But she took a step toward him. Caught, I think, between the promise of his world and the deception that underlay it.
At last, Simeon directed the force of his attention in my direction. “You’ve sniffed us out, my lady,” he said to me, a half smile on his face. I thought about calling out for the innkeeper, but he was likely the one who had sold us out in the first place. How else would the prince have known to find us in the buttery?
“It’s hard to travel unnoticed in a royal coach.”
“Eh, eh, eh.” He wagged his finger at me. “Don’t say that word.” He lowered his voice to a mock whisper. “We might be found out.”
He turned back to Elin. “Darling”—he leaned in to the sobriquet, twisting it around—“go back upstairs.”
She took another step toward him. “My stepmother has come. I—I must go home with her.”
“Home? What of our plans?”
“Only for now,” Elin was quick to assure him. “I am to be—I am—your helpmeet, but my stepmother, she is right, we must do it properly.”
“I don’t understand,” he said, plaintively.
“I am sorry,” she said, with genuine regret. “It is only for now.”
Simeon’s eyes filled with wet tears. I was alarmed—where had he bid them from?
“Please,” he begged Elin. “I don’t understand. What is happening? Darling—please.” His voice broke on the last word.
“I—I—” She twisted her skirts in her hands. “I cannot,” she said finally. “Not now. I’m sorry, Simeon, but we must talk first. We must—”
He slapped her, across the face, with the back of his hand, something inhuman in his expression.
She stood back, shocked, for a moment. Her cheek turned, somehow, whiter. Then, a drop of red on her nose, down to her lips. A little rivulet. A few spots on the chest of her dress. Her eyes wide. I do notthink she believed me, or understood all I had told her, until she felt the force of that slap.
“Yes, yes—your stepmother said things.” Simeon watched us without any effort to control the muscles of his face. “Your life must be so simple,” he said to me, after a moment. All the warmth, all the expressive feeling, the full range of human emotion, looked to be extinguished from his eyes like a light snuffed out. “To pursue me the way you did. You thought: I’ll knock on the door and leave with her. And that would be the end of it.”
“It could be.” I tried to step between him and Elin. I looked at the doorway, which his body was blocking. Where was Otto?
“I am shocked you are here, actually. Your greedy little heart. All you’ve risked. All you’ve given up.” He mused. “I never would have expected it! I was lazy, because why would you pursue us? You had every reason not to.”
“I found out what you’ve done. What you are,” I told him. Looked to Elin, who was silent.
He considered me. “I felt for you when my mother told me that you knew my secrets. Because you’d been reaching. Wanting to be one of us. Grasping. Always extending those hands, reaching, reaching, reaching. And so you caught something. Me! But I’m not what you thought at all. And what to do now?”
Thinking of my daughters, of Elin, of a kingdom of girls, I couldn’t stop myself. “You are a beast,” I told him.
“I am a king.” Simeon exhaled. “And I’ll let you in on another secret.” He leaned forward—I could feel the thrust of his breath in the still air of the room. “Beast and king are the same. There is no one there to stop us.”
But I did not want to stop him. I only wanted to exit the room. “Let us pass,” I insisted, wishing there was more strength in the request.
He continued as if I hadn’t spoken: “You know—I remember watching you,” he told me. “All of you. Sitting on a pathetic little carpet in the middle of an empty field. Playthings arranged for my liking. And Ifelt sorry for you. Then, I saw her. Elin. Like a ghost at the ball. What a sense of humor fate has!”
Elin released a noise close to a whimper and he turned to her. “Your confusion is endearing, really. So shocked and offended. When you were using me, too. Happy to feast on me, really. As if I were a roast pig made of dreams, waiting for you, belly-up. All your hopes on a silver platter.”
She started trembling then, again. I reached toward her with a steadying hand. I could not have her fainting on me. Despite the blood on her face, on her dress, I said: “He won’t hurt you.”
He laughed. “Of course I won’t. Do you know we have a whole team of servants who are rat catchers? It’s all they do. Trap them. Poison them. Dispose of their bloated bodies. You are just vermin that scrabbled its way into the castle. We should have chewed you up and spat you out. But we gave you a chance.”
“Why?” I asked—stupidly. But I wanted to procure more time.
He sneered at me. “Because I live in a castle. And you live in a crumbling pile of rocks. Oh, yes, I know about that, too. Otto told me. Your upper floor a heap of rubble. It doesn’t matter, in the end. You’ll go back home and live in ruin, and I’ll still be a prince. None of it matters.”
“Then let them go,” Otto said, stepping through the door.
