Page 92 of Barbie: Dreamscape

But it doesn’t matter. I rip aside the thick pink curtains to find the beautiful sunset-colored stained glass is gone, replaced with a layer of stone that’s thick and jagged beneath my fingers, roughly hewn together.

My room has been turned into a prison. I—

“Welcome back, Barbie.”

My entire body tenses. I know that voice. Of course I do. I heard it every single day for my entire life here, for as long as I can remember.

Slowly, I turn to face Robin.

She’s not in my room, though. Not really. Her form is just a shadow, a translucent shade of sparkling onyx like a smear of night, a shred of her magic materializing before me. A subtle glow of pink highlights her form, lighting her up, the only recognizable part of her.

“Robin. What—what have you done?” I cry out, a slight waver in my voice I wish wasn’t there.

She just looks me over, eyes sharpening as she takes me in, then widening just the slightest bit in relief, as if she truly expected I wouldn’t have returned in one piece.

“Only what you forced me to do,” she says evenly. Her voice is toneless, the typical warmth when she addresses me all but gone.

It’s like speaking to a stranger. And I suppose she is one—she’s been lying to me for practically my entire life.

The Robin I thought I knew would never have done any of this.

And part of my heart—it just turns to dust under the truth that the woman who raised me, the person I loved like a mother…

Is not at all who she pretended to be.

And now she’s blaming me for all this.

No. I shake my head, eyes narrowing. “I didn’t force you to turn Swancrest into this… prison!” I wave my hand around at the locked door, the stone-covered windows.

Her face remains impassive. “You did. Because you couldn’t listen to the rules,” she says simply, circling me.

My hands ball into fists. “Maybe you shouldn’t have set so many to begin with.”

She just tilts her head. “The rules were in place for your benefit. To keep you safe.”

“No, they were put in place for your benefit. To keep me naive. To keep me ignorant of everything you never wanted me to discover myself!” My voice comes out in a roar. I haven’t raised my voice at her since I was a child. She almost startles in shock.

I don’t back down. I take a step forward toward the apparition, anger fueling my bravery.

“I know you and my mom are from Dreamland,” I continue, my voice steadily rising. “I know you had something to do with her death. And I know I have magic!”

At my words, Robin’s expression finally breaks for just a moment, revealing a flash of fear, before it smooths again. Still, I see I’ve managed to unnerve her.

I must be right. She did have something to do with my mom’s death.

Was she really behind it?

“You have no idea what you know,” she says, her voice as firm as the fortress around us.

The foundation trembles as thunder rages outside. The storm is getting worse.

She won’t trick me again. “What did you do to my mom? Did you lock her up, like you locked me in here? Did you hurt her?”

She flinches as though she’s been struck. “I would never hurt your mother.”

“Then what happened?” I demand.

She says nothing.