Freddie upstairs in his room, probably wincing at the noise, hyperaware that they were bothering his mother … all the while languishing alone with his broken heart. And she thought of Henley outside, doing God knows what—hopefully getting out his aggression on a mailbox, instead of on Wills or Viv.
She hated that it was so easy for all of them to hurt each other—and that it was Henley’s role as Huntsman to hurt someone he cared about, someone who also seemed to hurt him on a regular basis. How tempting would it be when Regina gave the order? Could love really drive you to murder?
“Their relationship is so messed up,” she murmured.
“Blue and Mira’s? I think they just need to make out.”
She threw her costume-trunk fedora at him. “I’m serious. I’m talking about Viv and Henley. It freaks me out that they’re sort of involved, and yet, one day, Viv’s stepmom is going to order Henley to kill Viv.”
“Tell me about it.” Blue switched to an exaggerated shrewish voice. “By the way, garden boy, when you’re done trimming the hedges, could you cut out my daughter’s heart and bring it to me so I can eat it? That’s a lot to ask of someone you’re paying minimum wage.”
“It’s even worse that they know about it—that they’re cursed and they expect it.” Mira hugged her knees to her chest.
“I don’t know how you guys can live like this.”
“We just do,” Blue said. “We have to.”
Mira closed her eyes, arms locked around her knees, as if she could shut out the world, but dark images filled her mind. She used to imagine her parents and happy endings she would never have. Now she envisioned torments that were all too real.
She pictured one of Cinderella’s stepsisters planting her foot on a cutting board—and biting down hard as the cleaver chopped through the bone of her big toe.
She imagined a princess used to safety, luxury, throwing the rank hide of a donkey over her shoulders, its boneless face drooping past her forehead like a hideous veil.
And she imagined her future self, flat on her back in bed, limbs as heavy as if they’d been chained down. Mice scurried across her body, leaving footprints on her dress. Spiders spun an entire trousseau’s worth of silk and draped her in it, so it appeared she wore a gown of the finest lace, adorned with rose petals and ensnared butterflies. Beetles nestled between her fingers like jeweled rings—lovely from a distance, horrific up close.
No one would come for her; no one would wake her. She’d be repulsive, not enticing, and she’d pushed away the one person who might have saved her. …
When she opened her eyes, Blue was staring at her, his eyes traveling her face. Maybe troubled by what he saw and didn’t fully understand.
“I feel sick,” she said, her fingers absentmindedly twisting a lock of wet hair. “Let’s talk about something else.”
“Like what? Felix? That makes me feel sick.”
She wasn’t in the mood to be teased. “Very funny. Why do you care so much?”
“Why do I care? I’m pretty sure I told you.” He crawled toward her, shedding the jester cap and reindeer slippers as he went, until he was so close she could see that his eyelashes were blue, too. “Because I like you. Because I don’t want him to hurt you.”
“He doesn’t want to hurt me either.”
“You think his intentions matter if he ends up killing you? I don’t.”
“I know you didn’t mean to—” Flustered, she ducked her head. “What happened to that girl. I know you didn’t mean to. It does make a difference.”
Blue paused, like his breath was frozen in his chest. Every mention of the girl he’d loved seemed to reopen the wound. It was a moment before he spoke.
“Not to her,” he said. “Not to anyone who cared about her. She’s gone.”
“It was an accident. You can’t keep blaming yourself.”
“Who should I blame, Mira? The evil fairy who cursed me? Jane, for lo—” Blue stumbled on the word. “For … loving … me?”
“Her name was Jane?” she asked softly.
Blue nodded. “She was great. Really funny, really smart … her only flaw was that she couldn’t see through my bullshit. I couldn’t see through my own bullshit then. I still thought that love conquered all. But all it conquered, all it crushed was the girl I cared about.”
Mira bowed her head. She thought of all the time she’d spent grieving, blaming herself for her parents’ deaths and wishing she’d never been born—so that they could have lived. She’d believed her willingness to suffer would somehow make things better. She couldn’t let Blue give in to that fallacy, too.
“Punishing yourself won’t bring her back,” she said.
“No. But it’s a debt I have to pay. For what I took from her.” Blue’s mouth was a sharp, unforgiving line. His gaze was turned inward, into the past, and his eyes were as glassy as the stags’ on the wall. “I have to lose something, too.”
“But …” Mira took his hand and held on tight. “Don’t you see that you have? That you did lose something?”
“It doesn’t compare, Mira. It’s not even close to being the same. Look at my life: I stole hers, but I still have everything. Why do I deserve that?”
