When I awake, I’m lying in bed in a bright white room, hooked up to various monitors. A dull aching pain radiates down the left side of my face into my shoulder. I blink, struggling to focus.

“Ah, you’re awake.” A smiling nurse looms over me. “You’ve been out for two days.”

I lick my dry lips. “What happened?” I croak.

The nurse doesn’t answer my question, but she does bring me some water and raises the top of the bed so I can drink it. The cool liquid soothes my parched throat. Memories return, but they’re all jumbled up and I can’t make out a coherent timeline. One image is frozen in my mind. Isolde raising a dagger and Leora falling on to me.

“Leora?”

“She’s fine. In fact, I’ll go and let her know you’re awake. She’s been in every day asking after you.” The nurse walks over to a comm unit on the wall and speaks into it.

The jumble of memories gradually coalesces. The liquid in the bottle. My face. I lift a hand to my cheek, but bandages cover the whole of the left side of my face. My heart sinks as I remember the burning pain and the feeling of flames burrowing their way into my skin.

“Hey!” the nurse catches sight of me and is across the room in three paces.

“Please, I-I need to see.”

She glances at me sympathetically then frowns. “Are you sure? We’ve done everything we can and the water Leora threw over you helped wash off some of the acid, but there will be some permanent scarring.”

I nod, and she starts to unwind the bandage from around my face. The last piece of fabric falls away, and I blink as my left eye adjusts to the brightness of the room.

“Can you see okay?” the nurse asks anxiously.

Gradually, the room comes into focus. “Yes.”

The nurse breathes a sigh of relief. “We thought we’d managed to save your eye but there was no way of knowing for sure until you woke up.”

“Do you have a mirror?”

Reluctantly, she hands me a small hand mirror from a table on one side of the room. I take a deep breath, then look into it. The left side of my face is swollen with patches of red, puckered skin that spread across my forehead and cheek and down my neck. Part of my hair is gone, and my ear looks as if someone is taken a blowtorch to it.

“The swelling should go down with the drugs we’ve given you and some of the burn marks will fade …” Her voice trails off.

I smile and the woman in the mirror smiles back at me. She looks almost familiar. “It’s okay, I’m used to it.”

The door bangs open and Leora rushes in. “Jane! You’re awake!” Her hand flies to her mouth as she sees my face.

The nurse hurriedly replaces the bandages, murmuring something about “infection control”, and leaves the room. Leora walks over and takes my hand. “I’m so sorry, Jane.” Her eyes are wet and a single tear rolls down her cheek. “You saved me. Why?”

“I don’t know,” I answer honestly. “Everything happened so fast. I …” I hesitate for a second, but I need to know. “Isolde?”

“She’s dead. The King and his guards came in just in time to stop her. The guards had heard the commotion, but they didn’t want to go into the room without the King’s authorization.” Her face darkens. “Anyway, I told them everything. I mean how Isolde threw the acid at me and you intervened and saved me. They still haven’t found out where she got the acid. Of course, I didn’t tell them about what happened before she attacked …”

That you were going to scar me. But the more I think about it, the more I believe that she was trying to help me. Though, there’s still one question I haven’t had an answer to.

“What did Isolde mean? About your mother? Our mother?” I swallow. “How did she die?”

Leora looks away. “She had a tumour. One the medics couldn’t fix. It made her sick. Some of her hair fell out and her skin began to flake. Her beauty disappeared. She locked herself away in her room and would only let me and the nurses in to see her. It was only a matter of time before she died, but the doctors said it could be years … And she didn’t want to live like that.”

“You killed her?” I pull my hand away in shock. Was Isolde right after all?

“She begged me to.” She stares blankly at the wall; her voice is thick with emotion. “She was too scared to do it herself. But we made it look like suicide so I wouldn’t get blamed. Isolde couldn’t have known. She was guessing. I’m sorry, Jane. I couldn’t tell you. You never knew her. You can’t know what it did to her. She couldn’t even bear to look in a mirror!” She checks herself, then looks down at me guiltily. “You do know what that’s like, don’t you?”

I nod, burying all the conflicting emotions deep down inside of me. At some point, they’ll burst out, but not now. “What will happen to me?”

“You’re to be given a full medical discharge. You’re something of a heroine. You can go home to your family. With money — compensation.”

Relief floods through me. Finally, I can go home. But there’s a nagging feeling in my belly like there’s something I’ve forgotten. Something important.

“And the boy—”

In a flash, it returns to me. “Rafe! Is he alive? What’s happened to him?”

“It’s okay, he’s fine. I managed to persuade the king that, given you saved my life, he should be allowed to go free. Besides, it’s not as if he’s likely to be climbing back into the palace grounds anytime soon.” She gives me a conspiratorial smile. “He was released yesterday. He wanted to wait until you were discharged, but I thought it best that he leave immediately. Just in case the King changed his mind.”

The tension in my body suddenly dissipates and I sink back onto my pillows. Rafe is alive. I can go home. “And what about you?”

