41. Jacob
JACOB
LICHTENSTEIN CASTLE
“Where did she go?” Prince William demands, shaking my arm. “I saw her come in here with my very own eyes. You must have seen something.”
I stare up at the loft’s tiny window where moonbeams filter down to the sawdust floor.
The truth of what she is rocks me to the core.
I can’t process anything other than that she can transform into a bird.
I think about our conversations. She knew last night.
Is that why she suddenly left? She had to escape.
From me. My heart tears at the thought.
“Jacob?” the prince prods. “You must have seen something?”
With a slight bow of my head, I say, “I’m sorry, Your Highness. I came in through the back window, but she slipped out before I could catch her.”
“Damn it all.” The prince kicks at the ground. “She was the one. I’m sure of it.”
“Perhaps if you’re lucky, she’ll attend the festivities tomorrow night. Try to focus on that. Keep yourself in good spirits and stay in human form.”
“Yes, yes. Very good point,” the prince mutters, and, clearing his throat, changes the subject. “Any news on an attempted attack?”
“Not a whisper.”
“I still can’t believe Wissen has evaded us. My men couldn’t find anything at the house. Not even a finger from a dead body, or a live one, for that matter. Seems strange, doesn’t it?”
I frown. “Quite. Almost as if they’d been expecting us.”
Once he takes off, I pick up a lone sky-blue feather off the ground. It’s soft against my skin, tickling my senses. I tuck it into the folds of my jacket, mind whirling.
“What is that you have?” a woman asks, startling me. She stands at the entrance of the pigeon house as if not daring to enter. Her dress glitters, a thousand emeralds stitched to create a galaxy of jewels. Even in the shadows, the Enchantress’s eyes gleam wickedly, clearly enjoying herself.
“I want out of this madness,” I snap.
“You know she’s one of mine. Pitiful thing. She thinks she can outsmart you and me, but we know better, don’t we?”
Her words knife me. My jaw clenches. More than anything, I want to withdraw one of my hidden daggers strapped to me.
“Ella is far smarter, braver, and kinder than you could ever achieve in a thousand lifetimes. She’s nothing like the evil monsters you made me to believe these so-called Forbidden, the citizens of your lands, are.”
“Perhaps I misguided you in that, but it’s true that every one of my people who roam this land poisons the humans.
You simply can’t keep her for yourself. She doesn’t belong here.
Which reminds me.” She holds up her razor-sharp nails, scrutinizing them.
“I noticed how you’ve been searching for a way out of working for me.
All those hours spent in the king’s library are taking time away from what you should be doing. So I paid your mother a visit.”
My dagger is in my hand in seconds. I plunge its blade straight into her heart. Except the emerald dress acts like a suit of armor. The metal bounces off its surface. The Enchantress laughs.
“So quick to betray me.” She clucks her tongue and whips her fan out, batting it languidly. “She’s fine. Just a little sick with a gift I gave her. Not sure how long she’ll last under such conditions. Perhaps not through the night.”
“You’re a murderer.”
“Murderer? Here I am spending the last morsels of my power to save the humans from a plague that will destroy their race, and you call me a murderer? I never wanted this. It was never my idea to send my people into this forsaken place. So dirty.” Her nose crinkles as she assesses the pigeon house.
“It was those conniving witches. They’re your murderers. ”
“Then why don’t you talk to them about this? Why bring us into your petty skirmishes?”
“You focus on your job, and I’ll focus on mine. In the meantime, if you wish for your mother to last through the night, I’d hurry and finish another story. Let’s see.”
A scroll appears in her other hand, unraveling to her feet.
She gives it a cursory glance. “You spent five hours at your university in Marburg, one hour at Prince Hermann’s library, and five hours here at King Frederick’s library scrounging around in my personal business.
Quite a lot of lost time. Therefore, I expect at least one additional story for the next three nights.
You have until the stroke of midnight each evening.
I’ve made an allowance on the hourglass for you to choose each story.
