Authors: Sarah Cross
Jasper was one of the princes who had moved to the surface. He and Garnet were renting a house near the beach. He’d been forced to tell Garnet the truth about Minuet, and Garnet had been more bewildered than heartbroken. Upset and a little offended:
I’m not that fragile that you have to lie to me and tell me someone loves me when they don’t
.
Still, they’d made up quickly. They were planning a trip to Italy. Garnet had gone to her first party—ever—and met more people in one night than she’d encountered in her whole life. She seemed happier, brighter, more energetic now that her horizons had opened up.
Jasper’s happiness was harder to gauge since he never seemed happy when Viv was around. He’d been different since she’d defeated his father. Awkward and ashamed, instead of angry and bitter. He’d used the troll and the impossibility of stopping him as justification for not helping her—and all the while he’d thought of himself as her protector. But when
Viv had defeated the troll, Jasper’s rationalization had unraveled. It was like he realized he’d been lying to himself: that heroic Prince Jasper was no more real than pining-for-Garnet Minuet.
Viv could sort of understand his unwillingness to act against the troll, but understanding him and liking him weren’t the same thing. She couldn’t look at Jasper without seeing the prince who’d let her suffer in that poison stasis, who’d restrained her while Regina was being murdered, who’d thrown a torn cloak at her and claimed that Henley was dead. She didn’t think they would ever be friends.
And that was fine. The curse had decided they were meant to be—but the curse was broken. Their marriage had been nullified with the death of the troll, as had all the troll’s deals. The curse, the troll, Regina, Jasper—they no longer had power over her. And if she ever needed a reminder, all she had to do was pick up that crown.
Henley had officially declined his reward for breaking the Twelve Dancing Princesses curse: the package deal of marriage to the dancing princess of his choice and half her father’s wealth. The twelve princesses had been shocked, insulted, relieved, and delighted by his decision. The ones who’d hoped for the fairy-tale ending—chosen by the hero, followed by happily ever after—were disappointed. The rest had rushed headlong into freedom as soon as the curse was broken and were pleased to know that freedom would continue.
Henley still had the triple hash mark tattoo on his neck. He’d said no to the prize, but the hero reputation was his to keep. And Viv was glad, because in Beau Rivage, a hero and a murderer were rarely the same thing. A hero’s murders were
always just, and if Henley’s murder of the old Huntsman ever came to light, chances were a judge would rule in Henley’s favor.
Henley’s parents were proud of his success and his new role—a hero in the family was a big deal. Instead of being angry that he’d disappeared and let them believe he was dead, they threw a party to celebrate his return, and basically indulged his every whim for a few days—before they made him go back to school and back to work.
Of course, his parents weren’t thrilled with all his decisions. There had been an awkward moment during the party when Viv had been looking for Henley, and had come across him just as his mother asked, “You couldn’t find
one
girl you liked—out of twelve?”
She was sure a lot of people felt that way: that Henley had missed an opportunity, that he was stupid for staying with her. That he would wake up one day and regret it. How many men had died in pursuit of that prize? And yet Henley had put himself in danger, not for a chance at the reward, but for Viv. Because he thought she was worth the risk.
People would always have opinions about her.
You’re the fairest
.
She’s a bitch
.
How pathetic
.
What kind of princess—?
Powerless
.
Gorgeous
.
You don’t deserve to be loved like that. You don’t deserve—
But it didn’t matter what they thought.
* * *
The crown stayed in her office, but the magic mirror she hung in the cottage—her new home. It had been in her life longer than Regina, longer than Henley, and it would probably outlast Viv, too.
The mirror was quieter than it had been when Regina was alive, but every once in a while it purred out a meaningless compliment:
“You’re stunning, beautiful, the fairest in the land.”
She wondered if it would do that for the rest of her life. And how she would feel if it stopped.
That mirror-voice, and the glassy stare, were the last remnants of the curse she’d shared with Regina. The poison apple had shriveled, the hairpin had been lost, the stay laces had been clipped and thrown away. The glass coffin had been broken at a recent party when a drunk girl climbed inside it to see what it would be like. The house felt empty without Regina, and Viv couldn’t help but look for her there, to flinch when she turned a corner or passed another mirror—and she couldn’t help feeling sad when she relaxed and remembered she would never see Regina again. The threat was gone, but the possibility that they might reconcile, might come to understand each other … that was gone, too.
Viv couldn’t bear to sleep under that roof again. She could work there, but not live there. She surrendered the house to her guests and made the forest her home.
Now, every morning she woke to the sound of birds chirping. Sun peeking through thin curtains. The smell of an autumn forest all around her. Chipmunks sitting on the clothes she’d laid out the night before. Shivering, she poured cold water into a basin and washed her face and brushed her teeth
and tried to keep the birds from bathing in it, but they always ended up in there, anyway.
Henley had helped her make the cottage habitable. They’d scrubbed it from top to bottom, hung curtains, stocked the cabinets, replaced the bed, added a table-and-chair set—the table just large enough to hold two teacups or a dinner plate. There was a woodstove she hadn’t quite mastered yet. A few hurricane lamps for light. A braided rug that the animals thought was their playground.
The windows were drafty, the roof leaked, and the floor was partly rotted through, but after being trapped in the dead landscape of the underworld, Viv wanted to be as close to nature as possible. The chill breeze creeping under her quilt, the mice bickering in the dark, the smack of raindrops on her cheek, all made it easier to breathe, less likely she would wake up and think she was still in the palace.
When she had nightmares about the wedding she could pull an armload of rabbits into bed and hold them until she calmed down. Or she could step outside and pace barefoot on the trail, the grass and earth promising
You’re home, not there. Safe
. Breathing deeply, she could prove it to herself: the smell of the forest was nothing like that of the underworld. Here the air seethed with life and death. The threat of rain, a distant smell of smoke. Musk, pine, earth. A living, changing world, not a coffin of silver and stone.
Some nights she walked to Henley’s house and knocked on his window, then waited for him to push up the screen and pull her through. His hair damp from a shower. The muscles of his chest tight against a cheap white undershirt. Her fingers would graze his arm, wanting to touch him, because there had been
a time when she’d thought she would never touch him again.
Tonight, she said, “Ignore me, do your homework,” not meaning a word of it, and he pulled her onto his bed and kissed her until autumn felt like summer, on the same sheets he’d had when they were fourteen. And when they lay tangled together later, she trailed a lazy finger along the photos on the wall, pictures of the two of them that he’d torn in half and then mended with Scotch tape. She touched the ragged fault lines of the photos, the paper scars that ran between them, and said, “We look good taped back together.”
She had never been able to imagine a life without him—but she’d never been able to imagine a life
with
him. The curse had denied them a future. Now she could finally see it—in little bursts, daydreams of next summer and beyond. A ring she’d actually say
yes
to. A wedding where their friends threw birdseed and the smaller, furrier guests scampered after it. A home shared with the person who knew her best, who truly saw her, who had never tried to take her heart by force.
Henley.
She’d known him forever.
And she would keep him forever, if he’d let her.