Chapter 34
ALMOST 100 YEARS AGO
AMELIA WOKE UP to her body tossed to the ground, the strike of skin and bone against a tree trunk. It took her a moment to realize she hadn’t shattered like glass, then another moment to realize who had thrown her to the dirt.
Shadows cut sharp across Ezran’s face in the harsh contrast of moonlight. “Wake up, you useless girl.”
She flinched at the sudden shift in his demeanor. His voice had a tired rasp, and bags hung below his red eyes, as if he had been crying. But it wasn’t shock she felt from Ezran behaving this way. She was surprised he let his mask slip at all.
Amelia scanned the woods frantically, mind already set on running. Yet between every tree was another one, an endless tunnel of foliage that nestled them in hidden corners. A familiar snap of branches jolted a memory of searching for Malicine. She’d found the demon, and they’d explored a new world together. Then Malicine sent her back to reality, and somehow, that felt even worse than hell.
“We’re several miles away from your castle,” Ezran said. “Which means I could kill you this instant and dispose of your body here, and nobody would ever know. Luckily for you, I won’t.”
She would have been eaten alive by wild animals if Ezran hadn’t rescued her. He always played the part well, being her hero, yet never truly showing his cards. Until now. “Why do you want to kill me?”
“Because you ruined everything.”
“Why won’t you kill me, then?”
“Because I made a promise.”
Her heart sank to the pit of her stomach as he retold what she’d missed. She discovered Ezran was from Lilith’s past, left behind when she chose the life of a royal in Gyldan. When Amelia heard that her godmothers had witnessed their affair, her heart split in half. She pictured the couple’s faces shrouded in shadows, brushed lips, whispered messages. A part of Lilith that she never knew. A secret she hadn’t been trusted to keep.
Or maybe Lilith was going to tell her, if Amelia had listened. There had been a night the queen approached her door and asked to talk, only to be met with silence as Amelia chose sleep over confrontation. If she hadn’t run away, perhaps she could have changed things. Maybe then, Lilith wouldn’t be imprisoned by the godmothers.
“We were supposed to run away together,” Ezran said. “But she urged me to go, while she’d stay. I shouldn’t have listened.”
He shook his head, as if it didn’t make sense why Lilith chose to stay behind. Meanwhile, Amelia could picture the queen walking alone, facing her own fate. That was what queens did. She chose to do things, then face the consequences of those things. Amelia couldn’t decide on anything, nor did she have the strength to deal with the repercussions.
“Before I left, she made me promise to protect her treasure,” he said. “That’s the only reason why I haven’t killed you. Show me where it is.”
Amelia furrowed her brows, straining for an answer in the murky depths of her mind. They had never talked about treasures before. Was this another secret Lilith didn’t tell her? “I don’t know what you mean.”
Ezran looked close to killing her, but redirected his anger to the tree beside him. She jumped as his fist cracked against the trunk, splinters wedged in his knuckles.
“You truly are useless,” he hissed. “If only you’d stayed where you came from.”
But that was what Amelia had tried to do. She never wanted to return to reality. Malicine forced her, even though her existence only made things worse for others. Lilith and Ezran had followed her and gotten caught. She had put Lilith in danger. If she was forced to be here, she couldn’t bear to live in a world without the person who’d brought light into it.
“We need to get Lilith out of the castle,” she urged. “I’m afraid of what my father may do to her—”
“You think I haven’t already planned that?” Ezran snapped. “She is mine, not yours.”
His words stung, laced with hatred but also truth. Since the history of time, there had always been a king and his queen, a prince and his princess, Ezran and his Lilith. Amelia merely stood at the fringe of stories, present by technicality of her blood, never truly residing in anyone’s heart.
Yet Lilith had done so much for her. Even if Amelia could never be part of the queen’s past, she could at least salvage something for the future.
“I’ll help her escape with you,” she said. “You can have a better life together, just like you wanted. I want that for her, too.”
Ezran brushed the splinters from his knuckles as he paced around, stewing in thought. A rough palm rubbed his face, as if it could wash away the tired lines and weariness. The clouds fully shrouded the moon in darkness when an idea struck him.
“When do you turn eighteen?”
? ? ?
IN THE OTHERWORLD, it had only felt like a day. In this world, Amelia had missed seasons of leaves changing, snow falling, babies crying, the elders dying. Nine months had escaped her like dandelion seeds from her fingertips with the change of the wind’s direction.
Tonight, midnight would mark her eighteenth year.
Even as she appeared at the castle’s doorsteps that morning, shivering and coated in mud, her godmothers moved quickly to fix her into someone appropriately part of this world. The faeries swarmed around her, both efficient and hysterical, hurrying her inside the castle. They washed her hair, changed her clothes, drew her baths, scrubbed her skin raw. They sanitized her as if they could cleanse any ugly darkness she’d been a part of, covering it instead with pretty bows and sweet perfume.
