The prince rises to face me and rests his palm against my cheek.
“I don’t want to be the king of Tartarus anymore, Penny. You are a light shining into this hell. Do what you have already been doing. Show me the way.”
I sigh. “You can’t do this all at once. It’s going to take time. It’s going to be difficult. You have to change everything about this place. One day you or maybe your son or grandson is going to have to give up the power.”
“My line ends with me, unless you stay with me. I won’t have anyone else.”
“I don’t want that burden.”
“I don’t want mine. No one asked me to shoulder it. I’m giving you that choice, though. Stay with me until the end of the week, fly with me to America. If you leave me I will let you go. I fear I will die but I will let you go, and I will spend the rest of my life turning this land into a garden to await your return.”
“I… I might stay,” I admit. “I don’t know. I can’t think. I hate this place. I hate feeling the castle over my head, like it’s going to fall on us.”
“So do I. Come, I’ll take you back to your room.”
“I don’t want to stay there anymore,” I say as he pulls me to my feet. “I want to go with you.”
“You…do?”
“Don’t you want me to come?”
“Yes. In every sense of the word.”
Shocked, I flinch in his arms. He leans down and lightly sniffs my hair, and rests his hand on my shoulder. I slip my arms around him.
I don’t look at the torture chamber as I pass through it again.I look at him instead. He doesn’t lead me back to the hall. Instead we wind around another circular staircase around the inside of one of the towers to a private dining room, barely bigger than one you would find in any house.
“This is my solar,” he says, showing me.
There’s a desk in the corner strewn with papers…and an iPad, clashing weirdly with the medieval ambiance.
“I had the cooks prepare something for you,” he says as he pushes in my chair. “A surprise. Close your eyes.”
I eye him then squeeze my eyes tightly shut. When I open them, I find on the table in front of me…
A cheeseburger. A triple, no less, huge and steaming, the yellowy American cheese running molten over the edges of the patties. Kristoff has one, too. He prods it with his finger before he takes a knife and fork and cuts a sliver of it to eat, lifting it to his mouth with gentlemanly taste.
After chewing and swallowing he says, “I can see the appeal. Be careful, it’s hot.”
He barely finishes speaking before I scoop it up and take a big bite. My God, it’s good.
“You do not want ketchup? I am told a burger has ketchup.”
“Blrphermy,” I choke out, then swallow. “Blasphemy. On a burger this good? No way.”
“It pleases you?”
“Tremendously. Let me eat. I need to savor this.”
I eat slowly, closing my eyes half the time.
“So good,” I moan. “I could eat five of these. I want a milkshake.”
“I can get you four more if you would like.”
“I didn’t mean that…”
I trail off as one of the servants carries a milkshake in a tall glass on a silver tray. He sets it in front of me and I stare at it.
“Are you trying to make me fat?”
“Not yet. We’ll plump you up when you are carrying my child.”
“Don’t get ahead of yourself.”
He smiles as he watches me eat. The milkshake is so thick, too thick, really. I have to start off with a spoon. Not that I’m complaining.
I save the cherry for last, crushing it between my teeth.
“I think I could watch you eat all day.”
I dab at my lips with a napkin. “You seem to want to.”
I stifle a burp.
“What do you want to do with me now?”
“As long as I can remember, I have never slept in the presence of another person. Come with me.”
“It’s early yet.”
“I wish to talk more. Come.”
He rises and offers me his hand. Gingerly I take it and walk with him. We’re alone now, no servants, no guards. He walks me up another staircase. They never seem to run out.
The bedroom is as grand as the one where he’d been keeping me, and the bed just as large. Once inside he closes and bolts the door, and rests his hand on my back, guiding me to a huge, ornate sofa. I sit down at the far end, slipping my feet out of my clunky boots. I jerk my legs back and cover my toes with my skirt.
“In some ways I am as curious as the children were. I can’t imagine a life so different as yours, Penny. I’ve never been so free.”
“Were those your comic books up in the library?”
He looks at me and I swear, he’s blushing. He’s embarrassed.
“Not all. My grandfather started the collection and I set out to continue it. He was mad, as mad as my father, but there was a kindness in him, too. When he was older and stepped down from the throne in favor of my father, it changed him, as if some part of the madness left him to pass itself on.”
He notices my shoulders quivering.
“You’re shivering. Are you cold?”