But the laundry woman’s seven-year-old son, Jean-Claude, had done the delivery of clean towels that morning for his mother, and I’d caught my boss in the kitchen unbuttoning his trousers and trying to force the little boy to his knees.
That wasn’t going to happen. If there was one thing I was willing to suffer for, it was to save children from dungholes like that one. Monsieur Patit was a tall, wide-bodied man, though, and I couldn’t attack directly. So I’d done the next best, most stupid thing.
I’d attacked the cake. Then, as soon as I was sure my boss had left the boy alone, I ran as fast as my too-small shoes would allow.
Luckily, I’d been able to pant out a warning and quick explanation to the boy’s mother as I ran past her front door, and she’d headed back to the bakery to get him, but the detour had been a mistake. The alley behind her laundry was piled high with baskets full of dirty clothing, more than I’d ever seen before, probably due to the impending festivities. I ended up tripping over a tipped-over clump of what smelled like a fishmonger’s favorite tablecloths, and skidded to a stop on my hands and knees, my nose inches from an orange stray kitten who was hiding and licking scales off the cloth.
She scampered off when the baker caught up with me only a few seconds later. He tied my legs together with a dirty scarf and my hands with a stocking, and began scream-counting to fifty with his hickory stick on my back, spit flying from his enraged mouth as he did.
I stopped counting about halfway through, closed my eyes, and tried to distract myself with thoughts of my hammock on the beach.
It didn’t work. The stick turned into seagulls diving at me and ripping my back to pieces.
So I thought of my Mystery Man, and how likely it was I’d get to see him again soon. The baker wasn’t just going to stop at bloody. He wanted me dead.
I held still and thought of Rumpelstiltskin. No, Rumple. That’s what I’d call him. For all I knew, I’d never guess his real name, or not for a long time.
“Rumple,” I whispered as I realized the beating had stopped.Oh, thank goodness.No more pain.
Maybe I was dead. But I didn’t feel dead.
I let one of my eyes crack open, and realized the baker hadn’t made it to fifty after all. He’d had a heart attack mid-beating, and now lay dead next to me.Ah, shizzcrickets.I wasn’t floating with Rumple. But I felt his presence.
Take his burden, Little Sacrifice. Rumple’s voice echoed in my mind. He’d taught me how to do this a century and a half before. How to protect the world from evil, because it was always around. Always waiting to strike, especially after someone like Monsieur Patit died.
Shadows began to ooze from the walls of the alley, coalescing over the man’s blocky frame. Honestly, he deserved to be eaten by darkness. He was a very bad man. His evil choices covered him like a thick blanket of sludge, a hideous gray that smelled awful, though the fishy linens underneath him made it worse.
Rumple sighed in my ear.Take the burden, if you can, little one. You chose this.
He was right. I’d agreed the very first time he’d saved me, a century and a half ago, to bear the burdens of those around me. To pay the price, which was never a small one.
I didn’t know what I was, or who. I wasn’t sure why I had to do this, even though I felt driven to it, over and over. All I knew was I was his Little Sacrifice. And I had to save everybody I could. Even if it hurt like fudge.
I let out a shuddering breath. This was going to be worse than usual. I was still alive, and if I took the baker’s burden of evil so his soul could move on without it, the world would be brighter for it.
“Fine,” I breathed, feeling Rumple’s agitation, as the shadows had grown so thick, they almost obscured the sunlight. “I take it. I take it all.”
The next few moments sucked harder than the leeches the neighbor’s boys had stuck to me when I was five, trying to discover how much blood a body could spare without dying.
But when it was done, everything changed. There was an angel standing over me.
Dressed in gold, with bright hair, the sun shimmering all around him. He didn’t have wings, but he had a jacket, a corset, trousers and heeled boots that were gold. His face was… gorgeous.
He had to be an angel.
“Geoffrey!” he called out. “Help the young lady!”
So maybe the golden prince didn’t pick me up himself. I passed out from the pain when his servant did, but I was being helped… and this time, it wasn’t Rumple doing it.
Wow.Maybe this life was going to be different.
Maybe… maybe this time, I would get my happy ending.
CHAPTER3
Feather
“Another cream pie, little blossom?” the handsome courtier asked, dabbing my lips with a glob of icing… or was it icing? I let my tongue flick out and taste the cream he’d placed there with the tip of his finger. It tasted a little salty. Was I at the beach?
