The Rose Bargain

Chapter Thirty-Two

It isn’t raining on the day of the wedding, which is a miracle in and of itself.

My mother, Lydia, and I are picked up midmorning by a palace carriage and taken to Caledonia Cottage, where we will dress for the wedding. “Isn’t rain supposed to be lucky?”

I ask, slumped against the velvet seat.

“How much luckier could you get?”

Lydia replies.

I run my tongue over the smooth gap in my gum where my upper left molar used to be. Mother tells me to ignore that too, but I can’t stop prodding at it like a worry stone.

I’ve been sleeping in Lydia’s room for the past two weeks. Our parents think it’s sweet that we’re maximizing our last days together under the same roof, but really, I just like that she’s awake in the middle of the night too.

The irony of our situation doesn’t escape me. All the time I spent raging at her for the bargain she couldn’t remember, and now I’ve gone and done the same thing.

Lydia didn’t gloat about my bargain. She’s always been a better person than I am.

She just said, “It looks like we’re both exactly the same kind of stupid,”

which almost makes me laugh.

Today is the summer solstice, the longest day of the year. An auspicious beginning to what will be a long and happy marriage. It’s splashed all over the papers, my description on every front page in London. The headlines no longer THE SIX, but THE ONE.

They’ve embroidered my face on tea towels, there’s no backing out now.

Bram and I have barely seen each other. Every waking moment is filled with dress fittings or appointments about table settings or flowers.

Crowds line the streets all the way from our house to the palace. They shout good wishes and wave handkerchiefs as we pass by.

My mother’s elbow jabs me in the ribs. “Wave,”

she urges.

I lean my head out the window, and the crowd goes absolutely wild. I’ve never felt more lonely in my life.

When we arrive, Marion, Faith, Olive, and Emmy are there in matching cream silk bridesmaid dresses. I missed them all dearly, even Faith.

Olive tames my curls into ringlets and then pins them into an elaborate updo. She looks concerned the whole time, staring at me like she’s biting her tongue about something.

“You bite at your lips when you’re nervous,”

I say as she winds the hair by my ears around the hot tong.

“Why would I be nervous? It’s your wedding day.”

She smiles. I have that odd feeling, the one I still can’t shake when I look at all of them. We’ve been living together all season, but why does it feel like there’s something I’m forgetting? Could my bargain have included the other girls? That feels unlikely.

“Is there something you need to tell me?”

I twirl my engagement ring nervously. It sits next to the pearl ring Bram gave me the day I first thought I could love him. I haven’t taken it off.

“Only that you’re the most stunning bride we’ve ever seen,”

Marion says.

The queen didn’t strip anyone of their titles. It seems she’s happy enough to let the threat hang over us, or she’s been too preoccupied with wedding planning to remember. Regardless, I’ll be a princess soon, and I intend to use my status to protect the other girls the best I can. I’m certain Bram will help me.

The season already feels like a dream, like it happened to someone else. I can barely even remember being at the balls and social events. The only moments that feel truly crystallized are the queen’s lessons and the moments with the other girls.

Lydia buttons me into my white wedding gown. It’s a gauzy confection, with a wide V-neck that hangs off my shoulders and layers upon layers of fine-tooled lace that falls in ruffles across the bodice and skirt.

It’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever had on my body, but I glance in the mirror anxiously. I was nervous when the atelier decided on this silhouette. The neckline shows the part of my neck where I had that strange, toothy bruise. It took weeks to heal but finally appears to be gone. It’s the oddest thing, I can’t remember how I got it.

Once I’m in my dress, a footman comes in with a velvet case of royal jewels. I flip open the case to find a pair of diamond drop earrings and a matching necklace. Bram will place a tiara on my head at the altar, as is tradition.

Attached to the jewelry case is a note in Bram’s elegant hand. I cannot wait to be your husband. —Bram.

My heart swells.

I don’t love Bram. I’m honest enough with myself to acknowledge that. But I will love him. In time.

I can picture it so clearly, like love is something I’ve felt before and need to remember how to do again. It’s a ghost I’m chasing around corners, just out of reach.

