Isbe says nothing. She says nothing, and says nothing, and then says more nothing. Minutes tick by until she’s convinced that they too have caught the sickness and that it is gradually numbing their throats and minds.
Finally she steels herself, stepping back into the role she has always played, the invisible armor she has had to wear every day of her life, just before entering the dining hall to meet the critical gaze of her stepmother, or undergoing another lecture by the council, or hunching beneath the blow of an angry kitchen wench’s metal pot. And then, invisible armor in place, she takes that cumbersome, weighty, ever-expanding nothing and turns it into something.
“Kiss her,” she commands, her chest made of iron. “It’s time.”
William doesn’t respond. He doesn’t, to her relief—or dismay, or incomprehensible regret—resist.
She holds her breath. She holds everything back, every single feeling and thought shoved into a dark cove at the very heart of her—other than one: wake up.
Wake up. Wake up. Wake up.
William leans over the bed. He lifts his mask almost silently. He hesitates one more moment and then—
“Isabelle,” he whispers. She realizes she’s been frozen—she’s not sure for how long.
“Yes?” she whispers back.
“It’s not working.”
“What do you mean it’s not working?”
“I kissed her. She hasn’t stirred. Did you . . . did you really think she would?”
Fury flies up Isbe’s spine. “You aren’t doing it right. You must love her. It’s the kiss of true love. It’s . . . she believed in it. It’s—it can’t be any other way.” Her throat burns. Her lungs are on fire. She is going to be sick. “You are her destined husband,” Isbe insists desperately. “And it’s Aurora. She’s so beautiful. She’s so perfect!” Isbe shudders, her voice breaking like shattered glass.
Anger sparks and then gutters into shame, dismay, confusion. How can it not work? It has to work. Not for any logical reason, but by sheer dint of her needing it to. Of wishing it so.
But wishing never got anyone anywhere.
“I’m sorry,” he murmurs, and his now-familiar, rustling-leaves voice blows through her with chilly certainty.
It didn’t work.
Aurora is still asleep.
32
Aurora
Aurora drags a heavy ax through the quiet of the sleeping castle, dew still clinging to the hem of her dress. The morning fields had opened before her like a series of yawns, great mouths watering with hunger, and she’d allowed them to swallow her for hours as she wandered, searching. Since the necklace of pearls and rubies now lay scattered throughout the Borderlands, she’d need something else, she knew, something powerful—stronger than the rose lullaby. An object from the real world that could break through the queen’s illusions once and for all.
And then she remembered the story Heath had told her, of the soldiers who first tried to break out of Blackthorn, one of them successfully forming a rift in the wall with an ax. And so she’d scoured the estate, finally coming upon a store of tools. This ax had stood out to her as different from the others—a complex design decorated the stone head. The wood of the handle was weathered and old. It felt firm in her hands, definite, unlike so many other objects in Sommeil, which seemed to give just slightly when held, to take on some flavor of the person who had touched them.
As she passes through each of the now-familiar rooms and halls of Blackthorn, Aurora reminds herself that this might be the last time she sees them. She knows what she must do: she must make Belcoeur remember. She must make her realize that Charles is never going to come, and that jealousy has eroded her mind. If the queen can let go of her jealousy, she can let go of her dreams and move on. She can set Aurora free—set all of them free.
Though Aurora isn’t certain who came between Charles Blackthorn and Belcoeur, she has a good guess. After all, she knows something about jealous sisters. Wasn’t it the last thing she said to Isbe before her own sister fled? Don’t be jealous of me. Aurora knows the unfairness of life better than anyone: some are born princesses, some bastards. That is how the world has always worked and will always work; those who are born blessed will be the envy of those who are not.
The musty scent of the corridor leading to the north hall clings to Aurora’s senses, filling her with sadness. She feels draped in its longing like a physical weight, its stickiness like a spider’s web that wants to pull her back, back, back—the walls whisper. Stay. They throb. Don’t hurt us, they seem to say.
But sometimes pain is the only way.
She reaches the north hall, and the door that only recently had opened elegantly before her, inviting her closer to the queen’s lair. Once again, however, the door is locked. The knob is cold and hard as bone. The castle is so quiet she can hear her breath loud in her ears.
Don’t hurt us. Stay.
Aurora’s arms pulse from the weight of the ax. She lifts it over her head.
And then, she swings it down.
A loud krick-crack ripples through the air as the stone axhead meets the wooden door, splintering it. Pound . . . pound . . . thwack. It takes several swings, and with each, the door shudders, cries, cracks further, and Aurora could swear she feels how it wants to heal itself closed, keeping her out. The splintering wood seems to sigh a final stop. She swings again, throwing all of her strength into it.
Finally the door collapses.
Her hands are raw. Her back is strained and tight. Her arms feel like lead.
She grabs a lit torch from a sconce and steps inside. The hall of tapestries. The den of fog.
Finding her way around the wing doesn’t prove easy, though. There are doorways that cut right in the middle of walls that lead to twisting tunnels, each impenetrably dark, studded with mouse droppings and the occasional chilling sound of scratching or whimpering—Aurora soon finds herself disoriented. It’s not just the winding passageways of the forbidden wing that have her so turned around. She has the distinct impression that the chambers have all stood up and rearranged themselves every time she emerges into a new room, like an endless maze.
And then she recalls that her own palace used to have many of these tunnels before they were blocked with plaster—all but the one connecting her room to Isbe’s. Yes.
As quickly as the thought comes to her, she is able to slide back a wall hanging and enter another passageway, one sloped steeply upward . . . and uncomfortably familiar.
Aurora lets out the breath she didn’t know she was holding as she bursts out the other side, into a tower bedroom that looks very much like her own at home.