She wanted to comfort him, to find the perfect words to convince him that he deserved forgiveness. That he could still be a good person. Could be redeemed, because he had a good heart—why would he torture himself if he didn’t have a good heart? But her mind kept drifting to Felix. Felix was older, more sophisticated, experienced. Which begged the question …
Had Felix ever killed a girl? Stolen everything from her?
He’d said that love destroyed him. But he’d never told her what that meant.
Was he carrying around a wound like this, too? A secret despair?
Or …
The alternative—that Felix was a predator, smoothly seducing and then robbing girls of their lives—was too terrible to consider.
It was one thing to love and leave someone. To kiss and tell. There were all sorts of risks when you gave your heart away. Everyone had secrets.
But the tr
uth was that Felix had saved her. He’d kissed her, and kissed her, and when she’d grown too weak, he’d pulled back. He’d taken her somewhere safe.
Whatever he’d done in the past … he was making up for it now. She couldn’t blame him for a curse he had no control over. She wouldn’t. Just like she wouldn’t blame Blue.
“Are you thinking about him?” Blue asked.
Mira nodded, embarrassed. He probably thought she was obsessed. And maybe she was. But this was what she did when she fell in love. She’d fixated on her parents, on their imaginary lives, for years. Nothing in her real life had been able to tear her away from that. Nothing until Felix. Until she’d fallen in love with something real.
“This is so hopeless,” Blue muttered.
“Can’t you just be happy for me?”
She felt stupid as soon as she’d said it.
Blue barked out a laugh. “No. No, you idiot. I couldn’t be more unhappy. You know, I don’t usually know the girls he likes. Not like this. I look the other way most of the time. But I met you first. I knew you first.
“I wanted you first,” he said.
“You have … a funny way of showing it,” she said, awkwardness making it hard to speak.
“I know. I know, and I’m still …” He scrubbed his hand over his face. “I don’t know why I’m telling you this. Because I don’t want you to like me—I would hate it if you did. And yet I hate it that you don’t.”
She stayed silent. She wasn’t so sure he was right about that anymore—about her not liking him. The more he opened up, his armor peeling off to reveal who he really was, the more she felt connected to him.
She never felt nervous around Blue. She could hold her own with him, laugh at him, and, if necessary, slap him. There was something reassuring about that.
And, she realized … he told her the truth. Even when it might make her look at him differently or fear him. He took that risk. And that made him brave.
She wished she knew how to say that to him. But she was afraid of what it would mean. Afraid that it would scare him like it scared her.
“Okay,” Blue said quietly, resigned. He put his arms around her, and laid his head on her shoulder—like someone who needed a hug, not someone who was giving one. She rubbed his bare back lightly, her fingers drawn to the smooth heart mark at the base of his spine. It was more than the sign of his curse. He wore his broken heart on his skin.
She didn’t know what to do.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
AROUND 3 A.M., Blue brought her back to the Dream. He walked with her to Felix’s suite when she said that was where she wanted to go. But when they got there, he leaned against the door, as if he could block her from ever going in.
They’d shared a day full of secrets and bad music and laughter. Confessions in a rose garden, flirtation in a moonlit pool.
And now it was over.
“You don’t have to go back there,” he said. “You don’t have to stay with him.”
She’d been about to knock when Blue wedged himself between her and the door. Now he was so close she could touch him with the slightest flutter of her fingers. One more step and she could press herself against him, lean her head on his shoulder. Forget—for a little while longer—that she’d almost died last night.
“I know,” she said. “I’m not here because I have to be. I …”
She lowered her eyelids against the glare of the lights, and against the worry in Blue’s face.
She’d spent a whole day away from Felix. She’d had twenty-four hours to recover, both physically and emotionally. And she was torn. The thought of him—of his mouth, soft and insistent against hers—still made her heart race, made her as dizzy as no sleep and too much caffeine and stolen love.
The thought of the end—when he’d torn himself away from her, then left her in Blue’s bed without a word of reas-surance—crushed the air from her chest.
Blue was expecting an answer, and she didn’t know how to explain. She was scared to see Felix again—but more scared not to see him. She didn’t want to walk away from this.
“You could stay with me,” Blue said.
That’s the last thing I can do. She shook her head. She couldn’t spend the night with Blue. She was involved with his brother, and things were already too complicated.
“You can stay anywhere you want. Just tell me where, and I’ll take you. God … anywhere but here, Mira.”
With her eyes closed, she could imagine this wasn’t hurting him. Wasn’t scaring him. She didn’t have to see the pained expression on his face. She could hear the worry in his voice, but she could ignore it, pretend it was exhaustion that made him sound like that.
“I don’t know where I’m going to stay yet,” she said. “But I need to see him.”