My mother fastens the final piece of my bridal ensemble, not a veil, but a delicate lace cape, attached at my throat with a ribbon, with a billowing hood over my head. My bouquet is small, a tasteful arrangement of lily of the valley, but I clutch it hard to keep my sweaty hands from shaking.

My mother appears over my shoulder in the mirror and gives me a squeeze. “He’s the luckiest man in England,” she says.

He’s not a man, though, not quite. He’s something else. But I don’t correct her.

I have the same uncanny feeling I had on the day of the Pact Parade, as if I’m looking at myself through a spyglass from the future. The course has already been set, there’s no stopping it now.

Lydia goes to stand with the other bridesmaids, my mother leaves to sit with the crowd, and then it is just my father and me waiting at the side door of the cottage.

Prince Emmett appears in the door, tall and broad-shouldered in his ink-black frock coat. He offers a weak smile. “The processional will begin shortly.”

He glances down at my father’s lapel. “You’ve forgotten your boutonniere.”

My father grasps his chest, then mutters “Oh!”

and scurries off to retrieve it from the other room, leaving Prince Emmett and me alone.

He drags his eyes from my hem back up to my face and takes a strange, abbreviated breath. I don’t know him well enough to understand the expression on his face, but something about it makes my ribs ache.

“I’m sorry we haven’t gotten the chance to get to know each other better,”

I offer, because it seems the polite thing to say.

“We’ll have all the time in the world now that you’re to be my sister-in-law.”

“True,”

I reply, though I doubt the prince has any intention of sticking around Kensington Palace, not when he’s been absent all season.

“Do you love him?”

he asks me.

I blink in shock.

He frowns. “I’m sorry, that was rude of me.”

“Have you ever been in love?”

I ask in return. I don’t know what makes me say it.

He nods slowly, like it pains him. “Just once.”

“What did it feel like?”

He thinks for a moment, his eyes boring into mine all the while. “Like getting run over by a carriage.”

“Hmm.”

I look down at my bouquet, unable to stand the force of his eye contact. “I wouldn’t know what that feels like.”

Emmett huffs out a laugh but doesn’t smile. “No, I suppose you wouldn’t.”

My father bursts back into the room, his boutonniere crooked. Prince Emmett straightens it for him while my father mutters something about forgetting his head if it wasn’t attached to his neck.

Hundreds of chairs have been set around the long, rectangular pool in the sunken garden. The aisle has been built on a platform over the water. At the far end is the altar, crawling with a rainbow of flowers.

It’s a perfect evening here on the longest day of the year, and the sun makes sure to give us all a show. It flashes golden and pink, setting rainbows off the jewels around the necks and silk gowns of all of London’s high society. This is the event of the century, and I am the star.

When the sky turns purple and the music from the full orchestra swells, my father squeezes my hand. “There’s still time to run,”

he jokes. But there isn’t. Not really.

I run my tongue over the smooth gap in my gum where my molar used to be, and I step out onto the aisle.

My bridesmaids trail behind me, carrying my long train, as is tradition, but I so wish I could see their faces. One reassuring smile from my sister would help me to be brave.

At the altar, bathed in golden light, is Bram. He’s in a green velvet coat, a delicate circlet of gold laid on his hair.

The pointed tips of his ears poke through his unruly waves, and he’s never looked less human.

But he’s beaming. He’s staring at me like he loves me. I am lucky, I keep reminding myself, to have this, have him.

Why, then, do my eyes keep landing on his brother?

Prince Emmett stands next to him, his jaw clenched, his hands in fists at his side. His all-black suit makes him look dressed for a funeral. In his eyes is an emotion I can’t name. Agony is the closest word I can muster, but that doesn’t make any sense.

How can he hate me when he doesn’t even know me? The whole thing makes my stomach turn with unease.

But I paste a smile on my face. I’m about to become a princess. There’s a man who loves me, who wants to make me happy. It’s so much more than I ever thought I’d get. My mother and father and Lydia are going to be safe, protected by my status, and I will live without fear of destitution. My children and their children will be royalty. I haven’t just saved my parents and my sister, I’ve ensured that our family will be safe for generations. Queen Mor is immortal, and she will remember me as she welcomes my great-grandchildren to court.

