I push past Malachi and squeeze through the gap, which leads me to a round room, and in the center is my book wielding sister. She raises her arm, ready to launch the hefty tome at me. I duck as it flies over my head, and it hits Malachi’s instead.
“Oh my Idols,” Gwyneth says. “I’m so sorry. I thought you were Charming trying to sneak me away from here and force me into marriage.”
“For the record, you have amazing aim,” Nash declares, pushing into the room as Malachi rubs his forehead. There’s an immense bed in the center, no doubt another cloud-like affair with huge white drapes. A fire burns low in the grate, and books line the shelves around the room. For a prison, it’s rather nice.
“What happened?” I ask.
She huffs and parks her hands on her hips. “Charming saw me with Henry.”
“Who’s that?”
“The Burgher that tried to help me find you.”
There was a Burgher helping Gwyneth find me? When? Which disappearance? It didn’t matter.
“Anyway, Charming took great offense to me spending time with him. He decided he was a threat to my falling hopelessly in love with him.”
“So he locked you in here?”
She nods and throws her hands up. “How is this meant to endear me to him?”
“Male logic,” I say with understanding. We would never be on the same wavelength.
“So now I am to wait here until the grand ball tomorrow night.”
“Charming called the grand ball?” Malachi asks, plonking his ass down in a chair near the fire.
“Is that bad?” I ask.
“The grand ball is where the narrative plays out. Charming will dance the entire night with his chosen. They will attempt to escape before midnight, leaving the glass slipper in her wake.”
“Then he will retrieve her from her quarters and marry her the following diurnal,” Nash adds.
“Where I will get my eyes pecked out.”
Gwyneth blinks at me. “What? Is that a Daphne saying?”
“No, it’s the darkness in the Cinderella tale they don’t advertise.”
Gwyneth pinches the bridge of her nose. “I can’t tell if you are talking in riddles or being serious.”
“She’s deadly serious,” Nash says as he picks up some huge antlers from the shelves above the fireplace.
I sit on the bed and pat the space next to me. Gwyneth joins me as I recite the hidden secrets of The Hallows that most of us are unaware of until it’s too late.
“That is truly something wicked to behold,” Gwyneth says.
“It’s an endless trail of darkness,” I agree. “Just downstairs is a dazed reject Snow White who is currently staring at a hundred females just like her locked in glass caskets waiting for the prince that doesn’t care about them so long as he gets his princess.”
“How unsettling,” she murmurs, grasping her hand in mine.
“We cannot become victims in Charming’s fairy tale, unless, of course, you’ve fallen madly in love with him. Then I guess I can do without my eyes.”
“No, Daphne, don’t be ridiculous.” She turns to look at Nash. “What happens if we deviate from the narrative?”
His jaw tightens. “The Idols won’t stand for it for too long. We’ve been dodging our destiny for too many annues. At some point, they will force the issue.”
“Perhaps the Idols need an update in compassion,” I grumble.