The godmothers fretted over Ezran, too, but there was an innate understanding that he was a prince who could take care of himself, while Amelia was fragile glass. They were right. Even though Amelia and Ezran agreed upon a fabricated story beforehand, he maintained a straight face as the prince who rescued Amelia from Malicine. Meanwhile, her nerves made it easy to believe she was too traumatized to recall specific details or speak more about the torture she went through.
I’m sorry, Malicine. The apologies repeated in her mind. Casting blame on the demon felt like a betrayal, as if Malicine had been right about her all along. But she glanced at Ezran’s whitened knuckles every time the godmothers spoke ill about Lilith and knew that he, too, restrained himself for the greater good of their plan. The godmothers needed to believe Ezran hadn’t reciprocated Lilith’s attempts to seduce him and remained loyal to Amelia. Ezran needed to return to the castle and help Lilith escape without suspicion of collusion.
As Ezran predicted, the godmothers filled the gaps in their stories with what they wanted to believe. Lilith was a wicked woman who sought power and seduced men, just like the women she helped in the brothels, while Malicine was a demon who kidnapped innocent girls. Of course Amelia and Ezran had nothing to do with this. Handsome men and beautiful girls were always innocent. How unfair it was, Amelia thought, for something as arbitrary as looks to allow someone good faith.
In the dressing room, she drowned in silk and tulle, choked in corsets and ruffles. Her gown spun in changing colors as her godmothers argued over the perfect attire for her eighteenth birthday. Her insistence in having a celebration excited them into nonstop chatter, a background noise she realized people only made to distract from sadder topics.
Several hours later, they transformed the ballroom into a gallery of beautiful people and decadent food. Her birthday cake, painted with buttercream and handcrafted flowers, floated on a glass pedestal as the centerpiece of the crowded ballroom, its opulence matching Amelia’s champagne-hued dress. Both existed to be observed, never cut open to see the messy insides.
While the castle attended her celebration and heavily guarded the event, Ezran used the distraction to slip into the dungeons, where he would help Lilith escape. Amelia simply needed to sit and look pretty, like any other useless thing. As she stared at the empty space where Ezran had vanished, an older nobleman talked to her.
“We were worried sick for you,” the guest said, even though they’d never met. “Thank goodness you’re safe.”
She smiled at false platitudes and brushed the moonflower crown weaved around her hair. It was the only accessory she chose without her godmothers’ input. The touch of its wrinkled petals, yet to bloom, reminded her why she needed to endure this. Lilith told her of real miracles, like kingdoms that could rebuild themselves from sand, and flowers that bloomed every hundred years.
Then a petal disintegrated between her fingers, and as Amelia stared at the crumbly bits in her palm, she remembered that if Ezran’s plan had worked, she would never see Lilith again. The queen would never witness the flowers she gifted become alive after Amelia’s birthday.
Amelia wasn’t even supposed to live after her birthday.
The realization hit her like a stab in the gut now that her curse had been revoked. She had never pictured a future for herself beyond eighteen. Without the curse, her life expanded in decades. How could life be a miracle if it sounded so terrifying? The thought made her knees buckle, and the godmothers rushed to her side to catch her.
“What’s wrong?” Clover cried.
Her breaths shortened as quickly as her mouth dried. She felt like she was choking, but it was her pounding heart, reaching up her throat, demanding to be spat out. Bumps raised against her skin like needles. They didn’t stop forming, even though her godmothers’ hands were so warm they burned against her shivers.
“I don’t want to do this,” she whispered.
“But this is your party,” Iris said, “and you’re having a wonderful time!”
Amelia shook her head but couldn’t get the words out. She couldn’t explain how it wasn’t the party she was talking about. She didn’t want to do this. She didn’t want to live.
Because this was what life was: waking up and enduring. Sleeping and escaping. Waking up and enduring all over again. She was so tired of feeling this way whenever she was conscious, exhausted from pretending she could be happy. Perhaps for another girl, these parties would be enough to fill the emptiness. But nothing would be enough for Amelia. She’d always keep wishing for another world, another life, another way to fill the void.
The corners of the ballroom spun as the godmothers tried holding her up. They wanted to piece her back together, but she was born broken. It had never been the curse that created the cracks within her. That had been all her doing. More empty platitudes scraped her ears, and she wondered how it was possible that a room could be filled with so many people, while she felt utterly alone.
She had barely steadied herself by the time the doors opened. Murmurs died to a quiet hush. The sea of people parted ways as a familiar face emerged from the crowd. It should have comforted her, seeing her family again. Her father had returned to Gyldan from his trip. Yet, even standing in his own castle, he felt like a stranger.
“I’m glad you’re back, Amelia.” King Victor spoke as if they were the only two in the ballroom. The crowd fell silent in his presence. “We have a lot to catch up on.”