“Well, the king seems happy enough to have me around. So, I’m safe. For now.”

There’s a slight sadness in her eyes, but I’m not sure if it’s sadness for me or for herself.

“You know you’d be welcome to visit the farm anytime. It’s rather old-fashioned, compared to this place, but you’d be welcome.”

She smiles brightly. “Thank you.”

I hesitate. “You could leave?”

“You know that’s not possible.” She spreads her hands. “Besides, this is my home. It’s all I’ve ever known. At least here, I know how things work, how to survive. Our mother taught me well.”

Reaching into a pocket in her dress, she pulls out my half of the gold pendant and places it on the white bedsheet. “Here you go. They had to take it off when they were treating you for the burns.”

The door opens, and the nurse sticks her head around the door.

Leora sighs. “I’m going to have to go. It’s … I’m really glad I found you, Jane. Mother was right. You don’t belong in this place. You’re far too good a person.”

She stands and gives my hand a final squeeze. “Will you write to me? We not allowed to talk to people through the Interweb, but emails are allowed. I’d love to hear about the farm and Rafe. And you can think of me when your six children are running around the fields.” She gives a tinkling laugh. “Three boys and three girls.”

“I think you’re getting a bit ahead of yourself,” I reply, blushing. “Rafe may not even love me anymore now I’m like this.”

“Nonsense.” She reaches out and gently touches my uninjured cheek. “You told me what love is. And you didn’t once mention what a person looks like. Rafe loves you, Jane, the person inside.”

“Maybe.” But I’m not as confident as she seems to be.

The nurse coughs. Time is up.

“Goodbye, Jane.”

“Goodbye, Leora. And good luck.”

At the door, she turns to look back at me, and for a fleeting moment, I see a beautiful, vulnerable, scared young girl. Then she hardens her face and turns to leave and the woman who exits the room is Leora, Head Swan and the king’s favoured courtesan.

* * *

The small pod — an ordinary black taxi — lands in the farmyard. I stand at the door eagerly, anticipation flowing through my veins. As the door opens, my mother rushes from the farmhouse, followed, slightly more slowly, by my father. He still looks worn and tired, but there’s a life in him that wasn’t there before I’d left. The medicine must be working.

I’m wearing a dark green dress that, despite being plain by Swan standards, is by far the most expensive dress I’ve ever owned. Over it, a hooded cape hides my face. In my hands, I hold a bag of money. Not as much as when I was chosen, but enough for Rafe and I to set up a home together. If he still wants me. I have no other luggage. I went with nothing and I return with nothing.

As soon as I’m out of the pod, the door closes behind me and with a faint hum, it lifts and flies off back to the city.

“Jane!” My mother rushes to me and I catch her in a tight embrace. Her wet cheek presses against mine and the hood falls back from my face. She looks at me and all I see in her eyes are love and relief to have me home.

I turn to my father and throw my arms around him. He hugs me back, and his embrace is strong, not the feeble attempt of a few weeks ago. Was it just a few weeks? It feels as if I’ve been away for years. As if I’m a different person.

“I’m so happy you’re home, Jane,” he says gruffly, and I can tell he’s trying hard not cry.

“And you’ll never have to go back?” My mother searches my face anxiously looking for reassurance.

I shake my head. “No. I’m just back to being plain Jane. I never thought being ugly would be such a relief.”

“Beauty can be a curse,” my mother says sadly.

I have so much to tell them, but a movement on the other side of the farmyard catches my eye. Rafe is standing at the gate out to the hydroponics fields, his hands clasped nervously in front of him.

“We’ll be inside. Come in for a cup of tea when you’re ready.” My mother kisses me on the cheek and leads my father back into the house.

I look down and tug my hair over my left cheek. Footsteps come towards me and a rough hand reaches out to clasp mine. My chest is suddenly tight and I can barely breathe.

“Jane?”

I force myself to look up, not wanting to see the pity and revulsion in his eyes. But as hard as I search, all I see is love. I smiled tentatively up at him. “Are you all right? Did they treat you badly, in the dungeons?”

He shrugs, a smile playing on his lips. “Well, I didn’t eat much for a day or two. I think they forgot about me, to be honest. But your sister made them give me a good meal before they released me. They even gave me a pod ride home.” He emphasizes the word “sister” and gives me an enquiring look.

“I—”

He takes a step closer so our bodies are almost touching. “Another time.”

His hand softly strokes my scarred and puckered face. I tense and pull back, but he just smiles and cups my face. “My Jane. My wonderful, beautiful Jane.”

I look down at the dust swirling around the stone yard. “Not so beautiful anymore.”

Tilting my chin up, he shakes his head. “The person you were, in the palace, I didn’t recognise you. This is you. This is the woman I love.”

The tension rushes from my body and I’m overwhelmed by a feeling of relief that’s so strong that my knees are suddenly weak, and I fear I may collapse. I place a hand on his chest and feel his pulse quicken as I lift my head to his.

Our lips meet and warmth surges through me.

Finally, I am home.