24. Ofelia
24
Ofelia
T he Shadow King’s castle loomed over us upon the silvery cliff face. Mother and I entered and wove through the palace’s dark hallways, where amber-colored crystals glowed on the black walls and strange small sparks drifted through the air like fireflies.
Le Chateau was light and sunshine and gold. This place was its inverse. The walls of this castle seemed to close in on me like I was trapped in a cave. Even so, I was mesmerized by the lights floating through the corridors, little stars in a world made of the night sky.
There were no chandeliers, no paintings, no tapestries. There were no servants, either, but sometimes in the little halos of light formed by the sconces, there’d be a flicker of movement—a Shadow slipping down the hallway.
The corridor gradually sloped upward, a long, winding ramp that was sometimes missing its walls altogether. I looked to my right as the wall broke to see that false moon once more, shining brilliantly over sparkling water.
We climbed higher and higher until we stood on a massive balcony. In one corner was a large pane of glass, like a dark mirror. Very faintly behind the glass was another room, with stone walls and ceilings and silver candelabras. The other side of the Hall of Illusions, I supposed. There were stone benches along the railed perimeter of the balcony, and across from the mirror was a tall, white door. It soared to the ceiling of the palace, easily the height of four men.
My hands trembled. I squeezed them tight against the fabric of my gown to try to calm myself. Then I knocked upon the door.
“Enter,” came a voice, slithering and gentle, but somehow loud enough that Mother and I both leapt in alarm.
I slipped into the room with Mother following behind me.
It was nothing like I imagined. The room was surprisingly bright, with marble floors and towering walls that were covered not in plaster or wood but thousands and thousands of books—not a blank inch of wall to be found. There was a black chaise longue decorated with fluffy white bundles, like clouds. There were three tables with various items meticulously set out and sorted. Gold rings, gold coins, a locket, a book, a small, skinny bone. A sword, sheet music, a pair of golden dancing shoes, a pomegranate. Dozens of strange items with no common theme to them.
At the far end of the circular chamber, the Shadow King sat at an enormous desk white as bone, sifting through papers as though he were a clerk or barrister and not a dark god. He lifted his head, his white eyes flaring like flickering candles at the sight of us. Mother curtsied and I followed suit.
“Marisol,” he said slowly. “Ofelia. I did not call for you.”
“No, sire,” I replied, standing tall, calling on the confidence that Lope would have wanted me to have. “I wished to have an audience with you.” With a glance at Mother, with a scheme and worry in my heart, I said, “Alone.”
Mother’s eyes widened, but the Shadow King said, “Very well. Marisol, wait outside while I speak with Ofelia.”
She whirled toward the king. “Sire, please—”
“Ofelia has made her choice.” The king nodded toward my mother. “She will return to you soon.”
I squeezed Mother’s hand. “It’s all right,” I promised her at a whisper. “I need to do this on my own.”
She sighed, shot me one of her “we’ll talk about this later” glares, and she then exited the king’s chamber.
My glass shoes clicked against the white marble as I crossed toward the chaise longue and what appeared to be the small clouds covering it. I placed my hand against one, and it was just as soft as it looked, a bit like the white fur stole Mother wore in the winter.
“Do you like them?”
I gasped at the suddenness of the voice to my right. The Shadow King stood at the far end of the room, watching me carefully.
Cradling one of the clouds, I held it to my chest to help suppress my galloping heartbeat. “They’re—they’re very pretty. What are they, exactly?”
The little white sparks of its eyes dimmed somewhat. “Pillows, I thought they were called.”
Pillows. In such a place, in the palace of a king of darkness, why would he want pillows ?
“Oh!” I said. “Well, they do seem a bit like pillows. But they... need to be covered by a bit of fabric.” I held the white mass in my hands again, inspecting it. “It looks more like a cloud than anything.”
“A cloud,” he repeated. When I glanced at him again, he was holding a black stick and touched it to a long white scroll. “Tell me what a cloud is.”
Every time I attempted to look at him, my stomach roiled. In my mind, I could only see him unhinging his jaw and snuffing out my life like all the other monsters would have done.
“I—I—A cloud looks very similar to this,” I said, holding the ball of fluff with my head bowed. “But they hang in the sky, high above.”
There was a gentle scratching sound as his pen poked at the scroll. “I see,” he said. “Can you release that cloud, then?”
I drew back my hands. Slowly, it floated into the air, as did the other ones, lifting up to the domed, white ceiling of the room. It was so strange and marvelous that it gave me an odd comfort. I forgot, just for a moment, that I was in a monster’s library.
“Why did you seek an audience with me, Ofelia?” asked the Shadow King.
