Thornwood by Leah Cypess (read after .txt) 📕

I went straight to Rosalin. She was standing with one hand pressed to her mouth and the other to her stomach, staring at the spot where the queen had been.

“I’m sorry,” I said. “I know you thought you loved him. But he never really existed, Rosalin. He was just a disguise the fairy queen invented. You haven’t lost anything—”

“Oh, be quiet!” Rosalin said. “You don’t know the first thing about it. You’re just a child.”

I had been raising my arms to hug her. I let them drop. “Just a child? Then why was I the one who—”

“Really,” the fairy godmother said. “This is very disappointing.”

Rosalin and I whirled. The fairy stood in the corner of the room, arms folded over her chest, one foot tapping the floor. Her wings caught the sunlight and cast shimmering color across the walls.

“I noticed,” she said, “that you didn’t make her promise not to harm me.”

“No,” I said. “I didn’t.” I crossed my own arms. “Do you expect a reward for dragging us into this?”

“I suppose not. Humans are so ungrateful.” She sighed. “I had grown fond of you, you know. And I did save your life once or twice. Does that count for nothing? Do you want the queen to kill me?”

“She hasn’t killed you yet,” I said. “And you managed to beat her once before.”

“That doesn’t mean I can do it again.”

“It means,” I said firmly, “that it has nothing to do with us. Keep us out of it from now on.”

“Oh, so now you expect a reward?” She smiled at me, her too-wide mouth stretching wider than ever, and then she vanished.

I didn’t much like that smile, but I didn’t have time to think about it. I heard a rattling moan behind me and realized it was Edwin. He was hunched over the spinning wheel, pedaling frantically, sweat making his face shiny. His breath came in frantic gasps.

“Oh, right,” I said. “You can stop spinning.”

He stopped immediately, and the wheel ground to a halt. I looked at the bobbin. There was new golden thread wrapped around it; the spinning wheel, apparently, still worked.

“I thought it was probably safe to stop,” Edwin managed to say between pants. “But I didn’t want to take any chances, not until both fairies were gone.” He slid off the stool and groaned. “I twisted something in my back. Not,” he added quickly, “that it wasn’t worth it.”

His spinning hadn’t actually accomplished anything. I had told him to spin just to get him out of the way. But this didn’t seem like the right time to mention that.

I turned to Rosalin. She was already heading for the window, her face bright in the sunlight, tears streaking her cheeks.

Edwin and I hurried to join her.

Below us, the land stretched to the horizon in a sweeping vista of hills and trees. The forest faded into mountain peaks, so darkly green they seemed almost gray, with roads running through them like tiny strips of steel.

Something drew a sharp line across the sky, and I tensed. Fairy godmother, I thought—but it was something different, small and sleek and gray with triangular wings. It pulled the clouds after it in a long, thin line.

“What is that?” I said.

Edwin gave a small, delighted laugh. “I suspect we’ll be saying that a lot over the next few days.”

I looked at him and smiled, and he met my eyes and smiled back. On the other side of me, Rosalin took my hand—luckily, the one I hadn’t stabbed with a spindle. I could feel excitement or fear—or both—thrumming through her. Clearly, the world out there was far, far different from anything we could even imagine.

None of us had any idea what we would find when we finally walked out the castle doors.

I guessed it was time to find out.

There have been a lot of stories told about my sister, I know. Most of them are available at the castle bookstore. They sell very well, even though you’d think the tourists already know the story. Otherwise, why would they be here? Entrance tickets to the castle are not exactly cheap.

I mean, yes, the purple polka-dotted roses are very popular, and so are Rosalin’s cakes. Plus, we have signed copies of the royal wizard’s bestselling book, Inner Magic: How I Found the Courage to Break the Rules of Sorcery and Discover My True Power.

But you don’t have to come here for that. We ship worldwide.

None of the stories mention me. But I’m okay with that. Let Rosalin be the one the tourists bother, badgering her to take photos with them and making copies of her gowns to wear to costume parties. Rosalin claims she doesn’t like it—she says she’s devoted to her new passion for baking—but Rosalin says a lot of things these days. She claims she’s only “putting up” with the agents who want her to be a model or an actress. She says the photography and film classes she takes are just for fun, that she doesn’t want to make a career out of them. And—most ridiculous of all—she claims that she only “likes” the electrician who has been modernizing the castle, and she’s “not interested in getting serious with anyone right now.”

I mean, she’s already kissed him more times than she kissed Varian, back when she thought he was her destined husband. Does that sound not serious?

Rosalin’s pretty sensitive on the subject, though. All I did was politely point out how much time she was spending with him, and she went on a twenty-minute rampage. We were out in town at the time, too. Not very good for our image.

So I’ve let it go. It’s not like I don’t have enough to keep me busy. Running the castle is time-consuming, even with the treasurer and the ladies-in-waiting helping out. Plus I have to lead a number of the tours, which is exhausting; you wouldn’t believe the questions I have to answer. (My least favorite: “So who are