Thornwood by Leah Cypess (read after .txt) 📕

“Of course not,” he agreed. “Then you would have to bend down to throw more of it across the room. That would be undignified.”

When the kitchen girls laughed at me—for the stains on my clothes, or the tangles in my hair, or my histrionic rages when Rosalin and I fought—they would do it behind my back. It was brave of this boy, I supposed, to laugh to my face.

“Excuse me,” I said, lifting my chin. “I must go.”

“If you do want to topple the cake, I’ll help you.”

“I think I can handle it by myself. If I was going to handle it. Which I wasn’t.”

The boy studied the cake. “Are you sure? It seems like it would make you feel better.”

“Maybe,” I said. “But it won’t change anything, will it?”

“It might change how you feel.”

There were still tears trickling down the sides of my nose, but I couldn’t wipe them off without smearing frosting all over my face. I looked around. No towel in sight.

“Have you seen a canary, by any chance?” I said.

The boy blinked. “No.”

“Where are the kitchen maids?” I demanded. “Estella, and Greta, and Siobel—”

The boy looked uncomfortable. “I don’t think they’re here.”

“I can see that.”

“I mean, they’re not anywhere in the castle.”

“Where else would they be?”

He looked at me like I was dimwitted. “No one who lives in the village came to work this morning. I mean, that morning. They didn’t want to get stuck here when the curse…you know.”

That was why the pastry chef hadn’t wanted to bake the cake on Rosalin’s birthday. He wasn’t planning to be here. No one was planning to be here, unless they had nowhere else to be.

I tried to reach into my fuzzy memories, to see if the kitchen girls had told me what they were going to do. Nope. They hadn’t said a word.

Well. I had always known they weren’t really my friends, that they had to pretend they liked me because I was a princess. But a tiny, secret part of me had never stopped hoping they liked me for real.

So much for that.

“They must be dead by now,” the boy added. “Everyone we know must be dead, unless they’re in the castle with us.” He bit the side of his lip, as if trying not to laugh out loud.

Hysteria, I thought. But that wasn’t it. There was a smug note in his voice, as if he was sincerely delighted by the thought of all those people being dead.

My fingernails dug into my palms. “Before you get too triumphant about it,” I said, “you should realize that the castle isn’t the safest place to be right now, either. Have you looked out a window since you woke?”

He pursed his lips. “I have.”

“And the view doesn’t worry you?”

“The prince is here. He can cut us out, can’t he?”

“Not without his sword,” I said. “Which, apparently, he left in the Thornwood.”

“Did he?” The boy’s eyes narrowed. “How careless of him.”

Why was I trying to frighten a random servant? Just because I was scared didn’t mean everyone else had to be. “It’s all right,” I said. “We’ll figure out a solution, don’t worry. I’m working on it right now.” Though “working on it” was admittedly a bit of an exaggeration. “Do you know where the king and queen are?”

I was talking to empty air. The boy was running out the kitchen door.

I wiped my hands clean on the side of the table—the cook, after all, wasn’t here to yell at me for it—and looked again at the cake. There was now an ugly hollow in its side, with yellow crumbs and bits of frosting jumbled together inside it.

I thought about pushing it over, but that no longer seemed worth the effort. What did it matter whose fault it was that we were trapped in here? What mattered was getting out.

I had to find my parents.

I headed for the royal sitting room, taking the servants’ way because it was quicker. That turned out to be a mistake. I had only gone this way once or twice, and my memories were vague and incomplete. Somehow, when I got to the turn I thought led to the sitting room, I found myself facing a long hallway ending at a large bay window with thorn branches pressed against it.

The hall was deserted, its walls bare stone—it had become too expensive to repair tapestries once we’d stopped spinning our own thread—and the thorn-covered window didn’t let in much light. The shadows seemed darker and sharper than shadows should be. I shivered, then forced myself to walk to the end of the hall. If I could just figure out which side of the castle I was on…

But the view from the window didn’t help me. The thorns were a thick bramble, letting only the faintest bits of sunlight through. Still, there was sunlight, and the sunlight in the tower had been coming from the east. So I was probably facing east now. Which meant that to get to the throne room, I had to turn—

Something snapped around my wrist, driving sharp spikes into my skin.

I screamed and yanked my arm. The branch that had grabbed me yanked back so hard that I was dragged toward the window.

“No!” My voice split the silence. “Let go!” I tried to dig my heels in, but I was no match for the strength of the branch pulling me. “Help! Someone, help!”

There was no answer but the relentless sound of my heels slowly being dragged along the rug.

The branch pulled, slowly and steadily. Thorns dug into my wrist with sharp stabs of fiery pain. I pulled back with all my strength, and agony shot through my arm. With my free hand, I reached out frantically for something to hold on to. My fingers closed on empty air.

My feet hit the wall below the window. Another branch snaked along the sill and tangled in my hair. A third coiled toward my