TWENTY
AURORA WAS READYING HERSELF FOR BED THAT NIGHT when she heard a quiet voice in the doorway.
“Hello.”
Aurora looked up. Isabelle was peering around the door. Aurora placed her brush on the table and stared at her. “Hello, Isabelle,” she said.
The girl slipped into the room. “Rod said you were hurt. He said that’s why you aren’t around anymore.”
“I’m okay,” Aurora said. “It’s—it’s just safer if I stay here.”
Isabelle moved closer, eyes fixed on the ground. “Can I stay here?” she said. “For a little while?”
“Won’t someone be looking for you?”
“The guards know I’m here.” Isabelle shifted again. “My mother wants to see me tomorrow. She wants me to see Finnegan.”
“It will be all right,” Aurora said. “He’s not too awful.”
Isabelle giggled. “He’s okay usually. He’s kind of nice. Smiles and tells jokes. But when my mother is there, it’s like it’s not really him anymore. All his smiles are too big.”
Aurora sat down on a stool, and waved Isabelle over to her. “I think your mother has that effect on a lot of people.”
Isabelle offered a small smile. She sat down by Aurora’s feet, her chin resting on her knees. “I don’t think he wants to marry me very much.”
“It sounds like he likes you,” Aurora said. “But you are a lot younger than he is. And I don’t think Finnegan’s the sort of person who would let anyone tell him what to do. No one would mind if he refused.”
Isabelle was quiet for a long moment. “Mother would mind,” she said. “She would say I failed.”
“It wouldn’t be your fault.”
“But it would, wouldn’t it?” Isabelle craned her neck to look at Aurora. “Mother says it would be the greatest thing I could do, and if it’s the right thing, then shouldn’t I do it? And if I didn’t do it, doesn’t that mean I wasn’t good enough for him? So I failed.”
Aurora ran her fingers through Isabelle’s hair. “No,” she said softly. “That’s not true.”
“It’s all right for you,” Isabelle said. “You have Rodric. Everything’s already worked out.”
“That’s not entirely true either,” Aurora said. “My mother told me the same things too, you know. I didn’t have to meet princes, but she always told me—she said, it was my duty to be good and admired. If I did as I ought, happiness would come to me.” The words had been so promising at the time. If she did her duty, if she waited in her tower until she turned eighteen, happiness would come after.
“I think she had suitors in mind for me too,” she said. “I remember, on the day I—on my last day at home, she was preparing me for a big ball. For my birthday. And she kept telling me about all the princes who would attend. I think she intended me to marry one of them.”
“But you’re going to marry Rodric, aren’t you?”
Aurora nodded. “Those princes—they are long dead now.”
“And you—you love him. Don’t you?” Isabelle peered over her shoulder with wide, meek eyes, as though desperate for the answer. Desperate, and a little afraid. “Because the princesses always love the princes in the stories, but Mother says that’s silly. She says we have to marry whoever’s best for the realm and we’ll be happy later. But—but you love Rodric, don’t you? Like in the book.”
Isabelle trembled at the end of her speech. She continued to stare at Aurora, all hope and fear, and Aurora’s reply stuck in her throat. How could she tell her the truth? How could she tell her that she had felt more for a rebel in an inn than for Isabelle’s kindhearted older brother? Rodric deserved her affection, and Tristan did not, yet Tristan’s betrayal still ached, while Rodric’s kindness felt like nothing more than friendship. “Your brother is a good man,” she said eventually, each word slow and careful. “But I barely know him yet. Perhaps, in the future . . . if the story is true . . .”
Isabelle did not flinch or look away, but the corners of her mouth turned down a fraction of an inch. She nodded. “It has to be,” she said.
No, Aurora thought, staring down at the strands of Isabelle’s hair caught between her fingers. The story was not true. She had awoken, out of need, or coincidence, or Celestine deciding it was time, or simply magic too weak to hold her any longer. Not because of fated love.
It did not matter, though. Others believed in it, and that, it seemed, was reason enough.
Aurora stayed up reading by the light of a candle. Her feet were tucked inside her nightgown, a blanket wrapped around her shoulders. The castle had been silent for hours. Even the servants were asleep, but Aurora’s mind was still too full of her conversation with Isabelle to rest. She stared at the pages, but she could not process the words.
She was about to give up and try to sleep when she heard movement outside her room. Footsteps, and a few whispered words. She stared at the door.
The handle shook.
Aurora stood up. She had nothing that even vaguely looked like a weapon, so she tightened her grip on the book, feeling its weight. If Celestine had come for her again, she did not know how she would defend herself.
But when the door inched open, it wasn’t the witch who entered.
It was Finnegan.
“Good,” he said. “You’re awake.”
She stepped back, suddenly very aware of the way her nightgown brushed below her knees. “Finnegan,” she said. “What are you doing here?”
“I have something to show you.”
She shook her head. Her fingers tightened around the book. “My guards—”
“They let me in.”
“They let you in?”
“It’s surprising what people will do if you give them enough coins. I’m doing you a favor, coming here.”
“You’re doing me a favor?” she echoed. “By breaking into my room at night?”
“Something is happening,” he said. “Down in the dungeons. Something you need to see.”
Aurora shivered. She wrapped her free arm across her stomach, clutching her elbow. Explosions in the square, innocent people arrested, rebels who wanted the king dead. Dread crawled up her spine.
“Show me,” she said.
Apart from her guards, her corridor was deserted, but she could hear voices and people running, the sounds echoing up from lower floors.
Finnegan took her hand. His palm was warm, his fingers sliding between hers. “This way,” he said.
He led her down the corridor until they reached a battered tapestry at the top of the stairs. He lifted it with his free hand, revealing a narrow passageway. The torchlight illuminated the first few feet, showing rough stone coated with dust, but the darkness beyond was impenetrable. Anything could lurk within.
Aurora hesitated.
“Only way to get around unnoticed,” Finnegan said. “Come on.” She stepped under his arm into the tunnel. He followed her, dropping the tapestry as he went, so the material slapped against their backs, plunging them into darkness. Aurora tightened her hold on his hand. He squeezed back.
“Don’t worry,” he said. “I won’t let the monsters get you.”
“I wasn’t worried,” she said. “I don’t want to lose you in the dark.”
“Of course not. I wouldn’t want to lose me either.”
He walked on. Aurora’s toes curled as she stepped in dust, the occasional cobweb sticking to her skin. She could barely make out the shape of Finnegan’s shoulder ahead of her, the arm stretching back to hold her hand. Apart from their movements, the hiss of their breath, the passage was still.
“There are stairs down here,” Finnegan said. “Be careful.”
The stairs twisted beneath them. She tested each movement with her toes, turning her feet so they fit on the worn steps. Finnegan walked without hesitation, as though he had taken this path many times before.
A light glowed ahead. She could hear voices again, faint ones, but the echo made it impossible to understand the words. They paused a few steps from the bottom, listening.
She recognized one of the speakers. Tristan.
Aurora hurried past Finnegan, her feet slipping in her haste. The stairs opened onto a small alcove. Beyond, Aurora could only see an unlit stone wall, the light of nearby sconces spilling across the uneven floor. Aurora clung to the wall with her fingertips, peering around the corner.
Tristan stood toward the end of the corridor, dressed in the garb of the castle servants. A guard held his arms behind his back, while another leaned into his face. “It’s like I told you,” Tristan said. “I was passing through on my way to bed, and I heard a commotion. I rushed to see what was happening.”
“Strange that I haven’t seen your face before, dutiful servant as you are,” the guard said.
“Ask the king,” Tristan said. “He’ll vouch for me. He gave me the job himself. I’ve worked for him for years.”