I felt a hum in the air, as if an urgent discussion took place just out of earshot. Then the most recent book I'd taken down rose from the table I'd put it on, and settled itself firmly back into place on the shelves. I laughed. "All right. Thank you."
The air hummed again, and I went about my business a while longer before climbing into the dome through a staircase built neatly into the shelves. Gold-painted lead joined the windows, each of which were a tremendous arching triangle of glass that ran from floor to roof. They warped a little near the bottoms, showing their age, but the clarity at eye-height and above astonished me.
The Beast's palace was a patch of tamed land in the midst of a forest that went on forever on all sides. I had no sense which direction home lay; there were no tell-tale threads of smoke rising to indicate our village, or any other, nor any cut in the forest roof to suggest a river running through it. The treetops were black and white with winter right now, but in the summer I imagined the green leaves would look like a carpet that could be walked on all the way to the edge of the world.
It was hard to tell where exactly the rose gardens ended and the forest began, even with the high stone wall that surrounded the palace grounds. At the front of the palace, along the driveway, the demarcation was clear enough, but forest and roses grew together beyond that, as if the forest intended to one day encroach upon, and defeat, the palace at its heart.
I shivered, deciding the dome was perhaps best left for night, when all that could be seen were the stars. It only took a few minutes to work my way back to my room, the long halls offering scant temptation to explore them. There would be plenty of time to do that, and I was both hungry and tired.
A fire still crackled in my room, and the book I'd taken down now sat on a table beside a chair before the fire. I brushed my fingers over it on the way by, saying, "Thank you," again, but went to investigate the bedroom I hadn't looked at earlier.
Sunset was coming on, and in its light, my room swam like a pool of gold. The bed's clothes were a dark sky blue, embroidered with fanciful beasts and birds of gold, and its frame, like the rest of the furniture in the room, was of golden oak, rich but not dark with age. The furniture covers were done in blue and gold as well, though a deeper shade of blue, and the floor, where it could be seen beneath rugs and furs, glowed as golden as the furniture. The walls were tapestry-lined, keeping warmth in, but they too were light in shade, and picked with threads of gold. It was not just the effect of the tidy hearth in one wall that made the room seem warmer than the rest of the palace, but the light and color. The Beast wanted me to like it here, which was either reassuring or disturbing, depending on how I wanted to think about it.
For the moment, I would take reassuring. I went to the vanity, which held as fine a mirror as I'd ever seen, and touched its table-top before laughing.
The mirror's frame and the table's edging were both amber, glowing pieces of polished gold that looked lovely against the table's blue and white streaked agate surface. A hand mirror entirely backed in amber lay on the table, and upon inspection, the comb in one drawer, and the brush beside it, were respectively of, and backed by, amber. "Enough," I said, as if the servants could respond. "Perhaps too much, in fact. Thank you for welcoming me, but enough."
That almost-audible hum rustled the air again. I turned as if I could see the speakers, and instead found a gown lying on the bed. It was not amber-colored, and I wondered if that had been the topic my invisible servants were discussing; I wouldn't put it past them to have somehow changed the color while I was turning around. No, instead it was blue with lighter blue roses embroidered onto it—I hadn't been wearing blue when I arrived, and I wondered how they knew I liked it—had an underskirt of a dark, handsome red, and sleeves that hadn't lost their minds with frills and scoops. I had worn much more dramatic gowns when we lived in the city, but this one seemed suitable for dinner with a Beast, especially since I could put it on by myself.
By the time I went to inspect myself in the vanity mirror, one more thing had changed: a half-moon amber necklace lay on the blue agate, the pendant set in gold wire that bound it to a delicate chain. Crescent moon amber earrings lay beside it, but it was the necklace that knocked my breath away. I sank to the vanity's stool, collecting the pendant in my palm, and whispered, "So you hadn't forgotten me, after all."
I bowed my head and cried over the necklace a long time; long enough that when I had finally wept myself dry, I supposed dinner had been taken hours earlier, and that the Beast had presumed himself stood up. But I was fiercely hungry by then, so I rose and went in search of the dining hall, or at least the kitchen, and perhaps also the Beast.
None of those three things were difficult to find: I followed my nose—or maybe the subtle guidance of an invisible servant—to the dining room, beyond which presumably lay the kitchen, but I had no need to go that far: the Beast awaited me at a table that looked untouched. Or, rather, the Beast awaited me by the fire, near a table of food that looked untouched. I stopped in the doorway, fingers folded around the necklace. I'd wanted to wear it, to remind me of my family. Too late I wondered what wearing it might say to him.
He turned his head as he'd done when exiting the library: acknowledging me, but not looking at me. "Are you all right?"
There were far too many answers to that, available in a range of tones from tragic to sarcastic. I settled, after a long moment's silence, on, "Not particularly."
The Beast nodded as though he'd expected nothing less. He was better dressed than he had been earlier: not just trousers, but a well-tailored coat that did nothing to hide his bulk but hid a great deal of fur, and a cravat tied so neatly I assumed his invisible servants had done the job. "Don't you get awfully warm in that?"
He met my eyes, startled, and laughed. It appeared I had a capacity for surprising my host, which, given his claws and teeth, seemed like it could end badly for me. He didn't leap to rend me, though, only made a gesture at himself, at the clothes, and said, "Yes."
"But you wear it anyway."
"Particularly at mealtimes," he confessed. "It helps keep fur out of the food."
I didn't want to smile, but I did anyway. "Well, if you've gone to all that trouble, and there's all this food waiting, maybe we should eat. I'm starving. Not," I said a moment later, as we sat down, "this starving…"
The table was long enough to comfortably seat my entire family and the Beast besides, and laden from one end to another with food. Roast pheasant, half a boar, a rack of lamb despite the improbable season for such; sauces ranging from mint to cranberry and innumerable in between; vegetables with crispy brown edges from roasting in goose fat, and half a dozen bottles of wine. That was just what I could easily see. I had no doubt there were more delectables hidden away.
"I eat a great deal," the Beast said carefully.