Even from a distance, I see her frown. “Today?”
I stand and wag a finger at her. “Rapunzel, you forgot.”
She pulls in her leg, and I want to groan at the loss of that smooth flesh. There’s the familiar faint scrape of metal against stone. “Will you leave me in suspense indefinitely?”
I reach into the pocket of my breeches and extend my arm. She watches, transfixed, as I open my hand, palm up. “These remind me of you.”
Rapunzel grips the ledge of the window, leaning out dangerously far. “Hold it higher, Wren, please.”
There’s a note of panic in her tone as if she’ll lose this moment forever.
I stand on my tiptoes as if that alone can bring it closer. “It’s a peony. They grow in my mother’s garden.” I stuff the battered pink flower back in my pocket. “I’ll give it to you on the day you leave this tower.”
Her smile drops. “I’d like that.” She licks her lips, and by the way she’s gripping the ledge, I can tell she’s holding on too tight. “But you still have yet to tell me why today is special.”
I place a hand over my heart. “Happy sixteenth birthday, Rapunzel.”
5
WREN
Eighteen Years Old
“You see me. I see you. Your turn to tell me true.” Rapunzel’s husky voice falls like rain from the tower.
It’s a simple rhyme. A silly game children play in Leeds. It’s one I hope will help loosen Rapunzel’s tongue.
“Let me think…” I tap my index finger against my chin as I pace the glade. The unseasonably warm October afternoon is a welcome relief after yesterday’s chill. I stripped away my thick, brown woolen jerkin. It’s resting next to the longbow King John gifted me when my father presented me at court on my eighteenth birthday. This brings to mind the perfect confession… “My father believes I’m ready to take my place in John’s army. But, of course, I won’t go.”
“That’s foolish, Wren.” Rapunzel, perched on the windowsill, hugs her yellow blanket tight around herself. “Do you plan to stay in Leeds the whole of your life?”
I shrug. “Maybe.”
“You need to go.”
My face drops into a scowl. “If I go, I’ll be gone for months. Perhaps even years.”
The king is notorious for keeping his garrison close. If John and my father hadn’t been friends since they were children, Percy Kincaid never would have been granted permission to move himself and his wife out of Newkirk Castle. Even now, the king complains how my father ‘abandoned’ him when he left court to move to Leeds.
Rapunzel turns her face to the sky. “I’m aware of that fact, Wren.”
Of course she is because we’ve discussed this, the possibility of me going off to the king’s court in Kent. It’s what I thought I wanted since I was old enough to lift a bow. Until I met Rapunzel, and I decided I wanted something else. Now, the prospect of joining John’s royal household is…unacceptable.
“And you’re fine with me living a two-day ride from here?” I spit out the question, angry at how she could flippantly cast me aside. “Because that’s how long the king will expect me to stay at court.”
“I have to be.” Rapunzel twirls a length of her hair, her gaze everywhere but on me. “It’s unfair for me to expect you to plan your life around me.” She drops her hair and finally meets my glare. “I’ve told you repeatedly, Wren, I cannot leave this tower,ever.”
Frustrated, I scrub a hand over my face. Spite gets the better of me, and I sneer, “Bronwyn Fraser asked me to kiss her.”
Rapunzel stiffens in the window. Then she squares her shoulders and notches her chin. “And did you?”
Her voice is as brittle as an old leaf, crumbled to dust and scattered on the wind.
“Yes,” I confess.
Because in a moment of weakness, I gave in to curiosity and experienced my first kiss.
The yellow blanket falls away, and even from this distance, I can tell Rapunzel is shaking. “I see.”
