The black brambles are even thicker here, towering way over my head. Some branches are as wide as my arm, but there’s a thin path through. One step at a time.
I walk down the path and look up at the cloudy sky. Dull sunlight shimmers through. I must have been passed out for a while. I need to escape soon, because I don’t want to spend another night here. And I can’t count on some mysterious and probably not-even-real man to bail me out.
Most likely I had a lucky fall, and the goblins didn’t.
The path curves through the thicket and suddenly the brambles break, exposing an expanse before me. My heart hitches and I rub my eyes. I must have really hit my head…
Because there’s no way there’s a castle built into a gargantuan tree. It looks like something out of a storybook or a Studio Ghibli movie. A stone bridge stretches toward the grounds beneath the tree-castle. Maybe it’s supposed to be over a moat, but it’s hard to tell because there’s so many purple thorn bushes tangling below.
Two large statues guard the bridge on either side. I try to make out their shape, but they’re so strangled by brambles, I can’t tell.
This is what Papa has been searching for all this time. The home of the fae. If they live anywhere, it has to be a castle built into a tree, right?
And if he escaped through the thicket and away from those monsters, he would go here.
I step onto the bridge.
As I get closer, I realize how hard it is to tell what is tree and what is castle. The whole thing is an intricate work of bark and stone, both organic and crafted at the same time. Tall towers reach up to the massive canopy. Some of the highest branches hold autumn leaves, but a lot of the tree is bare. Black lines run the length of the trunk. It looks… sick.
Most notably of all, the thorn bushes stretch up to the top, covering the entire structure, forming a pseudo-skeleton of brambles.
A huge mahogany door awaits me at the end of the bridge. Who lives here? Those goblin things? Something worse?
Maybe if I close my eyes, I’ll wake up back in my bed and everything will be normal. Then I can… What? Get married to Lucas?
Isn’t that what I want?
The wood is cold beneath my fingers. I sure as hell don’t want to know who lives here, so I’m not knocking. I pull it open. An echoing creak sounds through a massive entranceway and I step through. It’s dark and I blink a few times, trying to adjust to the gloom.
“Papa?” I call tentatively. My footsteps reverberate as I walk inside. “It’s Rosalina. I’m here to bring you home.”
Skittering sounds around me, and I jump, clutching my chest. “Hello?”
Nothing but my echo. I walk further into the castle, my footsteps now softened by the carpet. Plumes of dust follow where I walk. Maybe this place is abandoned.
Even inside, the thorns have invaded. The walls are a mix of stone and wood, but neither was strong enough to stop the thorns from bursting through. They curl over walls, cluster in the corners, and spill over the floor.
A breeze flits through my hair and I swear I hear whispering. I turn in a circle. Nothing. “Hello?”
The door has closed behind me, and there’s the oddest object beside it. A beautiful mirror with a gold frame of inlaid roses. The glass has an aged, almost nectar-colored, tone. I want to touch it.
But I can’t go around touching creepy items in a weird fae castle. Even I can guess that’ll end badly. I need to get out of here as soon as possible. Goosebumps cover my clammy skin. I shake my head, take a deep breath, and try to steady my racing heart.
But my heart doesn’t steady. It catches, then quickens, beating powerfully inside my chest. Something twists within me, a great yearning, and my head jerks to the side. A huge staircase, the railing tangled with thorns, leads up into darkness.There.I must go there.
I drift like a ghost up the staircase, branches cracking beneath my feet. The stairs lead into a cloistered tower, circling round and round and round as I walk.
My thighs burn and I’m panting by the time I reach a steel door. I heave it open.
Of all the places I’ve seen so far, this is the most castle-like, the walls and floor all made of stone. Brambles still spread over every inch, and a cold breeze trembles through. A few barred windows let in the dying sunlight. Soon, I won’t be able to see at all. I hug myself and pace forward. “Papa?”
I round a corner and gasp. There, in a barred cell, slumped against the stone wall with a massive chain collar around his neck, is a prisoner. Not Papa.
A young man.
8
Rosalina