“You sure about this, Shay?” Drew asked quietly as he passed her, plate in hand. “Us leaving you alone?”
“You leave me alone every day,” she pointed out. “And I somehow manage not to burn the cottage down.”
“Sometimes,” Harry added, sarcastically.
She made a face at him. “I’ll be fine. I’ll stay near the cottage or the stream. I’ll keep Grimm nearby. I won’t talk to strangers.”
“Good,” Harry put a hand over his heart. “We’d hate to come home and find you’ve run off with some handsome shepherd.”
“Dimwit,” Gage muttered. She flicked a crumb at him. He caught it automatically, popped it into his mouth, and scowled.
Dax shouldered his pack and stepped to the center of the room. “Same as always,” he said. “We’re gone, you stay close. If you hear anything off, you ride. No heroics.”
“No climbing trees to see if you can spot the castle,” Harry said.
Shay rolled her eyes. “I’m not a child,” she said. “I understand the danger.”
“We know, Shay,” Bennett said quickly. “We just—”
“Worry,” Drew finished, in his simple, apt way.
Her throat squeezed. “I know,” she said, softer. “Now go. Before the mine caves in without your constant complaining.”
They laughed, the moment easing. One by one, they filed out. Silas brushed a kiss over the top of her head as he passed. Bennett squeezed her shoulder. Drew’s fingers brushed the back of her hand—a quick, shy touch. Gage was last. He stopped in the doorway, hand on the frame, and looked back. His eyes dropped briefly to her wrists, checking them for marks that had long since faded. For a heartbeat, his scowl slipped. Something like foreboding flickered behind his eyes. “Don’t do anything stupid,” he said. “I am no knight errant, looking for damsels to rescue.”
“I won’t. I’ve been safe here for a year now. I can’t imagine any danger is out there anymore. If she wanted to find me, I'd think she would have by now,” she replied. He stared a second longer, as if memorizing the sight of her framed in the cottage door: hair pulled back, skirts messy, light from the hearth painting her skin gold. Then he huffed, shook his head, and followed the others into the gray morning. Outside, the mine path wound away into the trees. The men’s voices faded, swallowed by the forest.
Unseen by any of them, another figure watched from the darker line of pines beyond. Wrapped in a coarse dress and a farmer’s scarf, Liora stood beside her borrowed cart, hands clenched white on the reins. Under the kerchief, her jaw was tight. She had risen before any rooster, too. She watched the six men tramp off to the mine. So these were the men from her mirror. If Snow White was able to harness her power and control these six burly men… but her thoughts trailed off as the miners stepped out of the clearing and into the woods. Snow White was left alone now. Good.
Gage paused for a moment at the edge of the trees; a chill crept up his spine. He turned, squinting back toward the cottage. From here he couldn’t see her face, only a glimpse of her skirt as she moved inside, the faint gesture of her arm as she cleared plates.You’re getting soft,he told himself.She’ll be fine.He forced his feet forward.
Liora waited until the sounds of the men faded completely, then exhaled slowly. The path lay open, unbarred by watchful eyes. She clicked her tongue gently and guided the cart along the path that curved toward the sound of running water just around the bend.
Hunter followed at a distance, cloaked in shadow and shame. He told himself again and again that he trailed her to protect her. That if something happened in these woods—abandit, a wolf, a loose stone on a slope—he could step in, save her, earn his way back into the queen’s arms.
The trees thinned. The stream appeared ahead, bright in the mid-morning light—water tumbling over smooth rocks, banks matted with new grass. And there, just near where Liora had glimpsed her in the glass, knelt Shay. She had her sleeves rolled to the elbow, hands plunged in the cold water as she scrubbed a shirt against a rock. Her hair had come loose from its tie, dark strands sticking damply to her cheeks. An overturned basket sat beside her, already half full of rinsed linens. She looked ordinary in this moment. Ordinary and stunningly beautiful and heartbreakingly alive. Liora reined in the cart a short distance away, schooling her features into something pleasant.
Shay heard the wheel creak. She looked up, startled. The cart trundled closer, driven by a woman who looked, at first glance, like any peasant from the outer farms. Her dress was patchy but neat. A wide-brimmed hat and scarf shaded most of her face. “Morning,” the woman called, voice pitched rougher than Liora’s usual tones. Years of mimicking others had given her a knack for sloughing off her speech.
Shay’s fingers tightened on the wet fabric. “Morning,” she replied cautiously.Was this a threat? Should she run?Shay hadn’t seen anyone but the men in a long time. New faces—any new face, was startling. The woman drew the cart to a halt at the bank. Up close, Shay could see the contents: a few cabbages, some wilted greens, several potatoes, and, nestled in straw at the very top, three apples so red and glossy they seemed to glow.
“You’re a fair sight,” the woman said, eyeing Shay’s pile of shirts. “Most girls run from wash like it’s poison.”
“Someone has to do it,” Shay said. “I live just up there.” She nodded vaguely toward the vague direction of the cottage, not wanting to point too precisely.
“With your husband?” the woman asked.
Shay hesitated. “With… friends,” she said.
“Mm.” The woman clicked her tongue, as if that told her everything. “Hard work, keeping men in clean shirts and full bellies.”
“You could say that,” Shay muttered.
The woman laughed. It was a low, rusty sound, but genuine enough to disarm. “Here,” she said, reaching into the basket. “Let me pay you for the entertainment. Washing is dull to watch.” Her hand emerged with an apple, perfect and smooth. Sunlight slid over its skin, catching tiny droplets of moisture that made it look freshly polished.
Shay’s mouth watered despite herself. She hadn’t seen fruit like that since the castle. The apples they got at the cottage were usually smaller, a little bruised, stubbornly clinging to their stems in the small orchard beyond the hill. This one looked like something out of a painting.
“Go on,” the woman said, extending it. “You look like you could use something sweet.”
