CHAPTER TWO
I sneak down the street, staying in the shadows where I can. It’s a new moon, perfect for slipping away.
It’s almost midnight, and I managed to leave the house without running into anyone. I don’t expect them to realize I’m gone until morning.
The tailor’s house is just ahead, in a quiet district with manicured gardens. The man has done well for himself in Astoria’s capital city, catering to the nobles and their many fashionable whims, and his family wants for nothing.
I know Peter’s home almost as well as my own. His bedchamber balcony overlooks the distant northern mountains—the best view in the house, he likes to boast. Fortunately for me, it’s also the one with the balcony next to the largest tree on the property.
I hop over the decorative half-wall that separates the house from the street and cautiously make my way to the rear of the manor. The walkways are narrow, and the beds on either side of the path are lush with plants. Carefully, I veer off the cobblestones and head to the tree. I can climb it to reach Peter’s balcony, as I’ve done a dozen times.
As soon as I’m off the walkway, the smell of basil drifts to me. I must have disturbed an herb garden. It’s a strange daylight smell, something you don’t expect in the dark of night, and it reminds me to be more careful where I step.
I reach the tree and test my weight on the lowest branch. The oak is old and sturdy, and the limb barely moves. I scamper up the tree, using my boot-encased toes to dig in while I pull myself up with my arms. The bark digs into my palms, but it’s a familiar sensation, one I don’t mind in the slightest.
Mother used to say I would have made a better squirrel than a girl.
Just when I’m halfway up, fully-surrounded in the tree’s thick canopy of leaves, but not yet high enough to reach Peter’s balcony, I hear voices.
I freeze, not daring to even breathe.
“Do you have to leave?” a girl says from the balcony above, her words breathy and overly feminine.
“I’m afraid so, darling,” a familiar male voice says. “It’s time I see the world. But know I will think of you every moment I am gone.”
Peter.
“Can’t I go with you? I’ll leave, Peter. I’ll go wherever you go.”
It only takes me three full seconds to place the voice. It’s Thelma, the baker’s youngest daughter. She’s a year older than I am and as dimwitted as she is pretty.
I peer through the lace-pattern of leaves above, just in time to see Peter kiss Thelma. I’m not surprised, and I’m not even hurt—it’s Peter, after all. But I’m still overwhelmed with the desire to break off one of these branches and throw it right at his fool head.
After I tamp down that urge, I find a more comfortable position and wait for them to leave. After several more minutes, I hear a door opening, and the two disappear into the house. Faint music drifts from the room, but it’s silenced when the door swings shut.
Apparently, the tailor is having a party, one Peter didn’t invite me to. But of course he didn’t. He had a few loose strings to tie up before we set off on our grand adventure.
Once the pair is gone, I crawl onto the balcony, find a chair in the corner of the chamber, and wait.
At half-past midnight, Peter comes waltzing into the room, whistling quietly as he tosses his jacket aside.
I clear my throat, scaring him half to death. He jumps like a frightened cat, and I smirk. “Thelma, Peter? Really?”
He winces. “Saw that, did you?”
I nod. “I’m afraid so.”
Wasting no time to make amends, he kneels in front of me. “It was a goodbye, Sophie. I meant every word I said earlier—let’s go, let’s see the world together. You mean more to me than a thousand other girls, and you know it.”
“I know you’re acquainted with a thousand girls, so you certainly have plenty to compare me to.” I smile to ease my words and lean forward. “I’m leaving tonight, but I couldn’t go without saying goodbye.”
Peter exhales slowly. “You’re mad at me.”
“I’m not.” I’m not sure I should tell him I expected no less. “But I’m not going to marry you.”
After letting the words soak in, he groans.
“I don’t blame you.” Then he flashes me a grin. “I wouldn’t marry me either.”
I begin to stand, but he grabs my arm. “What do you mean you’re leaving?”
“Father wants me to marry Milton.”
“The farmer who lives by the river?” he exclaims.
“That’s the one.”
Likely tired of kneeling at my feet, Peter pulls me up as he stands. “But he’s a bore. I had a conversation with him once. He didn’t even notice when I dozed off.”
“Father wants to announce our engagement in the morning, and I can’t do it.”
Peter looks at me earnestly, concern written all over his face. “Let me come with you—you can’t go alone. It’s not safe.”
“No, you stay here.” I raise an eyebrow. “Thelma needs you.”
He nods sagely. “And Liza and Mary and—”
I shove his chest, and then I pull him into a hug. He wraps his arms around me. It’s a warm and friendly embrace—infinitely better than the kiss we shared earlier.
I’m halfway out the door when he sets his hand on my shoulder. “Find adventure, you hear?”