I folded my hands tight, holding them against my thrumming heart. “Your Majesty,” I said softly, “I’ve come to ask for our release from this world.”
The white lights of his eyes turned cold. “Ah,” he said, setting down his pen. “I told you, child. It is impossible. Only your kind can create a door. And our friend, Sagesse—she has attempted this to no avail. Such doors can only be made in the world above.”
I frown. “You are certain?”
“Doors are outside my domain. Whatever magic allows mortals to send their prayers and offerings to us gods, it is one-way. So it has always been.” The Shadow King gestured with his long, wispy fingers toward the tables of oddities.
“These are offerings?” I asked, approaching one table carefully.
He moved silently, like the heavy creeping of fog. He was beside me in a moment, running his smokelike hand over the treasures. His white eyes became half-moons, almost as if he were smiling. “Generous gifts,” he said in his whispering, slithering voice. “Stories, dozens of stories. Little glimpses of your world above. I always want more.”
The Shadow King lifted a small ceramic figurine depicting a couple dancing. He brought it closer to me. “They are called dancers, aren’t they?”
His voice was so hopeful and small. It startled me, how mild he could be. “Yes,” I answered softly.
“But this does not move,” he continued. “What is the purpose of this object?”
The knot in my chest from standing beside this monster, this giant Shadow, began to loosen slightly. He spoke like a child, asking to understand the world for the first time.
“I think it’s only decoration,” I said. “Humans... humans sometimes keep objects in their homes just because they’re beautiful. Or because they inspire memories.”
His white eyes sparkled. “Fascinating!” He glanced around his chamber. “Where should I put this ‘decoration’?”
It was almost like a strange dream, how light and happy he was in this cold, dark world. “I—I suppose it’d look nice on your desk,” I offered.
The king swept over to the white desk, setting the painted figure on one side—then the other. He turned it, hemming and hawing as he went.
“Is there nothing you can do for us, Your Majesty?” I asked softly. “You are a god; nothing is impossible for you. Please, if you like humans so much, won’t you show us some mercy and release us?”
He turned away from his desk, his eyes piercing me. “It cannot be done, Ofelia. No matter how you beg or cajole. Your king made his bargain. His door is closed.”
The sharpness of his tone made me flinch back, prepared for him to move and strike me, to take my breath. But the Shadow King simply returned behind his desk and back to his papers.
“It’s... it’s over, then?” I asked softly. “We’re truly trapped?”
He tilted his head, farther and farther than what was natural for a human. He said nothing for a moment, almost like an animal watching its prey. Then he said, “I want to hear the story of your life, Ofelia. From beginning to end.”
Beginning... to end. The implication pierced my heart. My mouth felt dry and thick as cotton. I couldn’t save any of us. We were down here for who knew how long. Frozen in time.
Would I be the same, unendingly young until time itself was just a memory to me?
Could I truly be trapped here for eternity?
The Shadow King lifted a hand, and a white chair evanesced up from the marble. “Sit,” he said. “Tell me about your life in the world above.”
I supposed I had no choice. I was too tired to fight back, too heartsick to resist. Still, to relive the life that was now lost to me felt like salt in my wounds.
The new shoes he’d given me clinked musically as I approached and sat across from him.
This is my existence now.
Stories had always been a source of comfort for me. I could control how they’d end. I could watch different emotions dance across Lope’s face as I wove a tale for her. The happiness, devastation, and laughter my tales had wrung from her.
“Go on,” coaxed the Shadow King.
I imagined it was Lope I was telling my story to. That she was here, listening as carefully as she always had. Her eyes gleaming, like I was telling her the most interesting thing she’d ever heard.
“I don’t know my story anymore,” I murmured. “A few days ago, I thought my mother had one name, that I had the de Bouchillon name. Now... my name is the least of what’s changed...” My voice petered out.
The Shadow King leaned forward, as if prompting me.
“My mother vanished,” I began, “and in my attempt to find her, I learned that she was keeping so many secrets from me. That she had been in love with the king. That she had... That the king was my father . All I wanted was a family, for us to be together and to move past the lies and the secrets, but... my father is a wicked man.”
When I tried to sum up the whole of my life, it sounded so small, so pathetic, so tangled.
“I don’t really know who I am anymore,” I said.
My life was through . My story had ended. And its ending had been full of lies. Daughter of Mirabelle, daughter of Marisol, daughter of the king, daughter of a monster. Lope’s friend, Lope’s beloved, then the girl who broke Lope’s heart.
Could growth or even hope be possible in a place like this?
Glancing up at the monster, my heart hammered quicker, and I balled my fists tight. The Shadow King was the ruler of this place. He’d not done anything to harm us, true, but even looking at him made my skin prickle. I needed to do what he asked. I needed to tell him a story.