We make it to the altar, and the music hums to a close.

Bram lowers the hood of my cape, then captures both my hands in his. He looks down at me with his gray eyes, and I am struck, as I always am, by his profound beauty. “Thank you for this,”

he says, but I’m not entirely sure what he means.

The priestess says something about love and commitment and duty, but the words are nothing but a dull buzzing in my ears.

I can’t stop looking at Emmett. He’s looking straight ahead, not at either of us. It’s a look I recognize well because it’s often on my own face, the look of someone who would rather be anywhere but here.

“The rings, please,”

the priestess drones.

Emmett doesn’t move.

The priestess clears her throat. “The rings?”

“Oh.”

Emmett jumps and digs into his pocket. He pulls out two circles of Welsh gold and places them in the priestess’s palm. His hands are shaking.

The sun sinks low on the horizon, a glorious finale on the longest day of the year. The evening dips into twilight as Bram takes my hand in his.

He places the ring around my finger with gentle care and a look in his eyes so full of joy, I can’t help but smile back at him. “All that I am and all that I have is yours,”

Bram promises.

I slide his on in turn. I’ve done it. It’s done.

Bram’s eyes well with tears as he picks up my May Queen tiara from where it rests on a velvet pillow on the altar and lowers it onto my head.

“In the power vested in me by Her Eternal Majesty Queen Moryen, I pronounce you husband and wife,”

says the priestess.

Bram slips his arm around the small of my back and kisses me. It’s much too passionate a kiss for a public ceremony like this, and when he pulls back, he’s laughing.

Suddenly there’s screaming coming from the crowd. Shouts of panicked confusion. People stand, and chairs are toppled.

It’s chaos. My head spins, my stomach lurches, and my mouth fills with something acrid and metallic. I spit a mouthful of blood, and it splatters all over the altar.

I lock eyes with Emmett, and it all comes flooding back. That first night in the carriage, the coaching inn, the secret glances across candlelit ballrooms, his hands on my back, his mouth on my neck. I’m nearly knocked backward by the force of the love I feel for him.

I turn to Bram, panicked, but he’s still just standing there, laughing like this is the funniest thing in the world.

In the front row, Queen Mor stands, her chair toppling behind her. “No!”

she screams. “Bram, what have you done?”

He shakes his head, like this is all some joke she just doesn’t understand. “Seize her.”

Lydia Benton

I don’t know where to look. All around, people are shouting, sobbing, screaming so loud it makes my ears ring. A bolt of lightning strikes across the sky just as Lord Bexham trips into me, his hair suddenly returned, and vomits into the bushes.

Ivy is standing at the altar, collapsed in Emmett’s arms. I crane my head, searching for my parents, but turn to find Bram’s face inches from mine. He smiles, and it stretches across his face lazily until that single dimple pops out. “Hi, darling. I’ve missed you.”

I try to run, but my heels sink into the grass, and as I stumble, Bram’s hand encircles my wrist in his and he yanks me back. “I’m not losing you again.”

“Please—”

My voice shakes. “I won’t tell her.”

He drags me behind the row of hedges that circle the sunken garden and wraps his hands around my waist, so tight I can’t move. “No, don’t say that.”

He sighs against my hair. “Say you missed me too.”

And I hate him for it, but I hate me more. I remember the dreams I’ve had for the last five months, the ones where I’d wake up, my cheeks wet with tears, feeling as if I was forgetting something desperately important. I missed him even when I didn’t know he was the one I was missing.

He kisses me hard enough to knock me back to my senses. I shove him by the shoulders, but he’s so much bigger than I am. It only makes him angrier. He grabs me by the hair to kiss me harder, so I kick him in the groin. He stumbles back a few feet, his beautiful face screwed up in fury. “I didn’t want it to be like this, Lydia.”

“You just married my sister.”

Ivy. Oh no.

For my whole life, before I left the house, my mother would kiss my head and say the same thing: Look out for your sister.

