Corin let out a bitter laugh. She couldn’t stand the irony. “Some of us don’t have the comfort of avoiding what makes us uncomfortable. You were cursed by magic. The rest of us were cursed just by being born.”
“I wasn’t cursed.”
Corin blinked. “What?”
“A demon’s curse cannot be broken unless the demon takes it away themselves. Malicine revoked the curse before my eighteenthbirthday.” Briar sliced a piece of dessert, then offered the plate to Corin. “Would you like some cake?”
Corin gawked at her in disbelief. What had been the purpose of these fairy tales, then, if there wasn’t a damsel in distress trapped in another world? The girl chose to be here. Left the rest of the real world behind to rot and die. When Elly traveled the tunnels and risked her life, when her sister called out for Amelia, the princess hadn’t responded. She never would.
“Oh! I almost forgot.”
Briar opened a drawer, rifled through its contents, and placed a cake topper on the frosting. The ceramic fox curled between buttercream and strawberries. His eyes were closed, his bushy tail a veil that hid him from the rest of the world. Recognition struck Corin like shards of clay cutting into her palm. She tried swallowing, but her throat was thick and dry like cotton. The corners of her vision blurred, only the fox figurine in full focus.
It was one thing to see a live fox stalking her throughout the land. It was another to see the actual figurine her father had made, the one that Harlow had given back to her, the same object that Corin would later destroy. Even the chip in the fox’s tail was an exact match.
She strained to keep her voice calm. “Why do you have this?”
Briar shrugged. “Sometimes I’m not sure where the things I find here come from.”
“Don’t mock me. This is the same one as before.”
“Before?”
Corin sucked in a shaky breath. Briar was taunting her with this carefree performance. The airy tone of her voice, the subtle tilt of her head. It didn’t matter how many plants Briar tried decorating this place with. Even flowers would show their rot eventually.Corin closed her eyes to stop herself from leaping at Briar and tearing the girl apart until she found the rotten core inside. She needed to remain placid if she wanted to crack the girl open.
Her eyes opened to a plate in her hands, holding the slice of cake and fox topper. The clay figurine cracked under her touch, revealing maggots that writhed beneath the cake’s frosting. They wormed through the strawberries and left red trails behind. A familiar stench of death filled her nostrils. But Corin could force Briar to remember things she would rather forget, too.
“You’re a liar,” she said. “You, this world, everything—it’s all a lie.”
The plate slipped from Corin’s fingers and shattered. Cracks spread over the fox figurine and dissolved like sand, spilling into the floorboards that split open. A hole caved in the middle of the room and turned the house’s foundation at a slant. Trinkets fell off sliding tables, reverting to useless blocks. The armoire fell over with a violent thud and burst open its drawers, but nothing spilled out, just the hollow thud of plastic against a sinking floor.
Still Corin and Briar remained standing, as if acknowledging the catastrophe around them would mean exposing the cracks beneath their own facade.
“This place is empty, just like you,” Corin continued evenly. “You think you can dress something up in flowers and tea parties and pretend to have some pretty life, but none of it is real. Here’s the truth: Your name is Amelia. You’ve been sleeping for a hundred years. Your body has been wasting away in an empty castle buried beneath the ground. And your real home is nothing but dust and debris and ripped paintings.”
Potted plants spilled soil across the floorboards. Corin’s boots stomped in dirt as she backed Briar against the wall.
“Every family portrait I saw in that castle had their faces slashed out, including yours. But there was one left unscathed. The queen.”
For the first time, Briar’s sun-kissed complexion went pale, and she almost looked like the princess Corin saw in the real world. A vindictive part of Corin delighted in that. To turn the tables and make Briar the one uncomfortable with acknowledging the truth.
“I heard the stories about how your family lineage ended. She killed your father and nearly took your life too. Is that why you’re here? You couldn’t deal with reality crumbling around you, so you retreated into your dreams to hide.”
“We are all running away from something,” Briar replied, her voice steady. “That’s why we’re here. Even you.”
“No, I’m the one trying to return to reality. As horrible as it is, some of us don’t have the freedom to run away whenever something goes wrong. We don’t get caskets full of roses, or faeries to grant us gifts, or better worlds to escape by magic. We’re forced to live with the consequences of wealthy, frivolous people like you. And when we die, nobody will remember us.”
Briar stared at Corin for a long moment. Veiled thoughts passed behind her eyes like shadows, as if she were examining the emotions seething behind Corin’s even tone, turning them over to see every jagged edge. “You’re angry,” she said.
“Of course I am. It must be nice to live in dreams without any worries.”
“I have plenty of worries. And regrets. And sadness,” she replied. “But I bury them so I don’t have to look at it anymore. You can do the same. You and Elly can be happy here.”
Corin sneered. “You don’t know what would make El happy.”
“Do you?” Briar asked. “Do you even know what would make you happy?”
Corin’s breaths turned short, as if air had just been cut from her lungs. She recalled the look on Elly’s face. The way the shards of the clay figurine bit into her palm. The miserable black night when she confessed to her sister what she did.
