What the hell do you care, Penny? You just want to go home.
Questions swirl around in my mind, like leaves caught in a dust devil. I lean over my knees and hold my head in my hands. Who was that girl? What’s up with those books? They looked like… I don’t want to say what they looked like.
I…need to change. I need to shower first, I feel sweaty and grubby. I make it a quick one and peer out from the bathroom to make sure the prince didn’t decide to just barge into my room again. After I dry off I clothe myself, and not in the cream-colored dress, but a powder-blue one that laces up the sides.
I look as stupid in this princess dress and matching slippers as I did the other one. I don’t know why I picked this one. It has a plunging neckline and the sleeves are low on my shoulders. I do almost like the way it looks, though. It suits my frame, I guess. My mom always told me I should show off my shoulders, don’t ask me why.
I pace around the room, going in circles until it feels like I must have worn holes in the soles of my slippers. I almost jump when there’s a knock at the door.
“Come in?”
The prince opens the door and takes a single step inside, then stops, openly staring at me. I feel a flush creeping up my neck and realize I’m blushing.
Oh for God’s sake, Penny.
It hits me hard when I realize that I’m actually, straight-up relieved to see him.
A deep breath and then I walk up to him.
“You’re not hurt?”
“Why do you care?”
The coldness in his voice stings me a little.
“You may not be my favorite person, but you’re still a person. I wouldn’t wish any harm on you.”
He blinks a few times. “That was rude of me. Forgive me.”
He offers his arm and I take it.
“I want you to speak with the cooks.”
“Why?”
“I want them to prepare something you’d like. I didn’t want to presume. Some sort of American cuisine. Forgive me, but I thought it would be somewhat patronizing to have them make cheeseburgers.”
“I could go for a cheeseburger,” I admit. “A double. No, a triple. With Velveeta, ketchup, and mayonnaise, fries on the side, and a large chocolate milkshake. A real glutton monster burger that I couldn’t even finish.”
“Is our food so bad?”
“No, I like the food here. I just miss my home.”
We walk in silence for a while as he contemplates my answer.
For some reason we’re going to eat in a different room than breakfast. I guess that makes sense. He could probably eat in a different room every day of the year and not run out of new places.
I gasp when we walk inside.
“This is the great hall,” he says, a touch of pride in his voice, like a few grains of salt on chocolate.
Great hall is an understatement. The vaulted ceiling is fifty feet up, and it’s wider from one side to the other. Huge hearths, tall enough to walk into upright, line the walls, though they’re not lit. At the far end is a dais with a throne behind a huge table, but there’s a smaller one in the open middle of the room, sized for two.
I move to pull out my own damn chair, but again the prince beats me to it, and pushes it in for me as well.
When he sits he looks tired, and stares at the table for a moment.
“I want to ask you something.”
He looks up and nods ever so slightly.
“I was in the library.”
“I see.”
I shift in my seat. “The books on the top shelf. Way up at the top of the tower. What are they bound in?”
“Why do you ask?”
I swallow, hard.
“They look like they’re bound in skin. People skin. I mean human skin.”
“They are.”
My stomach drops and I grab the arms of my chair. Oh my God. He’s going to turn me into a book.
Very funny. That’s about the most ironic way for an English teacher to die.
“When the crown prince of Kosztyla dies, his deeds are recorded in a book, which is in turn bound in his own skin. The practice is called anthropodermic bibliopegy.”
I relax. A little. Not much.
“Are you going to kill me and turn me into a book?”
“Not unless you ask nicely.”
I swallow, hard. “I have to tell you something.”
“Go on.”
“That is incredibly fucking creepy.”
He looks at me blankly for a second, as if he’s trying to parse what the word fucking means in that context, and then bursts out laughing. Real laughing that echoes through the hall. I just sit there wide eyed.
“You think it’s creepy? I have to look at that shelf knowing one day I’ll be added to the collection.”
“It’s just weird. Do you think you can, like, not do that?”
I laugh. Nervously. I sort of force it.
“I know it seems strange to you. At times it seems strange to me. My ancestors were odd men. My father once told me…” He trails off.
“Told you what?”
“He told me my forebears didn’t build a castle to keep the world out. They built it to keep us in.”
I shift in my seat.