On the fourth day, as the sun sank low and her stomach growled in protest, she saw it.
At first she thought it was a trick of the light—a darker patch among the trees. Then Grimm flicked his ears forward, and Snow White, squinting, realized it was a roof. A cottage. It sat in a small hollow by a sparkling stream, its walls of rough-hewn logs gone gray with age. Smoke rose lazily from a stone chimney. A small patch of ground nearby had been turned into a vegetable plot, currently just neat rows of dark earth waiting for planting.
Snow White’s heart leapt. A dwelling meant people. People meant food. Perhaps shelter, if she begged hard enough and kept her story vague. “Please,” she pleaded to Grimm. “Just a little luck, for once.” She urged him downhill.
The cottage door was shut. No one moved in the yard. “Hello?” she called, sliding from Grimm’s back on legs that trembled. Her head was spinning. “Is anyone—” Her voice cracked. Her throat was too dry. She cleared it and tried again. “Hello?” No answer. She staggered to the door and knocked. The wood was solid under her knuckles. Silence. Her head swam. The long days of too little food and too much fear pressed in.
If no one’s here, she thought, dizzy, then at least there might be bread. The thought shamed her, but not enough to stop her hand from testing the latch. It gave. She pushed the door open and stepped into the dim interior. The air smelled of stale smoke, sweat, and old stew. Dust motes danced in the thin shaft of light that sneaked in through the small, dirty window. Her eyes adjusted slowly.
A rough table with mismatched chairs. Hooks on the wall hung with coats and belts and tools. Heavy pickaxes leaned against the dark wood like silent sentinels, their iron heads caked with the glitter of false hope and gray stone. A shelf sagging under the weight of dented tin plates and chipped mugs. In one corner, a small stove, its coals dead but the ashes still faintly warm. On the table, a loaf of bread sat under a cloth. Next to it, a wedge of cheese and a crock of something that might be stew. Snow White’s stomach cramped. “I’ll leave something,” she whispered to the empty room, as if someone might be listening. “I’ll… sweep. Or wash. Or just… be gone before you return home.”
She stumbled to the table and tore a hunk from the bread. It was coarse but fresh enough. She bit in, barely chewing before swallowing. The cheese followed. Then a few cold, greasy bites from the crock, the flavors so intense after days of foraged berries that she almost wept.
When the worst of the pangs eased, her body remembered other needs. Her legs buckled. The floor seemed suddenly muchcloser. There were a few rooms down a short hall. She peeked in the first one and saw a large unmade bed in the far corner topped with a pile of rough wool blankets. It might as well have been a royal canopy bed for how inviting it looked.
“I’ll just lie down,” she told herself, staggering toward the bed. “Just for a minute. Then I’ll think what to do.” She reached the edge of the mattress, fell forward, and was asleep before she hit it.
Chapter thirteen
The Bargain
SnowWhitedreamedofthose blue eyes again. In the dream, she was back in the stable, standing between Grimm’s warm side and the boy with the wheat-blonde hair. He held out his hand, the silver token glinting between his fingers, and when she reached for it, their hands slipped together instead. He laughed softly and tugged her closer. “You can’t run forever,” he said in the dream. “But you don’t have to keep running alone.” His mouth brushed hers—gently, not like the rough clash in the clearing—and something unknotted in her chest.
Voices floated in from outside the dream, singing some work song she couldn’t quite make out the words to. Deep, rough voices. Male. The dream shifted.
She was still in the stable, but the walls around her had changed—rougher, darker. The air smelled less of straw and more of earth and sweat and something metallic, like iron dust. The boy’s face blurred, then faded.
The singing grew louder. Snow White’s dream dissipated. Her lashes fluttered. The cottage door creaked open.
Six men trudged into the back door of their home, voices trailing off as they wiped sweat and dust from their faces. They were solid men, broad-shouldered, their hair and beards streaked with grime from the mines. Their clothes bore the indelible stains of coal and earth. Boots clumped on the floorboards.
“Long day,” one muttered.
“Aren’t they all?” another replied.
They stopped short when they saw the horse through the small window—a black stallion tied out front, peacefully grazing.
“Whose beast is that?” Gage asked, frowning.
“Don’t know,” Dax said, the automatic leader’s wariness sharpening his gaze.
They exchanged looks.
“Someone’s in our house,” Gage said, hand going instinctively to the knife at his belt.
Drew didn’t say anything at all. He rarely did. But his eyes were alert as he stepped just behind Dax’s shoulder.
They moved through their home warily, boots softening on the old boards. At first, they saw only the usual disarray: mugs left in the sink, a shirt draped over a chair, the stew crock on the table with a hunk of bread missing. Then their boots followed the trail of discarded crumbs into the nearest room. Toward the largest bed. A small figure lay sprawled across the mattress, cloak half on the floor, hair a dark tangle on the rough pillow, blankets twisted around her thighs.
“Saints preserve us,” Bennett whispered.
“Not saints,” Harry joked. “Something with a sense of humor.”
She looked nothing like the dainty heroines of court tales. Her face was smudged with travel grime. A strand of hair clung to the corner of her mouth. One arm lay flung above her head, revealing the dark bruise of sore ribs where the dress gaped.Her chest rose and fell with the slow, deep rhythm of true exhaustion.
Gage’s eyes traveled over every inch of her—lingering, unabashed. He was aroused before he even realized it, the sight of a real woman, soft and breathing and right here, hitting his starved senses like a blow.
“Who is she?” Bennett whispered, more to himself than anyone, cheeks reddening as he realized how intently he was staring.
