I climbed into bed and sat there, a branch of lit candles on a table nearby, stroking the single word. Seeing my name in her hand made me feel near to her, and I wanted to enjoy that feeling for a moment. Because I feared that once I read its contents, my emotions would be once again thrown into turmoil.

Finally, I could delay no longer.

She hadn’t signed her name. She must have known I would easily recognize her handwriting. I cried as I read the words over and over. It seemed strange that she made no mention of Cole, but I could not deny her desperation to free me from the Beast. It was surprisingly easy to see how even Cole would seem a better option to her.

And I had just been treated to yet another display of the Beast’s arrogance and temper. So why didn’t I feel relieved to be offered a way out?

* * *

I didn’t attempt to visit Cole the next day. It felt weak of me not to defy Dominic’s order, especially when Cole might have been injured in the confrontation and need medical care I knew Dominic would never provide. But I needed more time to consider his plan.

He had made it this far on his own; if I could free him from the dungeon and requisition two horses from the stables, perhaps he truly could get us to the capital. We wouldn’t even really be stealing the animals since, once we were crowned, this castle and all its possessions would belong to our future child.

I shuddered at the thought. I had no desire to have children with Cole. Or to attempt the flight to the capital, even if I now knew Dominic himself would be unable to pursue us.

I told myself I hesitated out of fear of the wolves, but part of me knew it wasn’t true. I just didn’t want to marry Cole. I still wanted to believe there was another way to free Palinar.

But when I asked Tara for the date the king had died, her answer shocked me. She was clearly reluctant to answer, but obviously unable to think of an excuse not to. And it turned out Palinar had been cursed for three long years before I arrived. And I had been here for over three months. Time truly was running out for Dominic to claim the throne.

When I realized how close we were to the deadline, I pleaded with her to tell me the truth of the curse, but she merely burst into tears and ran from the room.

I could only assume she reported our conversation to the rest of the servants, because they all began to act strangely. Every single one of them seemed almost as antagonistic toward Cole as Dominic was. But unlike Dominic, who stormed around the castle avoiding me, they all seemed unnaturally cheerful.

Tara soon told me this was because they had finally chosen a date for my birthday ball. I suggested this was hardly the time, but Tara insisted defiantly that they were all extremely excited about it and had planned it for their upcoming monthly shared half-day. I had long ago insisted that the ball must include all the servants—since it would hardly be a ball with only two people—so I could hardly tell them to cancel it now.

Plus, I was informed that preparations were already well underway.

Every time I tried to go somewhere quiet to think, a servant would appear with questions about the ball. I felt as if I had somehow stumbled into a farce. I wasn’t even safe in my own chamber. My attempt to retreat there was foiled by the arrival of Tara and Lottie with a bevy of castle seamstresses. They all chattered loudly as they measured me for a ball gown, not leaving any openings for me to speak.

As soon as they removed the last pin, I fled, determined to find somewhere where I could be alone. But I had barely settled myself in an unused room than Gordon appeared saying I was urgently needed in the kitchens. I sighed. Clearly Gordon’s expert hide-and-seek skills were now going to be used against me.

I considered ordering him away, but I couldn’t bear to send him to face the wrath of the other servants for having failed to bring me. So, I followed behind as slowly as I could, tuning out his constant stream of talk in an attempt to think.

I complained to Dominic at the evening meal, but he just shrugged and said the date had been none of his choosing. I huffed in frustration, but considering it was his first comment to me of the evening, I could hardly be surprised at his curt response.

“Why are you so determined to keep me from discovering the truth?” I exclaimed.

That man doesn’t hold any truth! Dominic gripped his wine glass so hard, I thought it would shatter. I am your betrothed, and I am responsible for your safety. If you refuse to see his true intentions in his eyes, I will have to ensure you never see him again. Cole will never leave that cell.

“Never?” I almost growled myself in my irritation. “One day, when Palinar is freed, we will need to return him to the Marinese prisons, at least. Or are you trying to say you believe your kingdom will always be cut off and cursed?”

He stared at me. The curse has nothing to do with it. I would not be returning him to Marin, even if the way were clear.

I frowned. “What do you mean? He is their prisoner, not ours.”

Dominic shrugged and looked down into his wine glass. He may have been their prisoner. But now he’s mine. If they wanted to keep him, they should have made sure he didn’t escape.

I stood to my feet. Indignation burned at this suggestion that Jon and Lily had been negligent. He spoke of Marin so disparagingly, as if only he knew how to correctly rule. As if Palinar was an example of a well-managed kingdom. “Why must you be so stubborn? So sure of yourself? Perhaps if you had worked with the other kingdoms in the first place, none of this would have happened!”

You know nothing of what happened.

“No, I don’t.” I almost yelled the words at him. But then I sighed and my voice dropped low. “And that is precisely the problem. How can I help you when you won’t be honest with me?”

Dominic also stood to his feet, and for a moment I thought he meant to yell back at me. But when he spoke, his words were a quieter whisper than my own had been. If I was honest with you, you wouldn’t wish to help me.

Then he turned and strode from the room. I stared after him in dismay. Just when I had found some measure of peace here, my whole world had once again been turned upside down.

* * *

I could almost feel the hours ticking by as I tried to make up my mind about what I should do. I could understand now the urgency that had made all the servants so tense. But their continued refusal to tell me anything made me want to scream. How could I begin to know how to rescue them, when I didn’t even know the full story of the curse?

