Isbe shivers. She fears the woman may topple over and die in her presence. She sounds so weak. Her teeth are beginning to chatter. . . . “What is Sommeil?” Without thinking, Isbe places a reassuring hand on the faerie’s arm.
“Don’t!” Almandine screams. Her scream turns into a hacking cry. “Don’t touch me. Don’t ever touch me. I can’t take it. I can’t—” The woman is wracked with dry, choking heaves.
Isbe has no idea what to do. She recalls from Binks’s story that Almandine is the faerie whose tithe is touch. She’s a known sensualist. Just like Annette said. And yet . . . earlier, the housemaid was talking about Almandine having changed since her visit to LaMorte. Muttering about giant-beaked vultures coming to consume us all.
One thing is clear: whatever happened up there in LaMorte has destroyed Almandine. Which means the faerie queen Malfleur is just as powerful—and just as merciless—as they have feared.
As Almandine’s coarse weeping turns back into a low, unsteady murmuring, Isbe steps away from her and hurries to the exit. She doesn’t want to hear any more. She needs to find William and get out of here.
But the faerie’s words reach her even as she’s fumbling for the door, and they slither around her like poisoned vines.
“They’re coming. They’re coming. They’re coming.”
29
Aurora
The storm has lasted days, and Aurora has yet to fully understand what happened: the kiss that made its mark on her, irremovable—not exactly a wound, but something that she senses will never fully heal or disappear. Her whole body still aches from it. She finds she is trembling as she lies alone in her room, unable to sleep. And yet . . . she thought she’d know when true love happened, like she told Heath. But there are no answers, only more questions, more unfulfilled yearnings, more fears.
In one instance, though, the truth has crystalized.
She was thirteen; Isbe fifteen. It was raining then too. Aurora was going through a phase of always wanting to dress her older sister up, encourage her to look and act more like a princess and less like a ruffian who happened to stumble into the palace on a stray wind. Isbe, of course, couldn’t have been less interested, but that didn’t stop Aurora from trying. Lately, Aurora had come to see her sister as the object of an unfolding romance, and the thought fascinated her to no end. This had come about largely due to the secret love letters they had discovered in a cracked stone just outside Isbe’s bedroom wall, and which Aurora had read and interpreted to Isbe. They were never addressed to a particular person, and they weren’t signed either.
The mystery lit Aurora on fire. Isbe, being blind, could not read. Nor could most women in the palace. Aurora was an exception—without a voice, she was left with long hours during which she’d taught herself the alphabet and a vocabulary of which she was very proud. As for the men, it was likely that only one of highborn blood had the skill of penmanship to write these secret letters. Several distant but not unattractive dignitaries had been visiting court for the past month, and Aurora knew it had to be one of them.
Isbe, predictably, denied the notion that any of the young men might have noticed her favorably, but it was the only explanation, and Aurora was both terrified and thrilled. What would happen if someone asked for her sister’s hand in marriage? Would they be separated? She at once longed for the romantic drama to unfold and ached for things to remain the same forever.
On this one particular rainy morning, Aurora had uncovered a chest in a seldom-used visiting room in the west hall, containing lavishly embroidered hennins with long-flowing veils, bejeweled buckles, and sumptuous surcoats lined in ermine and fox, much of which had belonged to her mother, Queen Amélie. The council had ordered most of the queen’s personal furnishings and possessions burned a year prior, in an effort to ward off a return of the plague that killed her. But that didn’t scare Aurora. She was thrilled to discover that something of her mother’s had remained intact. It was a touchy subject between the sisters: when the queen was alive, she had made it no secret that she resented Isbe’s presence, a constant reminder of the king’s earlier dalliances. But Aurora always felt that they would have learned to love each other, had each given the other a chance. She mourned not only the loss of her mother but the missed chance for Isbe to see her as she had.
Still, belonging to the queen or not, these garments would be perfect for Isbe to try on. Perhaps Aurora might even convince her to parade in them through the quarters where the youngest of the dignitaries was staying.
With one of the sapphire-studded tiaras still in her hand, Aurora dashed to Isbe’s room to share the exciting news, shoving open the door without knocking. The sisters never knocked; more often than not they came through the hidden passageway connecting their bedrooms.
She entered and dropped the tiara in surprise. It fell to the floor with a loud clatter. Isbe was not in her room—but Gilbert was. He turned at the sound and blushed deeply. He’d gone through his growth spurt only recently and didn’t yet seem to own the breadth of his shoulders. His red hair was matted and wet with rain—he’d clearly climbed in through the window, which was still open. In his hand was a folded piece of thin vellum.
Aurora stared.
It couldn’t be. Gil couldn’t even write, let alone afford vellum and ink! Besides, Aurora knew the two of them had become very close, but only as friends. Her sister would never entertain the affections of a stableboy, would she? It didn’t make any sense.
“Aurora,” Gil said quietly.
She cocked her head at him. Her expression must have been all too plain: what are you doing?
“I . . . please. Don’t tell.” He rushed one hand through his dripping hair.
Aurora’s forehead crinkled.
“I know. She can’t even read them. I realize how ridiculous it seems. I never meant for her to read them anyway. Not really. I have no hope that . . .”
Aurora still stared, confused.
“Roul helped me find a courier to write them out for me.”
Disappointment settled into her like a low cloud, dampening all her amorous fantasies. So Isbe had been right—there was no foreign dignitary madly in love with her. There was no secret paramour. There was just Gilbert, the stableboy.
Indignation trumped disappointment. How dare he risk the injury of her sister’s heart? How dare he crush Isbe’s hopes? Though even as she asked herself, she knew that she and not Isbe was the one crushed, not by the dashed dream of love but by the unpleasantly ordinary end to the grand story she’d been concocting in her head.
And though she couldn’t speak, her body language as she slammed open the door and held it wide for Gilbert said everything: get out.