“To go wherever you please,” she says.
I raise a brow. “Good guess.”
She runs a finger along the elegant gold border. The mirror ripples like waves over water.
“As the thorns continue to suck the life from Castletree, the mirror’s magic fades as well,” I say lowly.
Rosalina drops her hand and turns to face me.
“And the rose symbol on the dial…” Her voice holds a strangely whimsical tone. “There was something about that emblem. If I could see it again—”
I yank her arm, pulling her closer to me. She stares up, confused for a moment at my action, waiting for me to speak.
“I don’t want to test the magic any more today.”
She gives a slow nod of understanding but doesn’t back away from me. In fact, she takes a step closer. “Kel, is it true you haven’t been back to the Winter Realm since the curse?”
“It is.”
Her smile gleams like a first snowfall. “Well, all my snooping has given me a wonderful idea for how to break the curse.”
Before I can say anything else, she waltzes away.
I sigh. Let her have hope. The way Farron has hope. The way Dayton and Ezryn cling to their shreds of it.
But I know the truth.
For me, there will never be a way to break this curse.
31
Rosalina
Ourfirstfamilybreakfast—andby family, I mean me and my four fae captors—is just as awkward as our dinners.
Dinners over the last few weeks have followed a certain pattern that usually involves Farron explaining our research, but getting talked over by Keldarion, who is usually yelling at either Dayton or Ezryn, depending on his mood. Sometimes Ez and Kel will team up on Dayton when he’s being particularly annoying, and that’s always good fun to watch.
Though Ezryn only attends half the time. And Dayton is sometimes so drunk, he passes out before he makes it to the dining hall. And if he does get there, all he can do is sit sleepily while Farron tries to spoon-feed him soup. It’s kind of endearing.
Thankfully, I hadn’t had to endure any more awkward one-on-one dinners with Keldarion.
Besides the dinners, I spend most days with Farron, researching in the library. I’m desperate to learn more about him, the other princes, and the world. But they’re all so cagey with information. Even Marigold and Astrid aren’t helpful. The former only wants to talk about how incredibly gorgeous the princes are… which is fair. Their future mates better send me lovely thank-you letters. And the latter is too frightened of Keldarion to tell me anything juicy—but that’s also fair. His temper is fickler than a cat.
But the scariest thing of all is the more time I spend here, the less I feel like a prisoner and more like another member of the household, desperate to break this curse.
I’m on the right track now. Soon, the princes will have their mates in their loving arms and I’ll be home, in Orca Cove getting gossiped about in the bookstore.
I shake my head and shovel half a blueberry muffin into my mouth.
“So,” Dayton drawls, swirling his orange juice that smells a little too strong, “what’s everyone doing for the full moon?”
The full moon. They’re quite excited about it—or at least Dayton is. The one night of the month the curse doesn’t take hold. It was a sidebar point in Farron’s and my research. We speculate the Enchantress’s magic isn’t as strong on the full moon, or perhaps their fae magic is at its peak. Whatever the case, for every full moon for the last twenty-five years, the curse has not affected them, nor the castle staff.
I had made a joke about werewolf movies having it wrong, but Farron hadn’t gotten it.
“Seriously,” Dayton continues, “on the full moon, you’re going to—”
“Transform into my wolf and hunt goblins,” Ezryn says, sitting there stoically. No food in front of him, of course.