19. Charlotte
CHARLOTTE
T he minutes stretched long, and Charlotte began to regret her plan, her back spasming from the awkward position. She was about to give up and straighten when a sound caught her ear. Pressing her eye closer, she forgot the discomfort.
A door almost directly opposite her opened, and a subdued pair of women emerged. For a moment, disappointment speared her until she spotted what was in the hands of the woman in the lead. Draped over her arm was an unfinished but elaborate outfit—the kind that might be worn by a male at a wedding or similar celebration.
She sucked in a breath as the woman turned to her younger companion. “Those measurements should have been done two weeks ago. We’ll be lucky to have this done on time, even with the whole team working all night. You lock up and return the key, and I’ll get this straight to the others.”
The younger woman didn’t look happy with the arrangement, but the other was already hurrying away. With a slight tremble in her hand, the remaining seamstress fit the key in the lock and turned it.
Charlotte could barely breathe at the opportunity before her. “Good ball,” she whispered, stroking it as if it was a sentient creature. “Good ball!”
She waited until the woman turned to go and then flung open the door. Barreling out into the corridor, she clutched the woman from behind, one hand over her mouth. The seamstress hadn’t even had time to scream.
As she had expected from her earlier demeanor, the woman immediately went limp, shaking all over.
“Please don’t hurt me,” she sobbed against Charlotte’s hand.
Charlotte winced, but she couldn’t falter. Using the hand that wasn’t covering the woman’s mouth, she wrested the key from her slack fingers.
Looking around, she found a door with a keyhole and pushed the woman toward it. The seamstress stumbled forward on faltering feet, still not putting up any significant fight. Did she think Charlotte had a weapon?
Opening the door, Charlotte glanced inside at the untouched bedchamber. It was too pristine to be in regular use, so she released the woman and gave her a hard shove from behind. The seamstress staggered into the room, dropping to her knees.
Before she could turn around, Charlotte whisked the door closed, sighing with relief as she turned the key in the lock. As she’d hoped, she was now in possession of the master key Gwen had mentioned.
“Sorry!” she called through the door, feeling another spurt of guilt at the muffled sobs from the other side.
But she had the key in her hand! She ran to the door the woman had closed, thrusting the key into the lock and turning it. Bursting into the room, she closed the door behind her.
“Forget to measure the length of one of my fingers?” a sardonic voice asked from the window, its owner not turning to look at her.
“Henry,” she said, half sob, half word.
He whirled, his blue eyes finding her instantly, his whole face transforming.
“Charlotte!” He ran to her, and she ran to him, the two of them colliding in the middle of the room.
“I found you! I found you!” she cried, tears running down her cheeks.
“Oh, my love,” he murmured, wiping them away and gazing at her in wonder. “How can you be here? The queen…”
Charlotte sniffed, trying to pull herself together. “She captured the rest of them. Or almost all of them. Do you know where Gwen is?”
Henry’s face twisted. “She came to warn me about something, but it turned out it was a test the queen had set up. Celandine dragged her away.”
“Oh no!” Charlotte stared at him in dismay. “Everything really has gone wrong.”
“It’s hard to believe that when you’re standing here with me,” he said.
“Oh Henry! I keep messing everything up, but this time I need to save everyone. We need to save everyone.”
“Slow down,” he said. “I’ve been locked in here the whole time with only the occasional, confusing snippet of news. What’s been going on out there?”
Charlotte’s whole body buzzed with energy, and she would have paced the room if she could have brought herself to leave Henry’s arms. But he had wound one arm around her middle, and she wouldn’t have pried herself away for anything.
Speaking as slowly as she could manage, she explained everything that had happened so far, sticking only to the necessary facts.
“So the queen is still progressing with this wedding,” he said when she finished. “And that’s a good thing—but only as long as we can make the swap in the middle.”
Charlotte nodded, her hands creeping up to grasp the front of his shirt. “I’m not letting her marry you off to Gwen or anyone. You’re already mine.”
He smiled affectionately down at her. “Do you think I would marry anyone else? I already have a wife. A delightful—if occasionally exasperating—one.”
She giggled and hiccupped at the same time, a final tear leaking out.
“Henry, I’m so, so sorry,” she said. “If I’d just trusted you and waited…”
He bent to kiss the tear off her cheek. “Charlotte, you made a mistake, but it was an understandable one. I forgave you immediately. And look what you’ve managed since! I never thought you could actually find a way to come here. But you’re not only here, you have the whole kingdom in open rebellion.”
