Chapter Nineteen. In Which There Is Far Too Much Resting #2
“Not big fans of witches?”
Amina made a little humming noise as she began to braid Risa’s hair from the top of her crown. “Madros has always avowed science over magic. We moved away from it a few centuries ago.”
“So you don’t have a fairy godmother?”
Amina laughed, the sound no different from that of a farm animal. It made Risa smile.
“No,” Amina confirmed. “If we do, she’s made her presence scarce indeed.
There haven’t been many Madrosian witches, and I bet there are even fewer now.
” Amina tied the braid off with a piece of ribbon, acquired from some unknown pocket or secret stash on her person.
She swung it over Risa’s shoulder and started working on the other side.
“If only things had played out differently. My father was seeking to change Madrosian policies on magic. He thought magic and science could coexist—I guess he was a little like the Regent of San Cirilo.”
“Perhaps science could break your curse,” Risa supplied, suddenly inspired by the idea.
She felt Amina shrug. “I should ask. Though I don’t think it’ll be that easy. You heard what Linda said about witches and curses.”
Risa stared into her lap. If it could work with an airship … perhaps it could work for her, too.
Though that meant prolonging her journey with the prince. It was a good enough reason—after all, if science could break one curse, it could break two. Then Brunhilda’s spell would fall away and she could leave without ever looking back.
The thought made her insides feel funny, her heart squeezing.
“You really don’t know who placed it on you?” she asked, ignoring the tightness in her chest.
“I assume it was the general. He must have realized I survived and, for all his anti-magic talk, found a way to ensure that I could never reclaim my throne. He must have a witch working for him.”
“And what do you intend to do when we storm the castle? Kill him?”
“If necessary.” Amina’s hands stilled at her back. “Not that I’ve ever killed anyone. I learned to fight because I had to survive, but I don’t take any pleasure in violence.”
Amina returned to braiding, humming a little to herself. Risa’s chest tightened again, though she could hear Javi outside the door, complaining about his lumpy armchair.
Amina was good. She deserved to be free of her curse. She deserved to be remembered.
“What if I try again?” Risa whispered.
Amina finished the second braid and tied it off with a matching ribbon. “Tried what?”
Risa turned slightly, glimpsing some of Amina’s features in snatches: beaky nose, dark brows, eyelashes so long they fanned across her scarred cheek when she blinked.
“To break your curse.”
Amina sucked in a hopeful breath. “You don’t have to.”
Risa knew that. But she wanted to. She wanted to be good, too, even if she wasn’t very good at it.
She turned to the princess until they were sitting knee to knee. Taking the princess’s smaller hands in hers, she stared into Amina’s inscrutable face, ever-changing and fluid, like a rippling lake or a warped mirror.
But that wasn’t Amina. Amina was a girl who had been forced to be an outlaw.
Who helped criminals leave their past behind for a brighter future.
Who carried too many daggers and ribbons, and laughed like a braying donkey.
Risa had to see the princess she once was, the girl she’d been forced to become, the queen she could be.
Past the curse and its unwieldy weeds, past the thorns that threatened to tear through Amina’s skin like paper and lay claim to what it could find inside.
For a moment, Amina’s real face shimmered: plump and heart shaped, with a pointy chin and a widow’s peak.
Slate eyes upturned slightly at the ends.
And at the center of it all, her curse, wrapped tight around her heart, trailing off into the distance, past mountains and deserts toward a kingdom that had forgotten her.
Risa couldn’t understand it. Something about the way the curse clung to Amina’s face and around her heart made Risa think that at its core, it had something to do with Amina’s identity.
General Sur hadn’t wanted a ghost to return to claim the throne he had killed for, so he’d used magic to kill what she was.
“You are Princess Amina Durra Moro Almunia, the last survivor of the Almunia dynasty,” Risa said, hoping that stating the truth would be sufficient. “You are an outlaw, a bounty hunter, a friend to those in need.”
But the words alone were not enough.
Just as Amina had carefully picked out the tangles in Risa’s hair, Risa began to pluck the thorns from the vine of Amina’s curse, ignoring the sharp pain it caused.
When she was finished with one prickly vine, another would appear, the thorns endless and somehow growing bigger and bigger.
It was like the curse had planted roots.
