She’s sunk deep into her chair before the fire and has her head in her hand. Her gown, despite being a traveling gown, is enormous, and spills in every direction, filling the room. Behind us, by the sideboard, Honey is making tea. It’s just like her to remember where everything is, even months later. It’s not like her to be so silent.
I catch her gaze and she gives me an inscrutable look. What I wouldn’t pay to pull her aside and ask her…well, everything.
“Tandy,” Mother says, and I seat myself on the floor beside her and put my head on her knee. I can’t remember the last time we sat this way. She strokes my hair, and I feel a little of the tension inside me drain away. “Naturally, your father and I were extremely concerned when Honey brought us the news of your curse,” she begins.
Honey brings her a mug of tea—fortunately, not turnip-leaf tea; there’s still some around somewhere, but she found the good stuff and used it instead—and my mother sips, and then sets it aside.
“It’s not like you to fall under a curse,” she continues. “When you were younger and more undisciplined, of course…Well, perhaps your sister was to blame for most of those. She was very high-spirited. Not you. Never you—not something like this. You’ve always been such a responsible young woman, so careful, that I can’t help but think there must be something more to it.”
“There isn’t,” I say. “I just wanted a book, and I was in the bookstore, and the old lady behind the counter collapsed. There wasn’t anyone around so I went to her to see if I could help.”
“Great witches feed off the generous impulses of naïve young women,” Mother says. “Why, every fairy story you’ve ever read begins with some old woman saying, ‘Won’t you lend me your arm for a moment, young lady, that I may cross this dangerous road,’ and then suddenly the princess has become a swan or is locked in a tower or has fallen into an eternal sleep.”
“They’re just stories, though,” I say. “Surely I’m not meant to live my whole life refusing to offer assistance when I can simply because the person asking for helpmightbe a witch? I’m not even sure Mrs. Goochwasa witch. Some scholars even believe that some curses befall a person because the circumstances align in such a way that a few of the right words, spoken at the rightmoment, have unintended consequences.” The curse books weren’t helpful in breaking my curse, but I certainly learned a lot about the theory of curses while reading them.
“I do think this was an accidental curse,” Honey says, the first words she’s spoken since walking into my room. “I’ve not been able to find a single person in this town or anywhere else who can recall Mrs. Gooch being anything other than a bookshop proprietor, a nice old lady, or anyone who can recall her using any sort of magic beyond the usual little spells all shopkeepers use.”
“It doesn’t matter,” Mother says. “We’ve invested too much time and money into this…this issue. Seven princes: All of whom, for some reason or another, appear to have remained in this tiny town in the middle of nowhere even once it became clear they wouldn’t be breaking the curse. All sent to you at great expense, the diplomatic repercussions of which will be felt foryearsto come.
“Your sister is pregnant; you’re old enough now that you can’t play at being Sally Shopkeeper for the rest of your life. You have an entire life outside this…thisroom. And it’s time for you to take your curse seriously; both the cause of it and the lifting of it.”
“I have taken it seriously,” I say, sitting forward. My blood is, unaccountably, boiling. “I’ve let seven absolute idiots—well, five idiots, one actually quite clever and interesting person, and one shy preteen—kiss me. One even knocked a bookcase onto me. A veryheavybookcase, I might add. Despite the fact that I’ve felt no interest in kissing a single one of them, and being very aware that kissing princes wasn’t going to break my damned curse anyway.”
Over my mother’s shoulder, I catch Honey’s expression:alarm, likely at the fact that I just swore. My mother doesn’t like raised voices or profanity.
“Tanadelle,” Mother says, rising to her feet. “You’re dressed like a peasant, you swear like a sailor, and you’re being as argumentative as a teenager. Which isn’t surprising, given yourfriends—and the fact that you’ve spent months engaged incommerce. Clearly, this…thisexperience, has been even worse for you than we feared.”
She pauses, and I bow my head, waiting for the blow. “I would have expected better from you,” she says, almost sorrowfully.
Something inside me breaks a little at her words.
“I can’t stay here another moment,” she says, turning to my father. “Honey’s found a sorcerer who can break any curse. She arrives tonight. Tomorrow, first thing, we’re coming back with the sorcerer and then we’re ending this charade, once and for all.”
Chapter 44
Tomorrow, I think. Tomorrow. Tomorrow’s the end. I wander through the bookstore after seeing Honey and my parents out, panic building inside me. Tomorrow, they won’t be my books. Tomorrow, they won’t be my bluecaps. It won’t be my cat to name, my turnip leaves to brew, my fire to spark to life. Tomorrow. The word is an incoming tide, beating against my mind: tomorrow, tomorrow, tomorrow.
What’ll happen to Sasha, to Amaritha? Will they write me letters once I’ve gone? Or will they become so caught up in their lives that they forget after a while?
What’ll happen to the princes? Will they all simply leave once I’m gone?
What will happen to Bash?my mind whispers, and the despair rises inside me. He vanished today; what if I never see him again? What if the sorcerer lifts the curse and my parents bundle me away tomorrow morning, and I never even have the chance to saygoodbye? Were we going to kiss before my parents arrived? Was I finally going to kiss someone because I wanted to, and not because it was my royal duty? Will I ever have the chance again?
Did all the kisses not work because I didn’t want them to?
I pace to the front door and pull it open, place my hand against the invisible barrier, and look out into the night. It ought by rights to be storming, or at least overcast; that would be appropriate, given my mood. But the air is cold and pure, and the moon is bright in the sky. It was summer when I arrived; it’s nearly winter now.
Bash,I think.Please come back so I can say goodbye. Come back, even to let me see you one last time.
Nothing happens, of course. I’m not speaking magic words, incanting some powerful spell; I’m not doing anything other than feeling sorry for myself, and regretting not having leaned into him a little faster earlier today.
Although, if I had, Mother would have walked in on meactuallykissing someone, not justnearly about tokiss someone. Only the great green dragon herself knows what would have happened if she’d seen that: Immediate, lifelong imprisonment, probably. For him and for me. There’s simply no way she’d have let me have that one pure moment of my own. I’m notmeantto have moments of my own. These few months: They’re the closest I’ve ever come to freedom. And tomorrow, they’ll be gone, too. I should have just kissed him, and to hell with the consequences. Because the consequences would have been the same no matter what, and now I’ll be leaving—as I was always going to, in the end—without having even had that to take with me.
I let my forehead rest against the barrier between me and the outside world, the odd sensation of resting my weight against nothing, and then step back and close the door.
I return to the desk and sit, and pull my ledger toward myself. Every sale has been recorded. All monies that have gone in and out since I first took over have been tracked. My accounts are balanced. There’s plenty to leave for whoever comes next, even once I pay Honey back for the money she paid out when I was first cursed. I draw a line under the final sale, my last sale, in blue ink—for no reason beyond giving myself a sense of a resolution, no matter how small.
The door opens, and I shoot to my feet. It’s him, of course, standing there, looking a little less collected than usual.
