72. Rosalina
Rosalina
Goose bumps ripple over my arms. I’m wearing only a white T-shirt and black leggings, with the boots I haven’t touched since I first entered the Enchanted Vale, though Marigold’s shined them up.
I take a step backward, trying to get out of the shadow and into a beam of sunlight filtering through the thick canopy of thorns that makes up the Briar.
Kairyn shifts with me, and once again, I’m engulfed in shadow.
Scuffing my toe in the dirt, I chew on my bottom lip, wondering if there are any words that will make this experience less awkward. I don’t believe so, so I might as well embrace it.
“So, uh, what do you think she’s doing there?” I ask, looking up—way up—to catch his red gaze.
Kairyn keeps staring straight ahead, into the thick tangle of thorns, blossoming with black roses that shimmer with prismatic colors, like an oil slick. “I don’t know.”
Okay, so that won’t be our conversation starter. I let out an exhale, blowing away the curl that’s fallen in front of my face.
I never pictured myself deep in the Briar with only my mate’s brother, the same man who imprisoned me, forced me to fight in his twisted games, and tried to take over the Spring and Summer Realms, but I’ve come to expect the unexpected.
A strange truce has formed between Kairyn and me—one that began when I saved his life in Hadria and he passed the blessing of Spring to me—and he and Ez are working to mend the decades of hurt between them.
So when Kairyn knocked on Castletree’s door early this morning saying he knows where Wrenley is, I was the first to invite him in.
Even though he won’t meet my gaze, I keep looking at him.
He has Ezryn’s rugged handsomeness, but there’s a youthfulness to his face Ez has long lost. His hair, longer than his older brother’s, curls in a similar way, and his tawny skin is streaked with dirt from the road.
Regardless of the strange underfae features—horns, red eyes, and enormous size—he’s still beautiful.
Maybe sadness suits him.
I exhale again. I’m stalling at this point. Facing the rosebush again, I stare into its depths. Hello, old friend.
It’s not the same rosebush I entered Castletree through; Kel destroyed that a long time ago. But another has bloomed within the Briar on the outskirts of Castletree, this one heavy with roses, luminescent as Wrenley’s briars. And Kairyn’s heart has led him here.
“Sure you don’t want to come with me?” I ask.
He shakes his head, horns swinging. “A monster in the human realm? I would be hunted before I ever found her.” Finally, he meets my gaze, his own shining. “I just want to know she’s safe.”
I nod. “Okay. I’ll meet you back at Castletree soon.”
Then I fall to my hands and knees and crawl into the rosebush.
My heart pounds against my ribs as I push through the thorns, and my stomach twists. This doesn’t feel like going home; it’s like trying to step into a black-and-white photograph, my colors too bright to fit in again.
Not that I ever did.
But what is my sister doing here? Wrenley never lived in the human realm. Never stepped foot in it, as far as I know.
I keep scrambling beneath the thorns until a gleam of light shines up ahead. Pulling myself through the last briars, I emerge in a familiar forest with a familiar scent. The air tastes like eating a candy I haven’t tried since childhood.
Briarwood Forest.
I follow paths I traced as a kid, walking past trees that grew up with me. Gray light washes over my skin as I step out from beneath the forest canopy into a drizzle. A wooden sign with a cartoonish orca greets me. A speech bubble above the caricature reads WELCOME TO ORCA COVE!
Home.
But not home.
Because while this is where I was born, my heart was always split in five directions across the realms of the Enchanted Vale.
Why is Wrenley here? What could possibly draw her to a tiny village in the human realm?
Fixing my hair so my pointed ears are hidden, I wrap my arms around myself and walk into town, head down, eyes averted. I’m good at becoming small. I did it all my years living in this town.
My heart pounds, and goose bumps rise on the back of my neck. It’s like my body knows I’m not supposed to be here. It’s funny; I didn’t realize it until now. When I first came to the Enchanted Vale, even though I was imprisoned by four cursed fae, I never felt small.
They changed me, my princes. As I changed them, and they’ve changed each other.
Love is transformative. I’ll never be able to make myself invisible like Orca Cove wanted me to be. And that’s okay. I’ve got the Vale, my true home.
And it’s Wrenley’s too.
Nothing is too different since I left. The Seagull’s Gullet Book Emporium is empty as always, and I glimpse my old boss, Richard, sitting behind the counter, staring into space.
At first, I don’t know if I’ll be able to look up at the Poussin Hunting Lodge, but I do at the last minute.
