Amelia shook her head. “I’ve never wanted to be saved.”
She sounded braver than she was. A noble statement that seemed to imply she would be the one saving herself. That wasn’t true, either. If she were to be lost in darkness, she wasn’t sure she’d want anyone to bring her back.
“A man to walk through gardens with you, then?” he asked.
Amelia watched the petal from before drift across cobblestone. It had already dried from its time in the fountain. Now the petal was shriveling.
“I’ve never wanted a man, either,” she replied.
In the stretch of silence, her skin prickled under the weight of Ezran’s stare. It was her turn to be studied, but she couldn’t tell what conclusion he made of her yet.
The doors opened to the sound of her godmothers’ laughter. Upon their entrance, he reached for Amelia’s hand and gave a gentle squeeze, one that she misinterpreted for comfort. The illusion dissolved when he pressed his lips to her ear and whispered.
“Better to fall for a man than a queen.”
The shock nearly toppled her over. She stepped back and tried ripping her hand away, but Ezran gripped tight. Under his grasp, she was immobile.
“Your godmothers are watching,” he murmured. “It wouldn’t look good if you ran away.”
“It’s not what you think,” she stammered. “Lilith and I, we are more like friends. I couldn’t possibly—”
“I see the way you look at her. It’s not normal, and it’s not right.”
Her stomach dropped like a heavy stone had plummeted inside,reached all the way down to her feet, and kept her rooted to the ground. The fountain sputtered water, and she wanted to drown in it. Ezran’s lips grimaced in thinly veiled disgust. The expression made her want to disintegrate. She could not handle the judgment. The spiral of questions for why she was like this, wanted the wrong people, the wrong things.
“Please,” she whispered, “don’t tell anyone.”
Ezran took deliberate care in shifting his expression. The softness of it bristled her skin. He brushed a lock of hair behind her ear so gently it made heat spread down her neck in a horrible way.
“You are beautiful, Amelia. It would be a shame to waste your life on someone who wouldn’t want you. Not the way that I do.”
As she gazed at the silver flecks of his irises, she could not detect the love that he spoke about. It was a different kind of passion, frightening and carnal. Like she was a butterfly, and he was a hunter with a fine-point needle, ready to pin her down. She feared that if he stared any longer, he would find darker secrets lurking beneath her heavy heart. Something more twisted and deeply rooted than desiring another person, but the lack of desire to exist as herself.
She swallowed the lump in her throat and whispered, “I won’t.”
He pressed his lips to the back of her hand. Warm breath fluttered on her skin as he whispered, “Good girl.”
She knew from the prickles that ran down her body what was going to happen. She saw it in slow-motion, like moments before a crash, her imminent death. His knee pressing against the grass. His free hand ripping a rose from the nearby bush. His lips parting for the sweetest of words.
“I know we’ve barely met, but I don’t think our meeting was a coincidence. We were meant to find each other. I’d like to stay onthis journey with you. Perhaps I could even show you what it means to love someone.”
“Yes, yes!” her godmothers cried, drawing closer to witness the proposal. Their glowing palms clasped together, and the greenhouse transformed with flowers bursting in riotous color. Leaves and vines wrapped into an arch above their heads. Sparks flared from the tips of their fingers, a dizzying cacophony of celebration before Amelia even answered.
She wanted to say no. She should have. But if there was a voice inside her, one that spoke her innermost truths, she buried it long ago. Everything else was louder. Her godmothers shrieking. The trumpets and music blaring. Ezran revealing secrets she would have never said out loud. All the sounds drowned out her own voice, one that was too unsure of itself to begin with.
Amelia took Ezran’s rose and ignored the prick of thorns cutting her fingers. The moment she answered, the room burst in cheers. Ezran swept her in an embrace, spinning her around until her vision was a blur of lights. The word stuck to her tongue like a critter struggling to crawl its way out.
Yes, because this was how fairy tales were supposed to end. Yes, because romance was how people found meaning in their lives. Yes, because maybe, if she did what everyone else did—marriage and children and family—she would finally fill the emptiness inside her, as well.
She held the rose tight, even as the thorns pierced her. When she wiped her hands on her dress, the fabric was stained with blood, and nobody noticed.
CHAPTER 19
CORIN NOTICED BRIAR’S dress was stained with blood when she crawled out of the debris. The earthquake had wrecked the cottage, the broken wood and shattered stones scattered in soil. The roof had collapsed inside the walls, breaking supporting beams and plastic furniture. Briar lay among the wreckage, her limbs strewn over the rocks, while the butterflies that once adorned her cape fluttered from her body and scattered in the air. She was too still. Corin jolted forward to reach her until pain spread to the side of her stomach.
She looked down to see thick splinters wedged in flesh. A patch of blood bloomed on her shirt. The pain turned clearer as the memory came back to her: the fox figurine shattering, the argument, the desire to attack Briar for bringing up Elly, because how dare she, when she knew Corin didn’t want to think about their last fight?
Then there was Elly’s face again, wide-eyed and frantic as she ran through the wreckage and yelled Corin’s name. She might have asked what happened, but Corin couldn’t remember, not when she gripped onto Elly so tightly as if she would vanish otherwise and asked, “Do you wish you had a different sister?”