I can’t fail at the only real job I’ve ever had.

There’s a flash of Ivy’s white wedding gown somewhere in the chaos. Emmett is beside her, scanning the crowd, a head above everyone else. I wave my arms above my head to get his attention, but Bram wraps me in a bear hug from behind and pins them to my side.

“We have to go now, my love,”

he whispers.

“No,”

I growl, and dig my heels into the soft earth.

“But everyone is so excited to see you.”

I struggle against him, cursing the small part of me that’s grateful to be in his arms again. “Just let me speak with her first.”

His beautiful face crumples. “I thought you loved me.”

“I do.”

That’s the worst part.

He looks so sad, the golden circlet on his hair reflecting the final rays of sunshine. “I thought if you loved me, you would obey me.”

There’s nothing I can say, just pure animal struggle as I elbow him in the ribs.

“You never make things easy.”

He pulls a sword from the scabbard at his side and brings the bejeweled hilt down hard on my temple.

There’s a ringing in my ears and the taste of metal in my mouth. Ivy. My arms reach for her, but I’m too far away.

And then I’m gone.

I don’t need to open my eyes to know where I am when I awake. It always smelled like crushed rose petals here. It was one of my favorite things about the palace when I first arrived, but now the scent hits the back of my throat, sticky-sweet, and I vomit all over the floor.

My bedroom is covered with a thick layer of dust, like he hasn’t let anyone enter since the night I left. I swipe my finger along the bedside table, through the grime that covers all my things, exactly as I left them. The silver comb, a blue hair ribbon, the vase of flowers he enchanted so they would never wilt. Even my painting supplies are still here; my easel sits by the diamond-pane window, a landscape half finished.

There’s a bracelet of finger-shaped bruises around my wrist where Bram gripped me at the wedding.

I’m woozy with pain, but force myself up and off the four-poster bed. I’ve got to get back, to warn her.

The door to the bedroom is locked, so Bram’s learned at least one lesson. I pull the handle so hard the door shakes, and from the outside, a lock snicks, then another, then the whole doorframe glows as an enchantment is undone.

Eloree steps inside. My former lady’s maid looks the same as she did the day I left, with slightly pink skin, golden hair that reaches to the floor, and a dress crafted from fabric that shimmers like the sunset on a pond.

She bursts into tears at the sight of me. “My lady, I feared I’d never see you again.”

I calculate quickly in my head. The first time, I was gone for two weeks in the human world, but it felt like four months here.

“How long have I been gone?”

She pulls me into her arms. “Not long.”

She counts on her eerily long fingers, a puzzled look on her face. “Two years perhaps?”

“Where is he?” I ask.

“His Majesty is gone, but he asked me to keep you safe.”

Keep me locked up, she means.

“When will he return?”

“No one can be sure these days.”

She carries in a tray from the hallway, laden with waxy technicolor fruits, pastries dripping in half-melted icing, and a tankard of fizzy wine. My mouth waters, but I can’t bring myself to touch it. I’ve hungered for the food from the Otherworld for months, craving something I couldn’t name. I’d sneak down to the kitchens in the middle of the night and eat everything in sight, shoveling raw sugar by the handful into my mouth. Nothing would sate me. I know why now.

“Would you like me to stay?”

Eloree asks.

“No, I need my rest.”

She nods. “I’ll come later to dress you for the feast.”

The door latches behind her and glows once more. I don’t bother trying the lock, but I race to the window and find it stuck too.

I find the heaviest object I can, the fire poker, and swing it again and again against the glass until sweat is running down my back and I’m out of breath.

He’s enchanted this too.

I collapse in a heap on the floor and bang my head against the stone wall of the tower, cursing myself.

Faerie tales all have the same lesson, really: don’t go searching in the dark. But I’d never listened quite as closely as my sister.

When it came time to make my bargain, I panicked. I saw so many girls my age missing toes or memories, all to ensnare some husband they didn’t even like.

It was a foregone conclusion that I was to marry Percival Chapwick, and Mama never let an opportunity pass to remind me of it.