Missing posters line the windows, and Lucas’s face stares back at me, a haunting ghost.
I pause, drawn in by the familiar smile, the handsome figure that once possessed me. With all the horrors he inflicted on me and the ultimate retribution I made him pay, it is his parents who will forever suffer, never knowing the fate of their son.
There’s no way to tell them of the monster he became. They could never see the monster he was in this world. Still, I take a stuttering breath, wishing them peace.
I keep walking, passing the abandoned building I’d once dreamed of turning into a library. The Poussins had converted it into a tacky gift shop, but it is empty once more. The windows are boarded up, and there’s caution tape over the door.
Some things will forever be frozen in time in Orca Cove. Lucas will remain the town hero. But there are no missing posters for me or for Papa. We will fade from memory, as if we were never here at all.
I stop at the willow tree. Papa always said it was Mom’s favorite. I place a hand on the bark. A wave of energy passes through me, warm and bursting with life. My magic is so much more attuned to the living world now, but even back then, I knew this was a good tree.
My feet carry me unconsciously up my old street, down the long driveway, and to a cottage, easy to forget it ever existed here.
It’s dark, but of course it is. No one’s been around to pay the electrical bill.
The cottage was never in great shape to begin with, but without Papa’s occasional patch-ups, it’s fallen into disrepair.
The porch groans under my step, damp leaves stuck in the corners.
One of the shutters has come loose and knocks against the siding. The air smells like wet wood.
I lift the soggy mat, find the key, and put it in the lock.
My breath catches. The door’s not locked.
Slowly, I turn the knob and step inside.
The house is only lit by the gray light casting in through the windows.
I can almost see them moving through the rooms like ghosts, hear their voices as echoes: memories of Papa and me, in the life we lived before.
Me following him from room to room, writing notes as he reads from a text.
My old routine of plopping down at the bench by the front door, pulling on my boots, readying for the walk to work.
Sitting in the seat by the kitchen window, waiting for someone to return.
I narrow my gaze, examining that particular ghost. But it’s not a memory at all. There’s a person in the rickety wooden chair right where I used to sit, legs all curled up, head leaning against the windowsill.
But her hair is short and wavy, eyes like our father’s sapphire blue.
My sister turns to look at me. She wears clothes that are far too big for her—black sweatpants and a navy hoodie with a bleach stain down the front. My clothes. Swamped in fabric with bare feet and tucked into a ball on the chair, she looks so fragile, like a bird fallen from its nest.
Her blank expression doesn’t change as she takes me in. “Oh,” she says quietly. “How disappointing.” She returns to staring out the window. “I was hoping it was someone who would finally kill me.”
I swallow in a dry throat. Look around the kitchen.
It’s a mess, strewn with pried open tins of beans and peaches and foil packages from various pantry goods.
A leak must have sprung in the roof, and a puddle has formed on the floor.
There’s other clutter too, stuff that doesn’t belong in the kitchen: books piled on the microwave, my old diaries flung open and left on the floor, old letters of Papa’s hung on the fridge by magnets.
“How long have you been here?” I ask, my voice barely above a whisper.
She shrugs. “Since the Winter Realm.” Then she mumbles so low I can hardly hear her, “No place in the Vale for me.”
“How did you find it?”
“I know more about you than you think,” she spits, that old venom creeping back. Then she sighs and says, “Small town. Easy to find.”
So this is where Wrenley’s run off to. I itch to start tidying up Papa’s papers or take a seat in the kitchen with her, but I’m struck still. What was she searching for in the pages of my childhood diaries or the ramblings my father jotted down?
“I came looking for you,” I say. “Caspian’s worried. Kairyn’s worried. They want to know you’re okay.”
She squeezes her eyes shut. “Cas is gone—”
I move, scooting into the chair beside her. I reach out my hands to take hers, but she pulls away, huddling more into herself. Because she hates me? Or because she’s afraid of me?
I clasp my fingers together to resist the temptation. “He’s okay, Wrenley. He fought the Baron and won. Caspian’s himself again.”
Wrenley nods and her breathing quickens. Her gaze rises upward, and I see how shiny her blue eyes are. “That’s good. I’m happy for him. Really, I am.”
I bite the inside of my cheek, then go for it, lightly resting a hand on her shoulder. She stiffens beneath my touch. “Everyone’s at Castletree. Me, Caspian, Kairyn. And our parents. We all want you to come home.”