His smile grew at her assertion, as though he expected nothing less from her. “Ah, but I made them think I had that kind of power. Don’t you think that shows some intelligence and initiative too? I’m sure you know plenty about letting people believe lies, with your wedding to your true love so close. The only difference is, my lie makes me look powerful. It gets me what I want. Your lie just puts you in the background. And you do look so stifled there.”
“I will not be in the background for long,” she said. “I will make a difference.”
“Really? Is that what you think?”
She forced herself not to look away. “I woke up for a reason,” she said. “I’ll make sure of it.”
“And who says that reason is Rodric? Who says the reason is staying here?”
She threw up her chin. Her hair tickled her neck. “The fact that he woke me up, and you didn’t? Rodric will make a good king. And I will make a good queen.”
“I don’t doubt it,” he said. “But let me tell you something. Rodric might make a good king someday, but not now. Not in this mess. What do you plan to do in the meantime?” She did not reply. “For someone so fierce, you seem surprisingly happy to be powerless. You don’t have to stay here and go down with the rest of them. If you came with me, you could let some of that fire out. Be who you are actually meant to be.”
Fire. The burns on her hands throbbed.
“I would have thought you have enough fire,” she said. “What with that dragon problem of yours.”
“The dragons are beautiful,” he said. “But none is quite so lovely and terrifying as you. John and Iris don’t even know what they have in you.”
“And what is that?”
“Now, I’d be a fool to tell you, wouldn’t I, if you aren’t going to be on my side. But you should be careful, Princess. I doubt setting your dear Rodric on fire would fit in with your plans.”
She drew in a breath, cold and sharp. “How did you—”
“So it is true,” he said. “I thought so. Word of advice, Princess: don’t ever assume that anyone knows as much as you do. You never know what you might end up giving away.”
She pressed her lips together, hating him, hating herself for revealing too much. For falling under the spell of the argument, of the terrible possibilities he promised, and forgetting to guard herself. “You’re despicable.”
“No,” he said. “I am honest. At least with you.” He was standing too close to her, but she could not move away. “They will destroy you, you know,” he said. “When they find out who you really are.”
“I will not betray my kingdom.”
“It would not have to be a betrayal, Aurora,” he said. “Everyone else is playing the game. Why can’t you?”
She stepped back, her heart pounding. “It isn’t a game,” she said. Finnegan was still too close, his presence filling the room. She moved toward the door, trying to hide the way her hands shook. “Thank you for your advice,” she said. “But I will not change my mind.”
“Of course not, Princess,” he said. The name seemed taunting on his tongue. “But I’ll be waiting if you do.”
The queen called Aurora to her chambers again that afternoon for the final fitting of her wedding dress. It fell in streams of gossamer and ice, floating ethereal on the air and transforming her into a fairy that might have slipped, like a dewdrop, out of the mist. Two of the seamstresses gasped and exclaimed at her beauty, while the third, the tall, austere one, stood farther back and watched the scene with stern, approving eyes.
“What do you think of it, Aurora?” the queen asked as a seamstress placed a single lily behind the princess’s ear. The queen clutched Aurora by the shoulders and spun her gently toward a full-length mirror, decorated with swirling silver and darted through with jewels.
“It’s beautiful.” And it was. Her hair fell down her shoulders like a waterfall of golden silk, while the material of the dress shimmered with such delicacy that one touch might make it melt away into nothing. The bodice was tight, forcing in Aurora’s stomach, but it also straightened her back, making her tall, elegant, regal. She reached out and touched the cold glass with the tip of her index finger. The skin still seemed to prickle from the point of a needle. This is my destiny. Her head began to spin.
After the dress had been pinned and tucked, and the seamstresses had scurried away, the queen met her eyes in the mirror. “I think you will do,” she said. She ran a hand down the back of Aurora’s hair. “If you follow my instructions, perhaps things will turn out well.”
If she practiced her lies. If she remained as careful, as false, as Iris herself.
Aurora stared at their reflection. The queen’s elegance was effortless, but beneath it, Aurora thought she seemed rather tired. “Tell me what it is like,” Aurora said slowly. “To be queen.”
The queen frowned, and for a moment, Aurora thought she was going to dismiss her. Then she spoke, her voice soft. “It is . . . hard,” she said. “They are always watching you, Aurora. You have all the appearance of authority, but no actual power. And if you let that appearance slip, you lose even that.”
“If you knew—if your husband were doing something terrible, would you stop him?”
“Aurora, my dear, I can as little control my husband as I can stop the rain. After many years, I have learned to cajole him. But my opinion stopped counting the moment I was sent here to marry him.” She ran her fingers through the ends of Aurora’s hair. “But you need not worry yourself about that. You have been given a good lot, for all your grief. Rodric is not that sort of boy.”
For a moment, Aurora considered going to Rodric and telling him what she had seen. About sneaking into the dungeons, about Tristan, about his father’s brutality. But she couldn’t do it. Not if it meant losing Rodric’s trust. He deserved more than her lies and fake smiles. He deserved the things she could not be.
Suddenly, she knew what she wanted to do. “I wish to see Rodric,” she said. The words burst out in an ungainly tumble.
Iris frowned. “The banquet is tomorrow, Aurora, and we have much to do. I am sure it can wait.”
“I wish to give him a favor,” Aurora said, clutching her skirt with her hand. From what she had read, it was precisely the thing a young princess would request. “I wish . . . to settle things. Before we marry.”
Perhaps it was her use of the word “marry,” the admission and acceptance of her future, that made the queen pause. “What is it you wish to give him?” she said.
“A book.”
The queen raised her eyebrows. “A book? That is hardly a traditional gift.”
Aurora’s fingers twisted in her skirt. She forced herself to look the queen in the eye. “No,” she said, “but I am hardly a traditional bride.”
She waited for Rodric in the queen’s garden, sitting stiffly on the chilly wooden bench. The trees here were still bare, but a few brave daffodils had poked their heads free from the soil and burst into bloom, a spattering of sunshine against the shadows of the afternoon. The book lay heavy in Aurora’s lap. She clutched it tightly and closed her eyes, trying to ignore the insistent footsteps of patrolling guards, trying to catch fragments of birdsong in the air.
“Princess?” Rodric stood in front of her, a concerned frown on his face. “Mother said you wanted to speak with me.”
She nodded and began to stand.
“No, please,” he said. “Let’s sit. I do not want to walk with the guards trailing us like assassins may jump out of the bushes at any second.”
“All right.” She held out the book as he sat. The gold lettering glinted in the fading sunlight. “I wanted to give you this.”
The Tale of Sleeping Beauty. Her thumb pressed over the golden spinning wheel engraved on the cover, right in the center. He did not move to take it.
“But . . . it’s yours.”
“No,” she said. “No, it’s not.” When he still did not move, she placed it on his knee. It wobbled, lurching toward the ground, and Rodric caught it with the heel of his hand.
“Why are you giving this to me?”