Page 27 of Once Upon an Enchanted Castle

“The same, if she agrees to return.” He paused and cast a glance back at the library doors on the other end of the hallway.

Perhaps Dickens was correct in that he shouldn’t leave her alone in there for too long. He was also correct in that if he intended to keep his identity a secret, he couldn’t allow her to see him in his true, terrible form.

“Which is something you hope she does,” Dickens said.

Leopold stood rooted in place as he considered this. Yes, of course, he hoped she returned. But a part of him realized he didn’twanther to see what he was when the moon was full and bright in the night sky. For if she did, she wouldn’t look at him the way she did outside the bookshop. As though there was an intensity in her gaze that bound them together. As though a light inside him had ignited, making him come alive with feelings he thought long dead.

Dickens cleared his throat. “My prince?”

“Dickens, perhaps you are correct in that I shouldn’t leave her alone in the library for any length of time. Tea and finger sandwiches seem appropriate, don’t they? And perhaps some sweet treats,” Leopold said.

Dickens cast a glance down at the double doors, where his gaze was firmly fixed.

“I’ll see that it’s done, my prince.”

He clasped his hands in front of him as he headed off to the kitchens to see to his request.

After Leopold left, Bella pulled off her lace gloves and bonnet and got to work. She sat at the table with the candelabra lighting the pages of the opened book before her. When she had trouble seeing the pages and squinted or leaned forward for a better look, the candlesticks moved closer to give her more light. Every time she glanced up at it, it appeared normal. But she was certain it moved closer when she needed it the most.

She pulled a piece of parchment from the stack and slid it to her, then reached for the quill and dipped it into the ink. Across the top, she wrote in her flowing handwriting,the book with no name.

She stared down at her handwriting, recalling the previous text she translated for Lord Vincent. The text she never finished. She thought about the alphabet of roses and thorns that told the tale of the sorceress whose heart was broken by a cruel, spoiled prince. A prince she cursed to live out his days in solitude in the depths of his castle. A castle that, it seemed, was not so different from the one she was currently sitting in.

Funny she remembered that story now as she sat at the table chewing on the end of the quill. Did that story have any correlation to the ancient language she was unable to read in the book with no name?

She reached for the book, then paused. Her hand hovered over the cover with the strange thorns and roses.

Roses and thorns.An alphabet of roses and thorns.

She glanced at the stained-glass window across the room.Roses and thorns.

Thornhurst.

Everywhere she looked, there seemed to be roses and thrones and brambles. As if the symbol meant something. It was all around her. In the stained-glass window. On the low stone wall surrounding the gate. She even spied a vase full of the inky roses in full bloom on a table on the way to the library.

There was some bit of knowledge buried in the deep recesses of her mind. Some scrap of story she could not quite recall. An old fable, perhaps? She shook off the vestiges of that haunting story and opened the book her father gave her.

The language stared back at her. Unreadable in every way.

She glanced back at the green covered tome and pulled it to her. The one with the yellowed pages. She flipped it open. The cover cracked from age. She peered down at the cover page and one word stared back at her.

Hexes.

Hexes? Curses and Cures? What, then, was the blue book he gave her? Curious, she pulled it to her and opened it.

Spells and Incantations.

She shoved back from the table, the chair scraping along the marble floor with a loud squawk. It was such a violent move she knocked it over. It made a loud rapping sound as she stumbled away from the table. Even the candelabra was startled by her sudden movement, the flames flickering and snuffing out, plunging the room in nothing but shade and shadows.

She backed away from the table of books, her hand at her throat.

Leopold gave her those books—what was he trying to make her do with them? How would they help her decipher the language of the book her father gave her?

It was all so confusing and a bit terrifying.

Perhaps coming here was a mistake. Perhaps she should go home and never return.

As the thoughts pounded through her, she heard a soft voice singing. She glanced around, but no one else was in the library. The singing grew louder, as though someone was trying to get her attention, and she realized with some horror therewassomeone in the library with her.

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