Thornwood by Leah Cypess (read after .txt) 📕

put together by someone who didn’t know the difference: meat pies, roast chicken, and fried eel sat on platters together with wedges of cheese and steaming bowls of vegetable stew.

The smell made my stomach rumble loudly. I hadn’t eaten since the blueberry muffin in the sitting room.

Most of the chairs were empty. Our ballroom could seat hundreds, but only three of the long rectangular tables were full. One held a collection of ladies-in-waiting, and the other two were occupied by a motley collection of servants, maids, and members of the lower nobility.

My heart sank. I hadn’t realized just how few people were left in the castle.

Of course, for all I knew, the rest were hiding away in their rooms instead of attending…whatever this was.

There was one round table at the far end of the room. My parents were seated at it, so busy eating they hadn’t yet noticed our presence.

“What is this?” I asked.

“It seems,” Rosalin said, “that my fairy godmother has decided to throw me a birthday party.”

Her voice was a little too loud, and everyone looked at us, including our parents. My mother’s eyes lit up when she saw us, and my father gestured us over.

“Right,” I said. “And we’ve all decided to just…go along with it?”

“Not at first,” Varian said. “You missed all the shock and gasping and wild speculation. But, you know.” He shrugged. “Everyone’s hungry.”

That was definitely true. I inhaled the smell of roast meat and fresh bread, and my stomach let out an embarrassingly loud growl. Even as my mind told me this was a bad idea, my feet followed Rosalin and Varian to my parents’ table with its three empty chairs.

Three empty chairs. I glanced back at Edwin. But he had already pulled out a chair between two servants and was shoveling dumplings into his mouth. I guessed he wasn’t insulted.

Or maybe he was just too hungry to care. Just like I was. Just like everyone in this castle was, after a whole day without food.

Which meant this was everyone left in the castle—or almost everyone. There couldn’t be many who could resist the promise of a banquet.

It was all I could do to maintain a dignified pace as I followed Rosalin and Varian across the room. As soon as we reached the table, I grabbed a meat pastry and bit into it. I was halfway through it before I realized it was mutton. I hated mutton.

I didn’t care. Maybe it was fairy magic, or maybe it was hunger, but this mutton was delicious. I gobbled the rest down, drained my water—which was flavored with lemon, something else I normally hated—and cut myself a huge slice of pheasant pie.

Beside me, Rosalin was eating just as voraciously, though somehow she managed to look dainty doing it. Varian, on the other hand, was taking his time, cutting his chicken into evenly sized bites. My parents watched us with the slightly sick expressions of people who have eaten too much too fast and are waiting for the food to settle so they can eat more.

On the wall behind them, a thorn-studded vine had curved around the edge of a large tapestry and was snaking toward the floor.

“Don’t overeat,” my father warned. “This would not be a good time to get a stomachache. We still don’t know exactly what’s going on, or how the fairy godmother is going to help us.”

I spoke around a chunk of pie. “Help us?”

“Well,” my mother said, “she has prepared this entire banquet. Obviously, she is kindly disposed toward us, and is going to release us from the spell. I’m sure she’ll come soon to explain.”

I snorted. Unfortunately, since my mouth was full of pie, my snort came with a spray of crumbs. My mother winced. I grabbed a linen napkin and swiped at my lips. In the process, I knocked over the neat placard propped up next to my plate. I picked it up.

Sleeping Beauty’s Wake-Up Party! pronounced glittering gold letters on the front. Hosted by her fairy godmother.

I flipped it open to read the inside.

Princess Briony. Table 1.

Please retrieve the princess from the rooftop.

I reached over and picked up Rosalin’s place card. She narrowed her eyes as if about to object, but her mouth was too full for her to say anything.

The outside of her card was the same as mine. The inside read:

Sleeping Beauty. Guest of Honor.

Well, that would make the minstrel happy.

I ate another slice of pie and glanced at Edwin. He seemed to fit right in at the servants’ table. He was laughing with another boy.

The pie lodged in my throat. Good for him, I told myself, but my throat still felt thick. It reminded me of watching the kitchen girls, joking and easy with each other; of the way they had gone sedate and guarded whenever I approached. Their careful smiles when I joined them, and they had to pretend to be my friends.

I swallowed my pie and focused on my mother. Her face was, as always, composed and calm. But there was a tiny bit of sauce on the tip of her chin. That was the equivalent of anyone else having a full-fledged panic attack.

“I’m not sure,” I said carefully, “that we can count on the fairy godmother.” Which was an understatement, but the last thing I needed was for my mother to have an actual panic attack.

“Of course not,” my father said. He looked and sounded dreadfully tired. “Fairies are notoriously unpredictable. But your mother is right. This banquet is a good sign.”

“And the royal wizard,” my mother said, “is working on a spell. Between the two of them, we’ll be out of here by morning.”

I looked down at my plate. I could hardly blame my mother. She came from a long line of royalty, and in her family, princesses were rescued. My father had failed to rescue us with his spinning-wheel ban, so now she needed to believe someone else would take care of us. A prince with a sword. The royal wizard.