Page 21 of Better in Black
Lord Hawke looked offended.
Ajatara, her time running out, buried her face in her hands. “Why isn’t your friend Lucie doing something about this?”
“I’m trying!” Lucie said aloud. She wrote,
At that moment, Lord Hawke fell dead, stricken by a terrible malady.
The words erased themselves.
She wrote,
There was an earthquake that shook the very foundations of the palace. The floor opened up into a gaping chasm and Lord Hawke disappeared into the bottomless dark.
These words, too, erased themselves.
She tried,
Lord Hawke realized he didn’t believe in marriage, which was more about property law than it was true love. He shook hands with the Beautiful Cordelia, said goodbye, and went on his way.
This didn’t work either.
Lucie told herself tothink.What had Ajatara said? If this was going to work, the ending needed to beearned.She couldn’t write out of panic, tacking on the ending she wanted even if it had nothing to do with the rest of the story. She couldn’t think like a loving little sister or aparabataicharging into battle. This wasn’t the kind of demonic trap she could get out of by beheading a demon. She had to stop thinking like a Shadowhunter and start thinking like awriter.
She wrote,
The Beautiful Cordelia gazed upon her first love. The man she had always assumed she would someday end up with. She had no idea that very nearby lurked another man—a man who had long dwelled in the background of her life story andwho, unbeknownst to her, considered himself her truest love. Cruel Prince James had hid his feelings well, but he could hide no longer. He was, even now, slipping through a back entrance of the palace that he alone knew of. He could only hope he was in time. And that when he revealed his heart, the Beautiful Cordelia would finally understand the truth of hers.
Lucie held her breath.
The words remained where she had written them.
She’d gotten James where he needed to be. She suspected he was going to have to fight his own way to his happy ending.
Cruel Prince James burst into the throne room, dashing as ever, if somewhat out of breath.
“James!” the Beautiful Cordelia cried, gasping at his arrival. For she recognized him instantly, of course, but she had certainly never seen him like this. He wore his snow-white lace blouse unbuttoned, and it fell open, revealing the rippling muscles of his chest. They glistened in the firelight, making it somewhat impossible to tear one’s gaze away. If one did, however, one would notice that his hair was perfectly tousled, as if lofted by a nonexistent breeze. A shining gold sword sat in a scabbard at his waist, clean and unused, for he inhabited a world in which gentlemen had no need for violence, but instead paid other people to be violent on their behalf.
“He looks ridiculous,” Ajatara scoffed.
“I wouldn’t use that particular word,” the Beautiful Cordelia said. Her lips twitched slightly. “All right,” she said to James. “You do look a little ridiculous.”
“It seems to be the way I dress here,” said Prince James, who was looking quite a bit less cruel.
Lucie wrote:
He was gazing at Cordelia as if he couldn’t tear his eyes away from her—not because she was so beautiful, but because he loved her and had been terrified he would never see her again.
The words remained. Lucie smiled a little. They were true to the characters, after all—perhaps not to Cruel Prince James and the Beautiful Cordelia, but to James and Cordelia, who were slowly, with her help, taking over the story. She went on:
“I don’t recall inviting you to the wedding,” Lord Hawke told Prince James, sounding somewhat cruel himself. Which was out of character, but rather understandable, under the circumstances.
“There will be no wedding,” Prince James snapped.
“And why is that?” Lord Hawke asked.
Cruel Prince James hesitated. Then, like a bolt from the blue, the answer presented itself to him, and he spoke with absolute certainty. “Because you are an impostor!”
The blood drained out of Lord Hawke’s face. “How dare you?”
