Once Upon a Time: New Fairy Tales Paperback

Justus recognized his own words being thrown at him again, and he snorted. “No, your head is just so big it takes extra time.”


Monster cackled and gave Justus another week, and they took up their routine once more. The statue began to take on the Greve’s likeness, though it wasn’t as Justus had intended.

The snarl looked more like a grin, and eyes that were supposed to be squinted with hate looked tilted in mirth. Every strong muscle was present, but Justus’s hands hadn’t forgotten a layer of fur and feathers to soften Monster’s bulk. Justus tried to pretend ? 253 ?

? Castle of Masks ?

the friendly cast to the carving was due to his own inadequacy as a sculptor.

Monster’s company distracted Justus from fretting too much.

Most of the time he let his hands work while he listened to Monster’s deep voice reading poems and fairy tales, biographies and adventures, and even a hunting guide written by a clueless old nobleman a hundred years before, at which the two of them laughed themselves to tears.

“Now one of your ears is too short!” Justus complained, gasping with silent laughter.

“According to Lord Foxbane here, they’ll give me away in the brush, because mounted fops have ‘an eagle’s eye view of their prey.’

You’d best trim the other ear, too. For my safety.”

That night, Justus went to his chambers with a heavy heart.

He was down to sanding away splinters and scratching unnecessary details into the mouth and stitches. It was finished, and he knew it. But if Justus stopped carving, he would be given a real weapon, and it would be time to kill his friend. Now it was no longer just an assassination; it was a betrayal. He would regret it for longer than he’d anticipated it. And yet it must be done. For the sake of Gudrun, and the sake of all who might follow her into an early and terrible grave.

His reverie was broken by the sound of female laughter in the corridor. The door was locked, as usual, but Justus had found that hairpins were a good size for tripping the tumblers.

This would be his last night. He hadn’t seen anyone since the hunting trip but Valfrid, Monster, and silent Rigmora. If he wanted to change that, it must be now.

The corridor was empty. Justus lifted his skirts and hugged them close so they wouldn’t rustle and give him away. Echoes led him to the right. Cold stone chilled his bare feet.

Hushed giggles threaded into the dark with curls of dead candle smoke and the hissing of drowned lamp wicks. When he was close ? 254 ?

? Cory Skerry ?

enough to see a glow of yellow light, he could also hear gossip about a budding relationship between kitchen scullions. Just before he announced himself, one of the girls turned in profile, tucking a curtain of dark hair behind her ear. Justus’s heart leaped.

It was the cheerful laundry girl.

Justus would have given anything at that moment to look like himself: his hair brushing his brow, his face bare of makeup, at least wearing some trousers. He couldn’t bear to speak to her dressed like this.

The laundry girl reached up, turning the wick on a wall-mounted lamp, and Justus held his breath so he wouldn’t curse. Ragged scars snaked up from her bust and over her shoulder, disappearing down her back. Her ruined skin looked like the wood around the doorknob to Monster’s sitting room.

The other girl had only one arm.

Justus lost himself for a few moments, a cyclone of rage spinning in his chest. His hands tightened on his skirts, and he had to talk himself out of stomping into Monster’s room and stabbing him with the cutlass that very instant.