Charlotte gave a watery chuckle. “I definitely can’t take credit for that.”
Henry smiled down at her. “Maybe not, but it does seem like we can be of some help. So maybe we’re right where we’re supposed to be?” He sighed, his arm around her tightening. “I’m the one who never properly apologized for involving you in all this to begin with. I married you without telling you the truth, knowing I was caught up in an enchantment worked by a dangerous woman. You were wronged by me more than I ever was by you.”
Charlotte shook her head stubbornly. “Now that I know everything, if I had my choice again, I would still marry you in a heartbeat. You are worth every moment of pain.”
“I had no idea how well my heart picked when I saw you in the woods,” he murmured before lowering his mouth to hers.
Charlotte returned the kiss eagerly. Her husband felt utterly familiar—home in a way no place had ever been—but this part was still new. Feeling his arms around her, his chest firm against hers, his mouth moving on hers was exquisite and wondrous and almost too much.
When he pulled back, she made a soft sound of protest, and he groaned and almost pulled her close again. But he stopped with his mouth a whisper from hers.
“Don’t we have some people to save?” he whispered.
Charlotte squeaked, memory rushing back as her cheeks flushed.
“One day soon,” Henry said with a grin, “I’m going to find a castle in the woods where the two of us can be alone together without any bears. But for now, I think we have a kingdom to help save.”
“I’d like to find Gwen, if we can,” Charlotte said. “But the queen will have to bring her to the ceremony, at least. She’s too important to Celandine’s plans for her to do anything too drastic. So it’s probably more important for us to find the rebels before she decides to start executing people.”
“Do you have any idea where they’re being kept?” he asked, stepping away from her, all business.
She sighed softly at the cold air between them before turning her mind to the job ahead.
“Unfortunately, no,” she said. “But this palace is just like your castle. You spent much more time roaming around it than I did—all those days as a bear before I arrived. Were you able to tell just from the layout and position of the rooms what they were supposed to be for? Could you guess where a large group of people might be kept?”
Henry frowned. “I could guess, but that wouldn’t mean I was right.”
“At this point, an educated guess is better than wandering around blindly and hoping we trip over them.”
Henry winced. “There’s really no one else who could help them?”
“That would lead us back to finding Gwen first. Do you have any idea where she’s being kept?”
“Unfortunately, I don’t know that either. They might even be together.”
Charlotte tried not to let panic overwhelm her. She had been so certain that if she could just find Henry, the solution would be simple. Now she wondered how much of it had been her own emotions talking.
Henry instantly picked up on her mood. “Don’t worry,” he said sounding more confident than he could possibly feel. “We’ll find them. The two of us together can manage anything.”
Even though she knew the words were only meant to bolster her confidence, somehow they worked.
“What about a guard hall or…or barracks or something? Do you remember anywhere that looked like it could have been that?”
His eyes brightened. “Actually, yes! There was a small wing joined to the rest of the building by only a single door. I noticed that some of the rooms had brackets in the walls that looked like they were intended for bunks.”
“We should start there,” Charlotte suggested, grateful to have somewhere to begin. “Even if they’re not there, we might manage to overhear something or follow some guards to their prisoners.”
She didn’t mention the difficulty of getting into the guards’ barracks without being seen. The job already felt overwhelming, so they should tackle one thing at a time.
Henry nodded and took her hand, winding his fingers through hers as he led her toward the door. She looked down at their joined hands, a smile stealing up her face despite the circumstances. Another thing they couldn’t do before.
When Henry stepped out into the corridor, he drew a deep breath as if the air was fresh and clear instead of just like the air inside his chamber. How many hours had he spent staring at that door, wishing he could walk through it?
He pulled her to their left, but she froze, pulling back against him. Tugging her hand free, she whispered, “Wait,” and dashed back to the door.
Pulling the key out of her pocket, she locked the door behind them. Henry watched her, confused.
“What’s the point of that?”
She put a finger to her lips, and he fell silent. Hurrying back to the room where she had left the seamstress, she slid the key beneath the door.
A gasp on the other side told her the woman had been sitting watching the door.
“His door has been locked again,” Charlotte called through.
“Thank you,” came the wobbly reply.
Dashing back to Henry, she seized his hand and took off running, pulling him with her. As soon as he’d recovered from his initial surprise, he easily kept pace, quickly outstripping her and tugging her along behind.