“Once upon a time,” I said softly. The king of Shadows sat taller, the embers of his eyes twinkling like stars.
“There was a girl who was faithful to me ever since my childhood. She played with me. Laughed at my silly jokes. At night she fought to protect me from the monsters outside my walls. And sometimes, when she found a moment, she liked to write.” My throat grew tight. “Her name was Lope, a name she picked because it was a poet’s name. She composed beautiful poems, and sometimes she shared them with me. Little gifts of words. And one day I asked her to come away with me to a palace, a wondrous but dangerous place. She forsook everything and nearly gave her life for me. Still, I didn’t see it—I didn’t see that she loved me.”
With every word, it was growing harder to breathe. Harder to see, with the tears fogging my vision.
“How does the story end?” he asked, his voice light with wonder.
I squeezed my eyes shut. Thinking about her, about this girl I loved so, was enough to make me ache. “I broke her heart. And then I was sent here. And she, she’s still up there. Which is better, I suppose. But I miss her so. I wish I could apologize to her. I wish she could know that I really do love her.”
I shook my head, wishing that were enough to erase my thoughts. They were too painful. “It’s not a very good story, I suppose, if it has no ending.”
“Tell me another?”
It was a request, not an order, hopeful and gentle. The kindness in his voice made me lift my gaze, only to recoil again. He still looked fearsome . Like a man’s shadow come to life, but bent at the wrong angles and with piercing white pinpricks for eyes. Something about him, something unnamable, made me unable to look.
“Is it all right if it’s a pretend story?” I asked him. “It hurts to talk about my life. Now that it’s over.” If it was. If I was truly... dead .
“Any story,” he said.
I cleared my throat and closed my eyes. My life was filled with dozens of storybooks that I’d read aloud to Lope at night, cuddled under blankets when the nights grew cold. And of course, the ones I made up for us, to playact or just to see her eyes widen with surprise at each new twist and turn.
I told him the story of the two girls who flew to a foreign land on a giant bird. Of the knight who rescued a princess with nothing but a rose. Of a castle made of snow and the heartbroken prince who lived inside. Story after story, and after a few, the Shadow King stopped taking notes on his scroll and simply sat, his hand against what could have been his cheek, his pinprick eyes ever on me.
After a seventh story, my voice was growing hoarse. I leaned back in the chair, daring myself to look him in his eyes. “All right,” I said. “Now I’d like to hear your story.”
He blinked and lifted his head, as if he’d been woken from a dream. “I have not been asked that before.” He bowed his head and wove his long fingers together. “No one has wanted my story before.”
The sadness in his voice was startling. If he had been a human, I would have reached out and touched his hand. But I was too afraid to do so. Instead, I said, “I imagine the story of a god must be very interesting, sire.”
His eyes seemed to shine a little bit brighter.
And he told me his story.
“Long ago, before Earth was made, the gods were. I was the youngest of them. We were given roles to carry out in the creation of the world. One to give it light, one to grow the plants, one to carve out rivers and oceans, on and on.
“The other gods finished their tasks, creating the world, creating the animals, creating man, and, satisfied with their work, prepared to enter their Kingdom Above to stay and to rest.
“‘What can I make for this world?’ I asked them.
“The gods scowled and recoiled from me. They found me ugly and frightening. ‘You have no place in this world,’ they said, ‘so we will give you one of your own.’ And the gods gave me this world below. It was cold and dark and desolate, even more so than what you see today.
“Though it had been many years since I walked on the earth, I remembered bits of what the world looked like. I remembered the moon and the stars and the sea. Sometimes, on a very rare occasion, a mortal would rip open a door between worlds and speak to me. I relished these moments. Relished the sound of another voice and the chance to hear tales of the world above. I am a god, and so I do what all gods do: I create. I tried to create a world for myself out of the pieces I heard about the world above us, the world you came from. I created animals of my own, and I created my own being, the beings you call Shadows. They are my messengers, and when a door opens between worlds, they slip through and gather stories for me. When they return, they whisper the stories they’ve captured on the breaths of humans. It is the only way I can hear about the world above. In addition to the seven of you.”
For a moment, I pitied him. Forgotten, feared, and then exiled to this place. Exiled from the gods’ own kingdom . But his final words gave me pause.
“You ask your Shadows to give you stories?”
“Yes.”
I frowned. A great coldness was seeping through me. “They... they kill people. They steal the breath from our lungs. They tried to kill me, tried to kill Lope!”
“When your kind die, they go to the Kingdom Above to live with the gods in peace and happiness.” He strode to the bookshelves and stroked the books’ spines. “I know the lives of your kind. I know the sorrow you endure. Perhaps the end of a life is not as tragic as you may think.”