And for a long time it was fine, really it was. But all of a sudden it wasn’t just some far-off thing. I was nearly eighteen, and it was going to actually happen. I was going to have to leave the home I’d known all my life, my family, and go live in a house with a boy I barely knew.

He lived just down the road. One month before I was supposed to make my bargain, I climbed the garden trellis into his room. He was surprised to find me crawling through his window, and he tried to kiss me, like that’s all it was. I pushed him away, which he took like a gentleman. “I want to talk,” I said.

“About what?”

He was puzzled.

“Anything.”

He couldn’t manage it. It was stilted and awkward, and I couldn’t bear it more than a few minutes before I climbed out the window again.

When I thought of living a life boarded up in a house with a man I couldn’t have a conversation with, I felt like I was going to die.

The day of the Pact Parade, my mouth was saying the words before I even knew what I meant. I begged Queen Mor to let me experience something completely new. The mind-numbing existence of my life was going to crush me.

Queen Mor laughed. She told me that she would give me what I wished, but I would never be able to speak of it. I didn’t realize that meant I wouldn’t remember it. She tricked me. If I were clever, like Ivy, I would have seen it coming.

The Others have to honor the law but not the spirit of the bargain. It’s part of the fun for them. I know that now.

The queen certainly had her fun with me. For two years I bore the shame of having made a bad bargain, one I couldn’t remember. I was supposed to be my family’s shining hope, our way out of rapidly approaching poverty, but in the end, I went and made the exact same mistakes as my parents. Isn’t that always the way?

I had a gut feeling that I shouldn’t accept any courtships, that something else was waiting for me. It wasn’t until this winter that Queen Mor finally held up her end of the bargain.

I awoke in the middle of the night with the strangest sensation, like there was a ribbon tied around my rib cage and someone was on the other end, tugging. I followed the feeling outside and down the street. My feet carried me like I was in a dream all the way to Kensington Park. There I found a peculiar tree, shimmering like a fallen star. I laid my hands upon it and suddenly I was somewhere else.

It was daytime there, that was the first thing I noticed. The grass was softer and a slightly different shade of green than the grass in England. The trees had leaves that were shaped like stars, the flowers smelled of baking bread, and up on a hill was a castle. It was unlike anything I’d ever seen back home, too tall, too sharp, constructed from something like opal that shimmered in the sunlight. I wandered for a while until two palace guards found me. I was so tired and hungry, I thought I imagined the double rows of sharp teeth in their horses’ mouths.

They took me to the castle, where I found a revel raging. There were towers of strange food. The sun was blazing outside, but inside, someone had enchanted the ceiling to look like the inky-black Milky Way.

There were hundreds of Others, twirling in gowns that floated like spider’s silk, playing fiddles encrusted with gems, kissing wildly up against the walls of the ballroom.

I nearly hit the marble floor with my knees in gratitude. In that moment, I knew that the queen had finally kept her end of the deal. For the first time since I was a child, I was excited. I wished Ivy was there with me. It was everything we’d ever dreamed of.

And there, in the middle of it all, was Bram.

He was seated in a magnificent golden throne on a dais, overseeing the whole party. His black doublet hung half-open, embroidered with stars that matched the ceiling. His crown was made of twisted silver, like the branches of a tree, that matched the single earring trailing down to his shoulder. He had one leg crossed over his knee, and his head was resting in his hand like he was bored. I remember thinking, How could anyone be bored of this?

The crowd parted as the guards brought me to him.

He smiled in that way only Bram can smile, the kind that lights up his whole face, and he said, “Please don’t be afraid. You are very welcome here.”

I should have told him I wanted to go home, that would have been the responsible thing to do, but I wanted to stay. I danced at the revel until my feet bled, leaving the marble floor slippery. I’d stick out my hand, and my cup was filled. When I grew tired of dancing, I collapsed at the banquet table and a plate appeared in front of me, piled with candied fruits and sweets I couldn’t begin to describe. It was better than anything I’d ever let myself hope for. I didn’t think of home once.

