Beastly Beauty

Sixty-Six

“Why the ever-loving hell did you do it?” Faith shouted at Arabella.

But Arabella, still standing by the mirror, did not answer her.

Sadindi walked over to Faith and looked her up and down. “I could grab you and lock you away myself. You’re really small.”

“So’s a grenade, sister. Move,” Faith said, holding up her dagger again.

Sadindi stumbled out of her way and Faith stalked up to Arabella. “You cut the clockmaker off before he could finish his spell!” she yelled. “You stopped Beau from hearing the most important part. Did you forget what happens? Hang on a minute, I’ll remind you.”

She snatched a napkin from the breakfast tray and wiped the ink off the mirror. The clockmaker was still visible in the glass, and as they watched him, he spoke a few more lines.

You no longer have eternity,

The clock counts down a century.

In a hundred years, the curse will end.

Make haste. Godspeed. Farewell, my friends.

“That century is nearly over, Arabella,” Faith said as the image in the mirror faded. “You have only a few days left. Five, to be exact. You know what that means, don’t you? If you don’t break the curse in the next five days, you die.” She pointed at servants. “They die.” She gestured at Hope, at all the ladies-in-waiting. “We die.”

As the words left her lips, the sound of hammering was heard, muffled and distant, carrying up to the chamber’s windows from the gatehouse.

Faith grabbed Hope’s hand and started toward the kitchen.

“Where are you going?” Arabella asked.

“To tell him,” Faith called over her shoulder.

“No, I forbid it!” Arabella shouted. “You heard what he said. He doesn’t love me. In fact, he hates me, and I won’t be the cause of another death. There’s a chance he can make it out of here, a chance he can live. If he knows the truth, he might try to stay. To break the curse out of pity for us. But if he’s still here when the clock strikes midnight at the end of the fifth day, he dies.”

The hammering grew louder. Every blow felt as if it were driving nails straight into her heart.

Espidra joined Arabella and took her hand. “The bridge you’ve begun is amazing, child,” she said. “A wonder, built of nothing but scraps and ingenuity. Bridges are good sometimes. But they’re risky structures, too. They so often collapse. Walls are better, in my experience. So broad and strong. So impenetrable. So safe.” She laid a shriveled hand on Arabella’s back. “I know you have feelings for the thief. Do not give in to them. It will only end badly. You’ve always been such a selfish girl. It’s how you ruined your life and everyone else’s. Don’t ruin his, too. For once in your life, be your better self. If you truly love the thief, let him go.”

She would’ve said more, but at that very moment, a croissant, slathered with strawberry jam, hit her squarely in the back of her head. It stuck there for a second, then dropped to the floor with a thick, wet splat.

Espidra whirled around. Faith was standing there, stocky arms crossed over her chest, smiling defiantly.

“You threw that!” Espidra growled. “How dare you!”

“You talk too much, windbag,” Faith said. She looked at Arabella. “This is your last chance. You know that, right?”

Hope took Arabella’s hands. “Beau should know the truth,” she said.

Fierceness resurfaced in Arabella’s gaze; she pinned Hope with it. “If you breathe a word to him, I will throw myself into the moat. I swear it.”

“But you’d kill yourself,” Hope said.

Arabella nodded; she pulled her hands free. “Better yet, I’d kill you. No more pain. No more suffering. No more Hope.”

Hope swallowed hard. “Do you hate me that much?”

“You have no idea.”

“Why?”

“Because you are cruel. Crueler than all these monsters put together,” she said, gesturing to her court. “You made me believe. Over and over again. You made me believe there were such things as forgiveness, redemption, love … even for me. You made me believe that there was a way out of this.”

“There is,” Hope insisted.

“Is there?” Espidra asked archly. “Tell me, girl, have you found your other sister yet?”

Faith shot Hope a warning glance. It was quick and furtive, but Espidra saw it.

“I didn’t think so,” she purred. “Love’s the only one of you that had enough sense to leave this place.”

“I want your word that you will tell him nothing more about the curse, both of you,” Arabella demanded of the two girls.

Hope looked as if she was going to argue, but Faith grabbed her and pulled her toward the doorway, still brandishing her dagger. Hesma, Iglut, and LaJoyuse had been slyly edging closer, trying to surround them.

“You have our word,” Hope said as Faith tugged on her arm. The girls ran out of the chamber, slammed the door shut, and locked it with the master key.

“That will slow them a little and give us some time to hide,” Hope said, pulling her sister through the great hall, toward the main staircase.

“We blew it,” Faith said, putting her dagger back in its sheath. “Everyone’s doomed.”

“Hardly! What just happened in there was wonderful! It was the best possible outcome!” Hope said.

Faith blinked at her sister. “Have you lost your mind?”

“Think about it … Arabella betrayed herself. She showed us what’s really in her heart. She doesn’t want any harm to come to the thief. She would rather that he leaves this place, and she dies, than that he stays, and he dies.”

Faith thought about it. “You believe she really cares for him?”

Hope nodded. “I do. In the past, she’d do anything, say anything, to make a suitor fall in love with her. To break the curse. To save her own skin. But she never loved them, not truly.”

Faith brightened a little. “I think we can work with this.”

“We can, but we need Love’s help. We need to find her, and we don’t have long,” Hope said as they started up the stairs.

Faith’s brightness dimmed. “We’ve looked everywhere. What if Espidra’s right? What if she’s really gone?”

Hope cut her off. “She is here. I can feel her,” she said. “Don’t lose faith.”