Isabelle shook her head so that her hair whipped from side to side. She sucked her lips over her slightly protruding teeth, hiding them from view.
“I mean it,” Aurora said. “I think you look lovely.”
“Mother says a princess has to be perfect,” Isabelle said.
“Nobody’s perfect.”
Isabelle stared, her eyes earnest and intense. “You are.”
For some reason, the assertion made Aurora feel unbearably sad. She bent her knees until her eyes were level with Isabelle’s. “Nobody is perfect,” she repeated. “I do all sorts of things wrong.” Everything, if her mother’s criticisms were to be believed. “I never put things away neatly. I’m terrible at talking to strangers, although I find,” she said, “that a smile helps hide it.” Isabelle’s lips twitched. “I’m so bad at pinning my hair that one time I stabbed myself in the eye, and I play the harp so poorly that it sounds like a cat is singing. I crease down the pages of books, even ancient ones, where they’re all yellowed and crinkled. I write in them too. And—” She paused. Past tense. She had done these things. Once. She had given herself these imperfections, locked away in her tower. Now her problems felt quite different.
“I crease the pages too,” Isabelle said. “For the best bits. I—I read all the time.”
“Me too.” At least, she had. Once upon a time.
“Mrs. Benson says stories are silly,” Isabelle said. “She says they aren’t real. She says I should learn history instead.”
Aurora thought of all the stories she had devoured, the histories, the fantasies, the hundreds of worlds and lives and adventures she had seen and lived and breathed while locked in that circle of stone. “If they’re real to you,” she said, “then they’re real.”
“Like yours,” Isabelle said. “Yours was true.”
Rodric returned with a key in his hand and a small, deep-green cloak hung over his arm. “Don’t want you to get cold,” he said, and he draped the cloth over Isabelle’s shoulders and fastened the clasp with hands that looked well accustomed to the task. He held Isabelle’s hand with one of his own and unlocked the door with the other. It swung open with a click.
Rodric and Isabelle stepped ahead, their feet firm on the path. Everything in the garden seemed still and orderly, tightly under the queen’s control. Aurora followed a few paces behind.
Silence surrounded them. They walked deeper into the garden, and then, suddenly, Rodric dropped Isabelle’s hand. “Race you to the apple tree!” Isabelle yelped and began to run, her small legs pounding the ground, her skirts flapping and tangling around her legs. Rodric lumbered behind her, running with exaggerated effort. Isabelle’s hands slammed against the tree trunk, and she leapt with delight.
“You cheated!” Rodric said.
“Did not,” she said. “You’re just slow.”
“I am not,” Rodric said, and he swept his sister up in his arms, spinning her around. “You’re just a cheater.” Both of them laughed as he twisted her upside down. Her hair tumbled down, pins falling loose as she squirmed. He set her down on the ground, and she turned and ran toward him. He ran too, ducking behind the tree.
“Isabelle!” The queen’s voice cut through the air. Aurora looked up. The queen stood by one of the windows on the second floor, glaring down at the scene. “Stop that nonsense at once. A princess does not behave like that.”
Isabelle’s smile vanished. Her lips parted slightly, revealing her large front teeth, and tears gathered in her eyes. She did not let them fall.
“Is Princess Aurora running and making a fool of herself?” the queen continued, and Aurora blushed and squeezed her hands before her. No, she thought. She was not running. Years of training had crushed the impulse well enough. But she did not want to be an example for the end of Isabelle’s fun. “Show some propriety.”
Rodric and Isabelle walked slowly over to Aurora. “We had better return you to Mrs. Benson,” Rodric said to his sister. “She might worry. And I am sure the princess has other things to do.”
The protest stuck in Aurora’s throat.
Isabelle pressed a hand to her scalp. Pins were still tumbling left and right.
“Here,” Aurora said softly. “Let me fix that.”
She knelt behind the girl, repositioning the pins without a word. When she had finished, every hair looked perfect.
After lunch, Rodric led Aurora to the queen’s chambers on the fourth floor of the castle. It was an airy suite of rooms, separated from the rest of the castle by guarded doors and connected by a private corridor that overflowed with flowers. Honeysuckle, Aurora thought.
The door to one room was ajar. The king, queen, and about twenty courtiers were gathered inside, some women chatting with the queen over their embroidery, others playing games with cards and stones. A plush red rug covered the floor, while paintings hung on every wall, depicting wild creatures and nobles at their feasts.
“Rodric!” The king had been talking to an older man, but he stepped forward when he saw the prince enter. “You finally joined us. Come here, come here. I was telling Sir Edward about your great victory. Maybe you could add in the details.” Rodric glanced at Aurora, but the king laughed before he could speak. “You two have had all morning together. Surely the princess can entertain herself for five minutes. She can spend some time with the ladies.”
Rodric gave Aurora a bobbing bow and hurried to his father. Aurora hovered in the middle of the room, watching the women as they sewed. “I received a letter from dear Theodora this morning,” one of them was saying. Their needles wove in and out of the fabric while the ladies barely glanced down. “Poor thing says she is sick.”
“Nothing serious, I hope?” the queen said. She looked at Aurora, and the message was clear. Sit here.
Aurora began to walk toward the group. Then she sensed someone standing close behind her. She turned. It was Prince Finnegan.
“Princess Aurora,” he said. “You look a little lost.”
“I was deciding where to sit.”
“A difficult choice,” Finnegan said. “There are so many excellent options.”
“What are you doing with our princess, Finnegan?” the king said. “Don’t try to sweep her away, now.”
“There will be no sweeping, I promise you that,” Finnegan said. “But who could resist getting to know a girl so beautiful?”
“She is a gem, to be sure.”
“Come on,” Finnegan added to Aurora. “Join us for a game of cards. Alexandra has won the past four rounds, and we really need someone to intervene.”
A girl with thick black curls laughed. “I can’t help it if none of you know how to play.”
“See how overconfident she has become?” Finnegan said. “Help us to defeat her.”
“I’m afraid I won’t be much help,” Aurora said. “I don’t even know the rules.”
“Then I’ll teach you. It’s all very simple. I’m sure that a clever girl like yourself will pick them up in moments.” She glanced up at him. Something about that phrase, “a clever girl like yourself,” made her feel like he was poking fun at her. Subtly, politely, but a jab she was supposed to notice nonetheless.
“I have always heard that the skill of the student reflects the talent of the teacher. In your capable hands, I am sure I will be winning within the round.”
“Excellent,” he said. He pressed a hand into the small of her back and steered her to the group of card players. “Someone fetch the princess a chair.”
A wooden chair was deposited beside Finnegan’s, and Aurora sat. Another man Aurora did not know was gathering the cards. He shuffled them with hand movements so quick that they all blurred together.
“Alexandra must deal,” Finnegan said. “Since she won the last fifty rounds. The princess and I will share a hand, so I can teach her how to play.”
Alexandra plucked a card from the top of the deck and placed it faceup on the table. “The unicorn is the red four,” she said. “Shall we play with the hunter this round?”
“No, let’s keep it simple,” another woman said. She had straight brown hair flowing over her shoulders. “As it’s the princess’s first game.”
Aurora would have thanked her for the consideration, if she had not suspected that this was the same woman who had called her “not quite bright” on the day she awoke.
“Considerate as ever, Carina,” Finnegan said. “Shall we begin?”
The cards flew into piles around the table as Alexandra dealt. “The rules are straightforward,” Finnegan continued. “On your turn, you can choose to take any single card from any player. If you have any matching pairs in your hand, you put them down. Whoever finishes the game holding the other unicorn”—he gestured at the red four in the center of the table—“is the winner. Trickery is, of course, encouraged.”