Bram had a room prepared for me in the castle, decorated in my favorite colors. His staff brought me a trousseau of dresses in the court fashion and braided flowers into my hair.

It was a few weeks before the melancholy struck. It began with dreams of my sister. The longer I was in the Otherworld, the hazier my life back in London felt, like it was something that happened to someone else. I should have recognized Bram, I should have mourned my family, but every time the memories felt within reach, they’d float away again, just past my grasp.

As we spent more time together, Bram noticed my vague, unplaceable sadness. At first it was during simple afternoon activities. We rode horses around the palace grounds and picked fruit from the orchards.

Bram had only one rule. After that first night, I was never again allowed to attend his court revels. He insisted they weren’t safe for me. But I craved the joy of dancing, and I was lonely. Bram would disappear, sometimes for days at a time, and I thought he was below, merrymaking without me.

“I want you to be happy here. This place can be your home if you let it,”

he said as he wiped tears from my cheek. Every day, cakes showed up in my room that tasted exactly of Mr. Froburg’s birthday cake recipe. The same sterling silver brush set from my room back home appeared on my vanity. He brought me paints and charcoals and pastels. I painted well into the night as music drifted up from the revels below. At dawn, Bram would climb into bed beside me and stroke my hair as I cried.

He didn’t love the way I imagined love would be. He held me like he wanted to consume me. At the time, I thought that made it even better.

I wasn’t surprised when he asked me to marry him. He slipped a moonstone ring on my third finger one night under the strange double moons of the Otherworld and asked me to be his bride. I threw myself into his arms and kissed him so hard my lips were bruised the next morning. He pulled back, smiling. “You forgot to say yes.”

We held banquets and went on picnics, and he even had a chair brought into the throne room for me so I could sit at his side while he did his official work. One day, while we were having lunch in the gardens, he placed a crown of daisies atop my head and told me I was the queen of the Otherworld. I just looked at him, bowled over by his beauty. “Don’t we need something more official?”

“I’m the king—what could be more official than that?”

But it wasn’t enough for me. I grew ruinously sad and unbearably clingy in the lead-up to our wedding ceremony. I’d curl myself around him in bed and beg him not to leave me. I could feel him growing bored with me, and I didn’t know how to fix it. I ordered the court ateliers to make me more interesting dresses, I painted him pictures, planted a rose garden, but nothing held his attention. He’d leave, every night, to revel without me.

The morning of our wedding, Eloree, who was perhaps my only true friend in the Otherworld, dressed me in a gown constructed of dozens of layers of tissue-thin spider’s silk. It fell in ruffles and waves, as if I was emerging from seafoam. The veil I wore covered my face, which I was grateful for. Struck by an unshakable feeling of loneliness, I cried all through the long walk down the aisle.

All of Bram’s court was in attendance, as well as representatives from the surrounding Seelie territories. The palace dripped in flowers and swelled with music. I walked down the aisle alone, clutching a bouquet of roses that smelled of freshly fallen rain. I wished my sister was holding my train, but I forgot my hollow sadness as soon as Bram turned and smiled at me.

We exchanged our vows, and he placed on my head a heavy golden crown that he said had once belonged to his mother. Did I know his mother? I felt I must have, but the thought flitted away as soon as it came.

I slipped a ring on his finger, and he kissed me, hard, just like the day I’d promised to marry him. When he pulled back, he smiled and said something strange. “I’ll be right back.”

He sprinted down the petal-carpeted aisle and out the door.

“Bram?”

I screamed after him, hiking up my skirts and trying to run. But suddenly I blinked awake and was back in my room.

I rose from my bed, still in my wedding gown, and opened the door. It wasn’t locked, and no guard waited for me in the hallway. On bare feet I crept across the cold stone floors, back into the main hall of the castle, where my wedding feast was raging without me.

Bram was in the corner, back from wherever he’d run off to, with a foul look on his face. I’d never seen him look so angry. He was deep in conversation with my least favorite of his advisers, the man with the cruel mouth and curtain of black hair that reached the floor.

“It’s exactly the same.”

