Page 16 of Beauty Reborn
There were times for recklessness. This was not one. I felt it with certainty, and I smiled under the calm rightness of the words on my tongue. Father would have been pleased with my decision and reasoning.
I didn’t expect Stephan to be pleased, but he knew me so well, I knew he would understand.
He did not. And the cold that set in when he dropped my hands chilled to my very bones.
The beast heard my answer because my scream was not a wordless one, and I knew he vanished on the spot. I struggled to untangle myself from ghosts, managing at last to flee to my room. I should have run from the castle.
But where would a homeless girl go?
A dozen bolts appeared on my door, and though I slid each one into place, I felt no safer. Stephan had chased me to the cottage in the shadow of a forest and then to a castle isolated from the world.
No matter where I went, he would always be at my shoulder.
Chapter
6
Istayed in my room all the next day. When I played my violin, my fingers trembled. In the end, I curled around the instrument and let the sun wear out the day.
The next morning, my feet led me to the castle gardens. It was a dare, the same kind that had carried me to the heart of a dark forest in search of a bear. But that day, there had been no bear, and this day, there was no beast. For all the supposed harmony in nature, it would not balance out my unspoken desires.
The path led me to the golden gate, twisted in roses and thorns. Beyond it, the forest.
I turned away.
The gardens nearly encircled the castle, but there were other expected buildings—an armory, a livery stable. I entered the second, and a gentle chorus of whinnies greeted me. The stalls stretched as far as the dungeon cells had, an unimaginable cavalry for an empty castle. I stroked the nose of a chestnut mare. She nickered happily.
The horses were surely magic, and if I rode one, it would disappear mid-gallop, sending me flying through the open air. Who knew where I would land?
I brushed and saddled the chestnut mare, and when I led her from the stable, a field had appeared between the gardens and the gate. Let there be an ocean of distance. I pulled myself into the saddle, settling the way Rob had taught me, and together we galloped. The mare never disappeared. Instead, she brought me right to that towering gate and its gold fence, stretching to the curve in the horizon. The longer I stayed in the castle, the larger it seemed to grow. Perhaps one day it would swallow the world. But somehow I knew the gate would always remain.
When I turned the mare’s nose at the fence, she was heaving in breaths, so with a guilty heart, I dismounted and led her slowly until she’d recovered.
“Sorry, girl,” I said quietly, stroking her neck. I moved to remount but halted.
The dark trees loomed like giants, reaching crooked branch fingers toward the tips of the golden fence posts. Somewhere in that forest was a fairy with eyes of larkspur blue. Had she given the beast his castle? Had she been the one to enchant him to speak?
I reached out like the branches, and as my fingertips touched the fence—
—she appeared.
She was small, no taller than the length of my forearm, and as she walked in the air, she left a glittering blue trail of footprints that lasted for a heartbeat before fading.
“Do you have a wish?” she asked.
Perhaps it was the suddenness of her appearance, or perhaps it was the foolishness of the question, but something about it struck me, and I laughed. Though my eyebrows lifted, the corners of my mouth did not because there was no real amusement in my strange laugh.
“A wish?” I echoed.
She smiled. “To every wish is given magic.”
I thought of the broken teacup knit unnaturally back together. Stepping closer to the fence, I curled my hand around one of its gleaming posts.
“I didn’t wish for the land to be cleared at the cottage,” I said.
“My magic fulfills my own wishes as easily as it does for others.”
“Why did you want to help me?”