Blue made a fist and banged it against the wall. “This is so stupid,” he muttered.
He took her passkey out of his wallet. When she reached for it, he said, “I told you: this is mine now,” and stuffed it into the slot. The green open light blinked on.
Mira pressed down on the door handle. “Good night,” she said, hesitant to go. “Thanks for—”
But Blue turned his back on her before she could finish. He headed toward the elevators; vanished around a corner without saying good-bye.
It hurt to watch him walk away like that.
But she supposed she deserved it. They were never going to agree on this.
Mira took a moment to swallow the emotion rising in her throat. Then she slipped into the suite.
Felix was awake, sitting on the couch in the dark, his features lit by the glow of the TV. Shifting light played over his cheekbones, revealed the angry set of his jaw before masking him in shadow. He was arguing with someone on the phone. His legs were kicked up on the table—like he was trying to unwind, but it wasn’t working. An old noir movie flickered on the screen.
Mira shut the door. Felix didn’t look up.
“If you don’t think I can handle it, then maybe you should be here doing this stuff yourself,” he said into the phone. “I told you, it’ll get done. I’ve been busy … No, not that kind of busy. None of your business. No—I don’t care what Villers told you. Uh-huh. Right … What?” He snorted. “Hire a tour guide; I don’t know. Take her to the Eiffel Tower. I really don’t care, Dad. Impressing your girlfriend is your problem. Oh, and it’s three in the morning here. So if you’re done … Yeah. Okay. I know. I know. Talk to you later.”
Felix tossed his phone on the table and finally glanced over. He let out an angry sigh.
“Your dad?” she said.
He nodded. “Checking up on me. He can’t relax if he doesn’t question my judgment once a day.” He leaned forward to stop the movie he’d been watching. The screen filled with a glaringly bright commercial—primary colors, some local restaurant—and they both watched it for a moment, not looking at each other.
Mira didn’t know what to say. It was like they’d been in one place when they’d gone into the flower shop, and now—now that she knew what he could do to her—they were in another, and there was no easy bridge between them.
“You were out late,” he said finally.
“Sorry,” Mira said, not wanting to explain. Her arms and the crook of her shoulder still held the memory of Blue’s embrace. She felt guilty. She wasn’t sure how guilty she should feel; but she couldn’t not think about what had gone on between them.
“It’s okay,” Felix said. “I’m just glad you’re here now. I thought … maybe you weren’t coming back.”
“Oh?” Mira set her purse on the table. So he knew something was wrong; they both knew something weird had happened last night. But he didn’t know she knew his secret—and she wasn’t sure how to behave. Should she pretend everything was fine? Confront him?
What other secrets was he keeping?
Before she could decide, Felix came and took her hands. There was a gentleness and familiarity in his touch that made her feel safe, despite what he’d don
e. These were hands that had held her close, slipped across her skin, and taken her breath away. Hands that had brushed tall grass back from untended graves, to check for her parents’ names.
“Feel like going out?” he said.
“Now?” She tipped her head back to meet his eyes. Felix was luminous, bright with stolen love, and so startlingly beautiful she didn’t want to look away.
It was her near-death she was seeing, her love that burned in his veins—and it should have frightened her … but she was mesmerized. The dark gleam in his eyes, the warm curve of his lips drew her toward him; and her mouth wavered open as if for a kiss.
He didn’t kiss her. He tightened his grip on her hands.
“There’s something I want to show you,” he said. “You’ll want to see it. Trust me.”
Do I? she wondered. Should I?
She’d never doubted him before. But he’d kept the truth from her—failed to warn her. He could have killed her, and he should have let her decide if that was a risk she was willing to take.
“I …”
“Mira?” His brows came together in concern. “Are you okay?”
But … but he couldn’t have known she’d loved him already—why would he suspect she’d surrender her heart so soon? And she could see how it could be nerve-wracking, heartbreaking to say, just when you were kissing someone you cared about: I could kill you. This could kill you. You could lose everything before it began. Maybe he’d been afraid of that.
She could understand being afraid. He’d wanted her, he liked her, and he’d gotten carried away. Blue had said a Romantic could drain too much love too fast if he got lost in the emotion. And maybe that had happened to Felix.
But he’d protected her in the end. He’d stopped himself.
Mira exhaled shakily, forced a smile to her lips. “Where are we going?”
His eyes were shining. “You’ll see when we get there.”
Mira hadn’t been able to discern much through the tinted windows of the car; and when Felix opened the door for her, he insisted she close her eyes. He made his hands into a blindfold and guided her forward, his body just behind hers. “Walk straight,” he told her. “Careful; there’s a step.”
