Thornwood by Leah Cypess (read after .txt) 📕

“You’ve missed a few things,” I said. “I’ll explain on the way.”

It turned out that explain was a bit of an exaggeration. I was able to fill Edwin in on what had happened since our disastrous attempt to fight the Thornwood. I had a bit more trouble explaining why any of it had happened, what it meant, or how we were going to deal with it.

Luckily, the minstrel had decided to stay behind and “get his song ready for the ball,” so I was able to speak freely as we walked through the corridors. Rosalin and Varian walked a few steps ahead of us, talking in low tones. At one point, Varian started to reach for Rosalin’s hand, then stopped before she noticed. Probably wise, even though I thought there was about a fifty percent chance she wouldn’t have pulled away. I recognized the signs of my sister getting over a snit.

“So,” Edwin said, “the whole spell was really designed by the fairy godmother to put the fairy queen to sleep? And now that your sister is awake, the fairy queen is also awake and is probably going to kill us all?”

“Well,” I said. “Yes. But it’s not as bad as it sounds, because…um…”

“…because the fairy godmother who made this happen in the first place has now promised that she can save us?”

“Well, no,” I said. “She didn’t actually promise anything.”

Edwin groaned. “I think I liked the minstrel’s version better.”

“Sorry,” I said. “Would you prefer to have been left there with him?”

“Tough call.” Edwin chewed the side of his lip. “That bed was very comfortable.”

“I’m sure it was,” I said. “But we need you.”

His eyes widened, and I noticed for the first time that they were the gray-blue color of the sky right after sunrise. He looked like I had just handed him an unexpected gift.

It made me uncomfortable, so I raised my eyebrows at him. “You have proved yourself useful in the past. Just try to rescue the right princess this time.”

Edwin kept looking at me, with no change in his expression. “I think I rescued the right princess already.”

A warm feeling rose in my throat. “Well. It’s good to have some variety.”

As we passed one of the large rectangular windows, the velvet curtains jutted out and a thorn-covered branch slid between them and reached in our direction. I jumped away and quickened my pace, hearing fabric rip behind me.

“I’m sorry,” I said.

Edwin blinked. “For what?”

“For getting you into this.”

“You didn’t get me into anything,” Edwin pointed out. “I’m the only person in the castle who wanted to be here. Well, me and the minstrel, I guess. I have no reason to be angry at anyone.”

I let out a breath, surprised at how relieved I felt. But I’ve never been very good at knowing when to let things go. “You chose to be here so that after a hundred years you could go back to a village full of people who didn’t know you. I don’t think your goal was to end up trapped in the Thornwood and stuck in the middle of some kind of fairy war.”

“No,” he admitted. “I didn’t anticipate that. But, you know. People who walk into enchanted castles have no right to expect things to go according to plan.”

“Aren’t you scared?” I said.

“I’m used to being scared. I’m always scared.” Something dark flickered on his face. “Fear is like any other bad emotion. It settles in your gut like a rock, and you work around it.”

But my fear didn’t feel like a rock. It was a quiver running through me, a weakness that had taken over my body from the inside.

Edwin reached for my hand, squeezed it, and let go. “It will be all right,” he said. “You bargained with the fairy to save me, and I’ll…I’ll find a way to save you, too. As long as we work together, I think we’ll get out before it’s too late. Don’t you?”

I avoided his gaze, watching the thorny vines wind along the walls. Now my fear was mingled with guilt, because I still hadn’t told Edwin the whole truth. Nobody knew what the fairy had told me, about the way we could all get out of here.

The human who can make the Thornwood stop is your sister. And the way she can stop it is by dying in it.

I couldn’t tell him. I couldn’t tell anyone. The people here already blamed Rosalin for trapping us in the castle. If they knew that her death could save us all…

Because the thing was, they were right. We had done this to them. We had been scared, so we had done the only thing we could to save Rosalin’s life. We had gone to that room with the spinning wheel, knowing what would happen.

Had we even thought about anyone but ourselves?

We had acted like this was our story. Like the other people in it—everyone in this castle, and outside it, too—were minor details we didn’t have to pay attention to.

I had been so angry at Rosalin for thinking of me that way. But I was no better.

And as we walked down the hall, our footsteps thudding on the rug, I found that I had no answer to Edwin’s question.

We walked into the entrance hall and stopped short.

The Thornwood had spread across the front wall like a grotesque, deadly decoration. One branch had dislodged the portrait of my great-grandfather King Sigamond the Brave, leaving it hanging lopsided from one corner. King Sigamond looked annoyed, though to be fair, he had looked that way even when the portrait was straight.

“They’re growing faster,” I said.

“Indeed,” Varian said grimly, “they are.” He turned into the ballroom.

The rest of us followed him through the doorway. Then, once again, I stopped.

The room was dazzling. All the chandeliers were lit, illuminating tables laid with gold-embroidered cloths and covered with food. The feast was an odd mix of noble and peasant fare, as if