“Yes it is!” I marched over to his side, glancing at the books that held his attention. On the spine of one was the word Noémie . On another Victoire . On a third Jordi.
I gasped, covering my mouth. The beautiful, jewel-colored books around me now meant something so different. Each one a life. Each one a life stolen by Shadows, whispered into the ear of the Shadow King, stored forever in these books.
The bookshelves went up and up and up. I spun to take in the whole room. So many, lining every wall. Looking at all the books and the names on their spines, I thought of how close Lope came to becoming one of these stories. And how her friend Carlos must be here somewhere.
“There’s a book I want,” I murmured, my heart thundering in my ears. “Show me the one for Carlos. Carlos... de la Vega, I think it was?”
The Shadow King stretched out a hand, pointing to a book shelved high, high above me. It loosened itself off the shelf and plummeted down, right toward me. I yelped and leapt backward, but the king of Shadows intercepted it and then held it out to me. I snatched it from his grasp.
The book was dark blue like a sapphire. Carlos was written in gold on the spine and the cover. And I wondered, What would my book look like?
I could not let his story go unread. I did not have the chance to know this boy, this boy Lope adored, when he lived on the grounds of my own home.
I opened the cover and stood, reading his story. Every page I turned a moment of his life, passing by. He was an orphan. He had a sister, but she was adopted by another family. He spent a few years training to be a knight before he joined the mercenary company my mother had hired.
And I saw Lope’s name.
There was a girl named Lope , Carlos said in his account. I was assigned to be her mentor, and I chose her as my new family from the start. She was not very good at saying so, but I knew she loved me fiercely. She gave me extra rations. She played chess with ferocity. She listened to me cry over my lost sister. She taught me how to read. She laughed at my jokes. She was my best friend. Out of everything, I miss her most of all, more than sunrises or crickets singing or chocolate religieuses. I hope she lives a long, joyful life.
Tears dripped onto the pages, and I closed the book fast before I could do it any damage. How I wished I could send this book to Lope. I turned to face the Shadow King, who watched me silently with his head at a tilt.
My hand shook as I held the book aloft. “He was just a boy,” I said, my voice trembling, my jaw clenched. “He had so much life to live. He had friends, people who loved him—you stole that from him.” I pointed at the bookshelves. “From all of them!”
He just... stared at me. Saying nothing.
“You want to know so much about humans,” I whispered. “Can you even fathom what it’s like to lose someone you love?”
“I cannot,” he said.
“Have you not felt love ?”
The lights of his eyes dimmed. “I have not.”
“Do... do you feel nothing when your Shadows die?” I whispered. “I—I’ve seen them disappear.”
“They reform in the darkness. It takes time, but no, they do not die.”
“So you don’t understand,” I whispered. “You don’t understand that when you take a person away, you are ripping the heart from the chests of their family, their friends... the world, it stops turning, and meaning and light and hope, they just... fall away.”
“You’ve told me your story, Ofelia,” said the Shadow King. “Nobody you loved has died.”
“ I am the one who has died,” I spat. “Thanks to you, I am trapped here below. I will never ever see sunlight again. Or walk through a field of flowers. Or taste fresh fruit. And—” I had to stop to catch my breath, trying and failing again and again. The most painful loss I could not speak. In my mind, I pictured Lope beside me, offering me a handkerchief, that sweet, concerned little notch in her brow. The words were wrenched from me as more tears fell. “I’ll never see my beloved again.”
“That isn’t so.”
I lifted my head, frowning. “Are you mocking my pain?”
“No,” said the Shadow King, his voice soft and, somehow, a little mischievous. It felt absurd in the face of what I had just told him, and rage began to bubble up inside me. “Tell me, little Ofelia, what is it called when one human withholds truth from another one?”
“A lie?” I snarled.
“Not that.” His eyes sparkled. “A secret?”
I scrubbed away tears with the heel of my hand. “What are you talking about?”
“Before you came to speak with me,” he said, “I received a sacrifice.” He lifted a paper from his desk. “A beautiful poem.” He glanced down at it and read, “‘ How gentle is her spirit. How tender is her heart. Her words are like the soft glow of morning light. And her kindness is delicate and sweet, like drops of spring rain... ’”
My heart skipped.
“ Lope ,” I breathed, her name sounding like a grateful prayer.
“She gave me a message for you,” he said. “She intends to come here. She asked you to wait for her.”
Hope, bright as the dawn, burned inside my chest, like my heart had finally returned to me.
“She will meet you at the mirror,” he said, and without a backward glance, I sprinted out of the study.