There. Now that that tedious business is finished, I think I’ll have some of that delicious cake I saw being served. ”
She flicks her fan again and vanishes in a swirl of glittering emeralds. I rub my throat, trying to control the rage that’s overpowering everything within me and stomp back into the ballroom. A woman screams when she sees me holding my knife.
“Not to worry.” I tuck it away. “Just taking precautions.”
The grandfather clock at the far end of the room points to ten.
We have very little time. I hunt for Wilhelm, hoping whatever story he’s working on is close to being finished.
Still, the memory of Ella’s father stalking out of the pigeon house, the scowl on his face, and the murderous fury in his eyes twists my stomach.
More than anything, I want to mount Storm and make sure Ella is safe.
“Wilhelm!” I call out to my brother the moment I spot him. “We must leave this instant!”
Back at our house, I drag out one of the books we’ve been working on, slamming it onto the table. “We have a problem.”
“Just one?”
I stare at him and then the clock. “Good point. Tell me you’re nearly finished with that story you were working on earlier.”
“The doctor’s story?”
“That’s the only story you’ve been working on? The end hasn’t even appeared on it yet. We haven’t even sent him back.”
“Obviously because he’s still here.” Wilhelm fidgets with his timepiece. “Why are you in such a hurry?”
I sink into one of the chairs and explain the Enchantress’s threat, noting we have an hour remaining. “So you see our situation? What other stories do we have in play?”
Wilhelm withdraws his small notebook from his pocket and begins reading through it.
“The last one we finished was Elise. On deck is the boy and girl who, according to their parents, got lost in the forest last week. No one has seen them since. I have a note here to ask Ella what their names were. Then we’ve got Prince William and Dr. Wissen.
There are those ravens at Ella’s manor that seem awfully suspicious.
Ella’s stepmother. And then—” He clears his throat. “Ella herself.”
I glower at him. “Take Ella off that list.”
“You know she belongs there.”
“No, she doesn’t.”
Wilhelm taps his pen against the table and then yanks the brick out of the fireplace.
A hiss and a curl of smoke stream into our humble room as the door to the secret room opens.
Wilhelm slips inside and returns with the scroll in his hand.
I flinch as he unfurls it across the table.
The list of names screams at me to stop this madness, or perhaps they’re begging me to save them all.
He points to a single name that flickers like a flame caught in the breeze. Cinderella.
“The stepsister’s nickname for Ella,” Wilhelm says.
“Always covered in soot, Marianne said,” I mutter, heart sinking. “Cinderella.”
“What if we gave Ella a happy ending?”
“We can’t just dole out happy endings. It’s our job to relay our stories exactly as we see them or from what others have relayed to us. The Enchantress warned us it’s essential to maintain the whole truth for it to work.”
“What if we gave Ella the happy ending she needed by nudging events in her life in the right direction?”
I stare at the books, my thoughts moving to Ella. Could we do that for her? Somehow, find a way to give her a happier life than the one she has here in this realm?
No. I can’t do it. I won’t write her story.
“We can use this story.” I pull a book from my shelf. “This recounts a story of the nixie from the millpond. I’d been waiting for the hourglass to illuminate the name, but we’re running out of time, but now we can choose the story.”
Wilhelm skims through my story. “This will work,” he says excitedly.
“Then let’s ride to the nixie’s pond.” I grab my coat. “We don’t have a second to spare.”
When we arrive at the millpond, I call out to the nixie, reminding her of her generous offer to take me for her own. She steps out of the water and onto the shore just as I expected. Wilhelm writes “the end,” and she’s spiraled into the air, screaming obscenities at me, minutes before midnight.
“Good work, brother.” I sag onto the shoreline in relief. “I wish I could ride to Kassel and make sure Mother is safe and well.”
“We still have two more nights to write two more stories,” Wilhelm reminds me. “It’s not over yet.”
I hate it when he’s right.
“Do you ever wonder where they go after they vanish?” Wilhelm asks, packing up.
I stare out across the still pond, no longer haunted by the nixie. “Every single damn time.”