Once they were several corridors over, she stopped, bending over to catch her breath. Henry stopped as well, gazing down at her with a quizzical expression, barely out of breath himself.
“What was that?” he asked.
“One of the seamstresses,” Charlotte explained. “Now she can return the key like nothing happened. And when someone comes in the morning to bring you food, they’ll find the door locked and you mysteriously vanished. No one will be able to say exactly when in the night it happened or that it had anything to do with the poor seamstresses.”
“Was that wise?” Henry’s brows furrowed. “She might go straight to check if I’m in there and then run to the queen.”
Charlotte shrugged. “I suppose it’s possible, but you didn’t see her. She might be a lovely person, but she is not what you’d call courageous. I’d be willing to bet a lot that she goes straight on as if nothing happened, hoping the whole time that no one ever connects her to any of it.” Her mouth twisted. “I’m sorry, Henry, but she was just so terrified. I couldn’t abandon her to take all the blame.”
He smiled down at her, his face softening. “I wouldn’t expect anything else from your soft heart.”
She made a face at him.
“It’s too late to worry about it anyway,” he added. “The best we can do is get moving quickly.”
She nodded agreement, and they began moving again, although this time at a more sustainable pace.
“Does it seem normal to you that the corridors are so empty?” she asked after several more turns without anyone coming into view.
Henry grimaced. “I’m afraid the servants were implicated in the rebels’ plans. I suspect the queen has confined them all somewhere. And the guards must be busy rounding up and guarding the rebels. As for the courtiers…”
“Even the ones uninvolved must have worked out something is going on,” Charlotte agreed. “If it was me, and I lived in Celandine’s castle, I’d be lying low, too.”
Easton glanced at the darkness out of a window they passed. Charlotte couldn’t remember when night had arrived, but even the traces of sunset were gone.
“There’s something else to consider,” he said. “Anyone we encounter at this point won’t be…human.”
“They won’t have a human body,” Charlotte said reprovingly. “They’re still people underneath.”
Henry smiled lovingly at her. “It always amazed me how easily you saw me for me, even when I wore a bear’s body. But in this instance, I’m more worried about their teeth and claws. And size.”
“I think it’s actually their ears and noses we should be most concerned about.” Charlotte put her hand on her arm where she still wore a slim bandage beneath her sleeve.
Henry’s eyes followed the movement, and he frowned. “What is it? Were you hurt somehow? Did one of the bears—”
His voice rose, and she shushed him urgently. “Do you hear something?”
He froze instantly, his head cocked as if listening. His eyes grew wide.
“Yes,” he hissed. “Run!”
Grabbing her hand again, he sprinted, pulling her behind him almost too fast for her to keep her feet under her. She found a rhythm and tried to pull her hand free, but he held on tight. She stopped fighting and focused on running, her breath sawing in and out of her lungs.
Pounding steps sounded behind them accompanied by heavy breathing that didn’t sound human. They ran harder.
They reached a strangely shaped intersection, two corridors branching off. Henry pulled her in one direction, but a bear appeared in the distance. It stopped, its head coming up in alert at the sight of them.
Charlotte backtracked, dragging Henry with her as she took the other direction. He seemed almost reluctant, though, his eyes frantically darting all around them.
They careened around a corner, and Charlotte discovered the source of his reluctance. They had reached a dead end.
She barely managed to stop herself from running headlong into the smooth stone wall.
“A window?” she rasped out, struggling to catch her breath.
A low growl rumbled down the corridor, building as two voices overlapped. She spun around, her knees nearly giving out at the sight of two enormous white bears prowling toward them.
Her arm throbbed in memory, and she whimpered. Henry stepped in front of her, his face determined, and it galvanized her into action, strengthening her knees. She looked around, but the windows here had crossed panes. She didn’t think she could smash them if she tried.
“We surrender!” she called quickly, raising both hands.
The bears didn’t pause, continuing to pace toward them. Henry had never lost his human side, and Gwen had claimed to be the same. But these bears looked like predators to her, their eyes dark and fixed on their prey. Were they lost in the hunt?
Henry backed up, pushing her behind him, but all too soon, her back hit the wall and his hit her. They both stopped.
“If only I was still a bear myself!” Henry muttered, and for the first time Charlotte wished his bear form back. Without it, it looked like they were about to die.