So it was: I learned I would be queen via a rumor. It occurred to me that the gossipwitches might have spoken the truth.
Had true love entered into the story, I would gladly have exchanged my mountain life for it. Or, had I ever dreamed of power, perhaps I could have overlooked the absence of love. I had lavish chambers in the palace, where my every wish was granted. King Atlas was handsome—distant but not unkind. But when he became king, he spoke to me less, and the possibility of ever loving him began to flicker like a mirage.
The wedding date was set. Atlas still had not proposed to me. I was confined to my chambers, a splendid prison whose iron bars were velvet-covered. Alone in my dressing room one dusk, I put on my wedding gown and the lustrous orichalcum crown I would wear when I was presented to the kingdom. Twin tears welled in my eyes.
“Tears suit you even less than a vulgar crown,” a voice said from behind me.
I turned to find a figure sitting in shadows. “I thought no one could enter.”
“You’ll grow accustomed to being wrong,” the shadowed figure said. “Do you love him?”
“Who are you?” I demanded. “Step into the light, where I can see you.”
The figure rose from the chair. Candlelight caressed his features. He looked familiar, as if he were a fragment of a dream.
“Do you love him?” he repeated.
It was as if someone had stolen the breath from my lungs. The stranger’s eyes entranced me. They were the color of the cove where I swam in the morning as a girl. I could not help wanting to dive in.
“Love?” I whispered.
“Yes. Love. That which makes a life worth living. That which arrives to carry us where we need to go.”
I shook my head, though I knew it was treason to the king, punishable by death. I began to regret everything. The boy before me smiled.
“Then there’s hope.”
Once I had crossed the blue boundary of his eyes, I never wanted to find my way back. But I soon realized I was trespassing in a dangerous realm.
“You are Prince Leander,” I whispered, placing his fine features.
He nodded stiffly. “Back from five years’ traveling in the name of the Crown—though my own brother would have had the kingdom think that I was lost at sea.” He smiled a smile I was sure I’d seen before. “Then you, Selene, had to go and discover me.”
“Welcome home.”
He stepped from the shadows, pulled me to him, and kissed me with matchless abandon. Until that moment, I had not known bliss. I would have stayed locked in his kiss forever, but a memory returned to me. I pulled away, remembering a piece of the gossipwitches’ timeworn chatter.
“I thought you loved—”
“I never loved until I found you.” He spoke sincerely from a soul I knew I could never doubt. From that moment into infinity, nothing would matter to us but each other.
Only one thing stood between us and a universe of love …
SWAK
Madame B, Gilda, and Brunhilda
19
STORM CLOUDS
On Friday morning, before the bell, Brooks was waiting at Eureka’s locker. “You weren’t at Latin Club.”
His hands were stuffed in his pockets and he looked like he’d been waiting there awhile. He was blocking the locker next to Eureka’s, which belonged to Sarah Picou, a girl so terribly shy she’d never tell Brooks to move even if it meant going to class without her books.
Rhoda had insisted it would rain, and though the drive to school had been clear and bright, Eureka had her heather-gray slicker on. She liked hiding under its hood. She’d hardly slept and didn’t want to be at school. She didn’t want to talk to anyone.
“Eureka”—Brooks watched her twirl the dial on her combination lock—“I was worried.”
“I’m fine,” she said. “And late.”