Then she remembered what Linda had said. That magic was like a series of knots.
She blinked. Crossed her eyes. Tried to see the essence of the curse.
Beyond the writhing weeds nestled in the heart of the tangled roots was a large mass of interloping knots made from the vines.
They had been woven together by a magic so powerful, it had snagged an entire kingdom and spread past it.
Risa untied every knot, each more complicated than the last, until finally she thought she saw something shimmering through the cracks.
Something that felt warm and so very much like the girl whose hands she held.
“You are yourself,” she whispered, the truth of it so powerful, she felt it flood through her own body. “There is no one else for you to be.”
A gasp. Something snapped within Risa’s rib cage, a rushing heat flaring through her chest all the way to her fingertips. She let go of Amina’s hands and scrambled out of the bed, opening her eyes to the vision of Amina glowing bright like a torch.
Looking back at her was a face turned into real flesh and bone, a face that betrayed every emotion flickering across it. Fear, awe, joy, grief.
“You did it,” Amina whispered in a breathy voice. Her fingers roamed over her own face, her touch tentative and light. Fat tears filled her eyes and spilled down her cheeks.
Risa had done it. Somehow, she’d broken Amina’s curse.
“I did, didn’t I?” she said, unable to keep a small smile from pulling at her lips.
“Thank you,” Amina said, standing up and taking Risa’s hands. “Thank you, thank you, thank you.”
Risa nodded, unsure of what to do after the princess shakily pulled her hands back to herself. She knew it was silly to stand there feeling out of place when she should have been thrilled about what she’d done. Instead, the reality of her misfortune hit her hard.
Risa could break curses. Just not her own.
“Yeah.” Risa went back to the bed and slipped under the covers. She settled with her back toward the princess. “No problem. Anytime.”
“Risa—”
“We should go to bed,” she said with some finality. “We’re waking in a few hours.”
The room fell to darkness as Amina blew out the candle.
The princess settled in the bed beside her. “I’m sure Javi will be impressed,” she whispered.
“Don’t mention it,” Risa said, her heart clenched in her chest. Javi was close enough to call if she really wanted him to know. But she didn’t. She didn’t want him to see what she could and couldn’t do. She didn’t want to be a further disappointment. “Please.”
Amina mentioned nothing the next morning as she tied her cloak around her neck and pulled the hood over her face.
It did a good job of obscuring her newly settled features and casting her in shadow.
Javi spoke little, mumbling a few choice words about a bad back and even worse allergies, thanks to Brunie sleeping on his chest. Paulo led them to a cart attached to their two horses, who’d been collected from the stable in the center of town.
Paulo put the finishing touches on the cart—scuffing the paint to make it look more worn and packing some food in the back.
“You don’t think…” Javi’s voice cleaved the air as he considered the cart. “You don’t think there will be any monsters on the way, do you?”
Amina shrugged. “Statistically speaking, monsters are everywhere.”
“That’s very comforting, thank you.”
“What is a monster, anyway?” Amina questioned, raising her hands to the red sky. Without her curse, she was awfully cheerful for a princess on the path toward revenge. “Aren’t we all but a moment away from turning into monsters ourselves?”
Risa groaned. “Let’s not philosophize before we embark on what some consider a foolhardy expedition, please.”
“I don’t know,” Javi interjected. “I feel like I’m less of a monster compared to, say, El Cuco.”
“I haven’t heard of that one,” Amina noted, petting one of the horses gingerly between the eyes.
“It’s a creature of shadow. Dark as midnight with talons as long as my arm. It steals naughty children and eats them.” Javi laughed, mirthless. “My brothers used to tell me El Cuco was waiting to take me away every time I behaved badly.”
Risa glanced at him. She recognized that smile, the false one he thought was carefree and pulled at only one corner of his mouth. The one he used to deflect his true feelings. When he caught her looking, he raised an eyebrow in question.
She hadn’t realized she was staring. They had hardly looked at each other since the incident.
“That clearly didn’t work,” she said, hoping the barb was enough of a distraction to make him forget she’d been looking in the first place.
“Of course not. It made me behave worse. That’s how I learned El Cuco wasn’t real. I tested the theory, and my brothers were wrong.”
“Wow, a certified scientist,” Risa said.