If I couldn’t find another way to break the curse, then I was left with only two options. Marry Cole and break the curse, or leave an entire kingdom cut off from the rest of the lands. But if I broke the curse this way, what would happen to Dominic? If he missed his opportunity to be crowned, would he simply remain a silent beast forever? The possibility haunted me.

Dominic himself, however, continued to avoid me. Perhaps his absence should have made it easy to tell Cole I would agree to his plan but, somehow, whenever I tried to make myself return to his cell, my feet refused to carry me there. I could not bear to speak the words of agreement and turn my back on any hope of rescuing Dominic. Despite his current attitude toward me, I knew that he truly believed himself to be protecting me. Could I condemn him for that?

I missed our walks and our rides and our reading. I had only entered the library once since Cole’s arrival, and I hadn’t returned to the rose garden at all. I couldn’t bear to be reminded of all the happy hours Dominic and I had passed in those places. How could I build myself yet another life in the capital with Cole? If we did break the curse, how could we possibly rule a kingdom in which we knew almost no one? Did Cole still have some contacts in the capital from before his family had moved to Marin?

Or perhaps we could find Princess Adelaide. She might still be alive. And then we could abdicate in her favor. It was the best plan I had been able to come up with, despite relying on the shaky premise that we could actually locate the missing Adelaide.

When I awoke one morning, only four days from the coronation deadline, I told myself that as unpalatable as the prospect was, I needed to do the right thing by the greatest number of people. I needed to save Palinar.

As Lottie dressed me, the occasional tear slipped out, despite my best efforts. After several long minutes, she tentatively spoke. Do you…do you love this Cole, Princess Sophie?

I jerked and she lost hold of my laces. “Love him? Of course I do not!”

She hesitated. We have all been afraid that you might like him better than the prince, despite your betrothal. Some of the maids saw him when he was being taken to the dungeon, and they said he was very handsome. She paused again. We do not want to lose you.

My heart squeezed as their strange behavior began to make sense. “He is handsome enough, I suppose. But, in Marin, he and his father and sister plotted to kill the ducal family and to take over the duchy. His father even burned a rival’s warehouse, to advance his plan. A warehouse that held essential supplies for the people. Plus, the fire spread to some nearby homes and a baby nearly died.”

Lottie gasped.

“Cole was going to marry my friend Celine and become a prince of Lanover. They would have succeeded, too, if we hadn’t stumbled on a solution at the last possible moment. So, I guess all of that is to say that, no, I don’t like him at all.”

Oh. Lottie sounded relieved, and I felt guilty for reassuring her when her fears were actually legitimate. I was about to leave. Only I was doing it for her—her and the rest of her kingdom.

But as she laced up my dress, my mind wandered back over my words. There was something in the story I hadn’t considered, and my mind kept circling back to it now. Sir Oswald’s plan to overthrow Marin had involved Cole marrying Celine and becoming a prince. And now Cole’s new plan involved his marrying me and becoming a king.

Dominic had been so insistent that he saw something in Cole’s eyes. I had dismissed it as irrational fancy, but I suddenly remembered an old conversation Lily had once had with the young Princess Daisy. What was it Daisy had said? That Cole had a funny look when he watched Celine. Something like that.

If this plan succeeded, Cole would go from condemned prisoner to king. He had been willing to risk a lot to go from minor nobility to prince. How much would he be willing to risk for this?

I sank into the nearest chair, hardly noticing when Lottie announced she was leaving the room. Carefully I examined the evidence and considered my own true motivations.

He had given me a letter from Lily. But while the sentiments of the letter rang true, it didn’t actually endorse Cole’s plan. I had always found it strange that it didn’t mention him specifically. What if Cole had somehow stolen it from Lily? It seemed far-fetched, but hardly more so than his story.

He had given me the information on the Palinaran succession laws, facts I had confirmed in my single visit to the library but, surely, they were general knowledge within Palinar.

He had risked his life to come here, but then he had risked much in Marin, too. And with the snow melting and the flowers dying, something about the state of things in Palinar was changing. Perhaps the danger had lessened.

I turned my mind to my own motivations and was unhappy with what I found. I had been so busy telling myself I was making a sacrifice for others, when in reality I merely wanted to be free. I had been so grieved at the loss of my friendship with Dominic since Cole had arrived, and so afraid that I would never see Lily again, that I had convinced myself having her back would be enough.

And I had used the excuse that Lily wanted me to do it. But it wasn’t Lily who was here. She didn’t have the whole story, and she wasn’t the one making the decision. Whether Cole had lied or not, he was not the right king for Palinar.

I shook my head in disgust with my own self-delusion. Who knew what further cage I had nearly condemned myself to? Or what harm I might have brought to this kingdom. They had already suffered from one terrible monarch, I wouldn’t be responsible for saddling them with another.

I would see Dominic in the evening at my birthday ball. I would just make him tell me the truth about the curse, and then together we would come up with a plan to save Palinar. In the next three days. I groaned. But I also knew going with Cole could not be the right decision.

I sat at my small table and wrote a letter. The guards might be forbidden to let me in to see Cole, but I doubted they had received any orders about letters. I knew I had no real need to tell him of my decision, but I wanted to, if only to keep myself accountable. If I kept an escape plan in the back of my mind, it might prevent me from putting my full mind into finding a better solution.

Sure enough, when I delivered Cole’s letter, the guards hemmed and hawed, but eventually agreed to thrust it through the slot usually used for food delivery. I watched the floating letter disappear, and then left the dungeon with a lighter heart.