Page 25 of Roses in Amber
"Does the palace…listen?" It had taken me until evening to gather the courage to ask, after a quiet day spent in the Beast's company. We had read in the library—or I, at least, had read, while the Beast had stretched out in front of the fire and napped like the beast he was—and taken dinner together, in so far as the Beast was willing to sit with me while I dined; he still wouldn't eat in my presence. Neither reading nor eating had been entirely able to take away the memory of the dance, or the beauty of the prince I'd dancedwith.
I could see absolutely nothing of him in the Beast, save perhaps a shared coloring. The Beast was dark-furred as the prince had been dark-skinned, but since every beast I saw in him, from lion to bear to boar, could be or habitually was darkly furred, that seemed more coincidence than reflection of who he had once been. I wanted to ask whathismemory of that dance was, but it hadn't been memory, not all of it. It had been a vision, one I lacked the knowledge to fully understand, and I was afraid that if I pressed it, the palace would retaliate.
The Beast looked up at my question, great brows furrowing. Feeling foolish, I tried to explain myself. "I know the servants listen, obviously, but you said there are things you can't tell me. Does the palace listen? Is that how it knows what's being said?"
"Ah. No. The enchantment—" He gestured at his throat. "Seizes me, if I say too much. The palace doesn't have ears, but the magic has limits. If I come up against them, I pay the price."
I closed my lips on burgeoning questions. A shadow crossed the Beast's face. "I'm sorry I can't explain."
"It's all right. I'd rather you could stop me from dancing myself to death than explain, if it comes down to it. But if the palace doesn't listen—is it safe to tell you something, Beast?"
"I hope it is always safe for you to tell me whatever you wish, Amber."
"It has to do with Pearl's witchery," I said cautiously.
The Beast's ugly face lit up, his gaze sharpening on me. "Has she learned to use the pearl?"
"She's starting to. She spoke to me, Beast. Through my mirror, last night. They're all well." My heart soared, remembering the conversation. "Upset at my absence, but mostly well. I found myself defending you to them."
"Really. That—I would not have expected that. Thank you. Which mirror?"
"The big one on my vanity. Why," I asked lightly, "does the other mirror do something too?"
He gave me a look that sent a flush of excitement through me, then twitched his head in a denial as I took breath to ask more. I bit my tongue, gazing at him and trying to remember what he'd told me about Pearl and her pearl. That it had power and she could use it, no more. He had been circumspect, and now I understood he may have been pushing the boundaries of what he was allowed to say about the enchantments here. I thought the same thing was happening now, and swallowed down my questions. I would have to explore for myself, although stars knew I lacked Pearl's native gift.
Then again, so had Pearl, before she'd been jilted. Perhaps I only needed the offense of being throughly rejected by a lover to waken magic in me.
The idea made me laugh aloud, surprising me and the Beast both. "I'm sorry," I said merrily. "I was imagining myself a witch. It didn't work very well. One in the family is enough. More than enough. I can almost hear our city neighbors clucking about it."
"And what would they say about the youngest daughter absconding to an enchanted castle?"
"That I had always been peculiar and that you could never trust my smile anyway."
The Beast tilted his head, examining the smile that came with the pronouncement. "It's an inviting smile," he said after a moment. "Difficult to look away from."
"There you go," I said. "Witchery, no doubt."
"No doubt," the Beast replied solemnly.
I smiled at him again, then stood, stretching. "I suppose I should go to bed." In truth, I wanted to examine my little mirror and see if I could discover any magical properties, but he had ended that conversation, so admitting as much seemed gauche.
"I suppose you should." He watched me as I went to the door, and then, inevitably, said, "Amber, will you sleep with me?"
I looked back at him, one hand on the door frame, and thought of his protective hand on my waist in the ballroom earlier, and of the tremendous paw cradling my hair while I trembled. And I thought, because I could do nothing else, of his enormous size, nearly three feet taller than I, and of the beast-like proportions and angles that made up his body. "Beast," I said softly, "how would that even work?"
He murmured, "Indeed," and I left the room.
The mirror, to my disappointment, absolutely did not work with moonlight. I brought it to the balcony, filling its pane with blue-white light, and felt nothing. I polished it, rubbed its back, said silly chants, and accomplished nothing. Nor did I know what I expected to accomplish, save that the Beast implied something could be done with it. I gave up and went to bed, and in the morning, watching sunlight glow through the amber frame, chided myself for a silly goose and tried again.
It answered to my wish and to sunlight as it hadn't done with the moon. Well, of course: a pearl had all the properties of the moon, pale and luminous, with shadows in its depths. Amber was the very color of the sun, rich and gold and made of life itself, born from the scars of trees fighting to live on.
It was not, though, as powerful as Pearl's magic. The mirror's surface shimmered gold and cleared to show me little Jet studiously smearing handsful of mud all over his face, while beside him an adult's shadow dug at the earth. I cried out, but neither of them heard me. The adult stood, then stooped to collect Jet, and for a moment I saw Opal's laughing face, but couldn't hear her words or the joy in her voice as she spoke to my littlest brother. They looked happy, though, and I closed my eyes against the image, feeling both relieved to see them and saddened that the contact wasn't as intimate as Pearl's magic made it. I had felt like I was with them, then; watching through my mirror made me feel that much more removed. I would rather be fullyhere, with the Beast, than pretending at a half-life of my family, whom I could only see and not hear or touch.
The image swam, then focused again, this time to show me the Beast. He, with the innocence of one who had no idea he was being watched, sat on his haunches and lifted his back leg to scratch at his mane. I yelped, embarrassed to have caught him in such an undignified pose, and pressed the mirror's surface against my chest so I wouldn't see any more. A moment later I peeked again, but I saw only my own amused face reflected back at me. "Very well," I said, both to my reflection and myself, "this mirror is not for me, unless I wish to go into the Queen's service as a spy, and learn to read lips."
The mirror blurred again. I put it down swiftly, its face against the vanity, rather than see what my commentary might awaken in its surface. I didn'twantto become the Queen's spy, or risk any method of contacting her; explaining that I was the latest captive at her son's enchanted palace was beyond me, and I had an itching conviction that she would somehow be able to reach through the mirror's limitations and force those confessions from me.
"Which is madness," I breathed, but then again, I lived in an enchanted castle, and what seemed like madness on the surface might be perfectly reasonable when that surface was scratched.