Bram was ranting, the rings on each of his ringers clicked as he waved his hands in emphasis. “She’s one of her subjects. She’s been crowned twice. I don’t see what the problem is.”

The adviser considered. “It must be on English soil, then.”

Bram cursed and threw back the rest of whatever was in his goblet. He jumped as he finally noticed me at his elbow.

“What are you doing up?”

There was a cruel tilt to his voice I didn’t like at all.

“It’s our wedding feast,”

I replied, confused.

Bram stuck out his arm, and his glass was filled once more. He drank that as well. “Sure, fine.”

He stalked off. I didn’t know what else to do but grab a drink. My eyes stung, and I was desperate to have something to do with my hands other than twirl my new wedding band around my finger.

The faerie wine was strong, and I should have known better. I had a glass, maybe two, and came to my senses as I twirled on the dance floor, swept up in a crowd of courtiers.

But this was nothing like the revel I remembered from my first night here. It was rotten, like milk that had gone off. The music was in a strange minor key, the laughing faces of the folk looked suddenly like jackals, and the dance floor was smeared with blood.

I looked for the source, concerned that someone had been injured and needed my help, and that’s when I saw them. The first humans I’d seen in the better part of a year. There were a dozen or so of them, all gaunt, wearing rags. Their faces were blank, their eyes glazed over, like they hadn’t even realized that they’d danced their feet bloody. They’d been enchanted by faeries, who stood in the corner laughing uproariously at their torture. And there, on his throne, laughing along, was Bram.

I ran out of the room, back to my bedchamber, but I didn’t lock the door behind me.

Unable to sleep, I waited until the sun rose. I ripped off my wedding dress, pulled on the dress I hadn’t worn since I’d arrived, and left my wedding ring on the vanity. I crept through the castle, whose walls I now knew well, and followed the spiral staircase around and around until I reached the damp darkness of the dungeons.

The humans from the revel were locked up there in tiny stone cells, covered with filth. They were so emaciated they could stick their entire arms through the bars, their dirt-crusted fingernails reaching for me.

They begged me for help in strange accents, some I could hardly understand. “How long have you been here?”

I asked. They couldn’t even remember. But every single one of them had been born in the 1400s. Can you imagine? In that basement for over four hundred years? “When is it?”

they asked. I hadn’t the heart to tell them it was now 1848. Or was it? Time there seemed such a slippery thing.

They came from an England where sightings of the folk were common. Parents warned children to stay away from tall strangers in the woods and to never follow music that seemingly came from nowhere. They did not heed the warnings, and they paid the price. Now they were brought up during revels to be used as nothing more substantial than a hit of faerie wine.

They begged me to help free them. I was the first other human they’d seen in four centuries. And what could I do?

The key to their cells was hanging right there on a hook, like it had been hung in their eyeline just to torture them further. I passed it through the bars, but they made such a clatter unlocking it that the guard awoke. He lunged for me, but one of the other humans swung the prison gate hard enough that the guard stumbled backward and I got away.

I ran, as fast as I could, until my legs were burning and I couldn’t catch my breath, out of the palace and back to the woods where I’d first arrived. I shoved my hands at every tree until they were bloody and raw, and then finally something opened and I was spit back out in the middle of London, my memory wiped clean. I loved him. I loved him. But I couldn’t stay.

There are two truths I didn’t know then that I know now.

The first: there is no greater insult to a faerie than tricking him.

The second: once they love you, they will not let you go.

The fire poker clatters to the floor, and I cross the room to my vanity, not in defeat, but with the knowledge that this will be a different kind of fight. My wedding band lies right where I left it. It glints in the dying daylight, somehow not blanketed in dust like everything else. There’s another flash of metal, and I reach up to find a necklace hung atop the pointed peak of the vanity mirror. My breath catches as it falls into my hands, cool against my skin. I hold it up to the light, and a strangled cry leaves my lips. It’s a necklace with a golden chain, and a small I charm, made of pearls. It’s missing one stone, a tiny golden crater, right in the center.

My hands shake as I tuck it down the front of my bodice, where it rests against my heart, then I slip my wedding ring back onto my finger and wait.