Page 69 of Once Charmed, Twice Cursed
What if he doesn’t want me anymore? What if he’s off enjoying some curseless, Markless new life, without the question of what he did for me weighing him down?
The possibility makes me feel like someone is sharpening steely knives against the underside of my ribs. I cycle between desperation and despair.
Then, three weeks and two days after I return home, I’m standing before my mirror, brushing my hair—I’ve stopped letting Minnie do it—when my mother slips into my room. She wears a smile so wide it nearly blinds me.
“Bria.” Her voice brims with barely restrained excitement. “Come downstairs, won’t you? There’s someone here we’d like you to speak with. A visitor.”
My heart stutters to a stop. “A visitor? What? Who is it?”
She claps her hands together. “A suitor. He’s made an offer for you. Agenerousone. Even though you’ve lost your Mark. Isn’t that wonderful?”
The silver hairbrush falls from my grip. I don’t bother to look at where it falls. Every time I use the stupid thing, I only long for one made from wood. One that has my initials singed into the back.
Now, at long last, I won’t have to wish anymore, because Weston is downstairs. This must be what the delay was about—him finding a way to approach my parents with the one thing that would sway their minds.
Money.
I take off running. I burst into the hallway, then zip downthe stairs. My heart launches higher with every step I take toward the parlor. He’s here. He’s come for me.
Finally, finally, finally.
I’m going to hug him. I’m going to fling myself into his arms and kiss him senseless, right in front of everybody.
I turn the corner, skid into the room, and?—
Stop dead. Brendan and my father sit on the divan together. Across from them, rising as I enter, is the foreman from the mill. Calder. The one who let me use the antiseptic in his office.
“Miss Bria,” he says with a formal bow.
I stand there and gape. No. This isn’t right. This isn’t how it’s supposed to be.
He crosses the room and takes my hand. I can only stare as he presses a courteous kiss to my knuckles.
“Bria.” My father gestures toward a chair. “Sit down, why don’t you?”
I don’t move. “What... What is this?”
Calder darts a look at me, shy and hopeful. “Well, it’s a proposal. Or a reaffirmation of one, I guess I should say. I’ve discussed it with your father, and my offer hasn’t changed. Myfeelingshaven’t, even if your circumstances have. I’d be just as honored to call you my wife without your Mark as with it.”
I blink at him. Then scan him head to toe, certain I’m seeing him for the first time. He gives me a wobbly smile, then takes off his cap and rolls the thing in his hands, his knuckles white around the fabric.
“I could get down on one knee, if you like.” He seems flustered by my silence. “Or... Well, whatever you want. Just tell me.”
In the span of a heartbeat, my regard for him expands tenfold. Maybe those ninety-nine proposalsweren’tall the same.
But that doesn’t mean I’m going to marry this man. Ican’t.
“Bria,” my father says. “Sit. Down.”
I don’t. Calder flushes and starts listing all the ways he’ll care for me, everything he’ll strive to provide, but I can’t hear him.
Because I’m standing frozen, poised on the razor’s edge between my future and my past. Something new unfurls inside me, fragile and defiant. A seed of resolve, cracking open, reaching for the light.
Fortuna, I’m hiding, aren’t I? Still. I’mwaiting. I may have ridded myself of my luck, but I haven’t gotten rid of my reliance, because all my life, I’ve waited to be saved. By Fortuna. My Mark. Weston. And it worked. Which is why I kept doing it. Over and over and over again.
But this whole time, I should have been saving myself. Or trying to, at least. Because no one is going to cede me control over my own life. Certainly not my parents. They’ll only sell me to the highest bidder, like Brendan tried to.
Which means if I want control, I have totakeit. I have to stand up, walk out of Alverton’s horrible little room, and shut the door behind me. And maybe that doesn’t mean I’ve left it broken. Maybe I’ve just left it changed.