I smile. “I will.”
His expression softens, shadows with a hint of worry. “Promise me you’ll take care of yourself.”
“I promise, Peter.”
And then I’m out the door, climbing down the tree, and scurrying into the night.
***
I’ve been walking for two hours, twenty-seven minutes, and fourteen seconds. It’s almost three in the morning. I’m cold, my feet ache, and I have no idea where I’m going.
It becomes clear I should have thought this through a little better.
At precisely four-o-one, I give in. I find a nearby log, plop my sorry self onto it, and loudly say, “Oh, great fairy godfather Mortimer. I, a stupid human, humbly need your magnificent and wonderful magic.”
Five minutes and twenty-two seconds later, the root of all my family’s blessings and curses appears before me with a bang.
“Hello, Morty.” I stick my legs out in front of me, stretching as I look at the cantankerous man. He’s of medium-height and build, perhaps a bit on the slender side. His brown hair, peppered with gray, has a light wave to it, and it’s receding ever-so-slightly at the temples. All in all, he’s a rather average man.
Oh, and he also has wings.
“How are you this evening?” I ask him.
The fairy sputters, looking very much like a perturbed goose. He points at me, his eyes narrowed and oh-so-livid. “You.”
I raise my hands and motion to the farmland around me. The mountains are still far, far away. “I’ve found myself in a bit of a predicament.”
“If I remember correctly, little wicked one, you weren’t supposed to call on me after I helped Eva.”
I shoot him an incredulous look. We both knew that wasn’t going to happen, whether Mortimer will admit it or not.
Wise enough to know it’s a dead-end conversation, he changes tactics. “Do you realize it’s four in the morning?”
“Of course I do,” I say sweetly to my family’s very own fairy godfather. “Thanks to you, I know exactly what time it is, every moment of the day.”
That’s my blessing. Horrid, isn’t it? Elisette gets all the luck. Mortimer made her devastatingly beautiful, and what does she do with it? She bemoans her fortune and hides all day with her books.
Mortimer stares at me with such loathing, I briefly wonder if he’s going to turn me into a rock. The only thing that protects me is his fairy council. I believe they’d get fussy if the reluctant godfather maimed the humans he’s been charged to bestow gifts upon.
“What do you want?” he asks, fighting for patience.
It’s strange how I seem to have that effect on the men in my life.
“Since it took you two minutes longer to show up than usual—”
“You woke me in the middle of the night, you wretched beast of a gir—”
“I had time to think.” I lean forward. “How about you give me magic, and then I won’t have a reason to pester you anymore.”
I might have called him a time or two, just for the fun of it. It gets rather dull being the third-born, especially when there are four younger children—all of them between me and what could have been a delightful baby-of-the-family status.
“Even if I could give you magic, I shudder to think what kind of havoc you would cause with it.”
“Ah, Morty. I love you too.”
He’s like our very own crotchety uncle, the bumbling kind whose gifts are often more like hurricanes than blessings. Deep down, however, I think he cares for us. For some of us, he might have to dig a little more. From the look he’s giving me, I have a feeling I’m at the bottom of the trench.
“Again, I repeat, what do you need?” he snarls.
What do I need? What don’t I need? Everything is a right fine mess. If I don’t want to end up as a farmer’s wife, I can’t go home.
“A knight in shining armor,” I mutter to myself, and then I say to Mortimer, “I need—”
“A knight, you say?” he cuts me off, his eyes strangely focused.
“I meant it in the most figurative way.”
“For once, bothersome, Wicked One—”
Wicked One—that’s his nickname for me. It’s sweet, don’t you think?
“—You might be the answer to my trouble.”
No words uttered prior to this moment have struck more fear in my heart. I know that look in his eyes—it doesn’t end well. Bad, bad blessings are gifted when Mortimer wears that expression.
I stand abruptly. “Mortimer, no. Listen to me—listen.” I draw the word out and make him meet my eyes, talking to him almost as if he were a naughty, distracted dog. “I need a cloak, new sturdy boots, and a hefty bag of gold. Nothing else.”
I would have liked him to whisk me to the closest inn, but I don’t dare ask for that now.
“You’ll like Henri,” he muses as he studies me with narrowed eyes. “But I’m not sure Henri will like you…”
“I will not like Henri!” I protest.
Of course, I have no idea who Henri is.
Then I pause. “Why wouldn’t he like me exactly?”
Mortimer nods, mostly to himself. “Two birds with one stone. Come along.”
And before I can do a thing to stop it, my world goes bright white. I’ve never been transported with fairy magic before, though I hear it’s excruciating—possibly the worst thing you could live through.
People who say that have not listened to Elisette drone on about the life cycle of a silk caterpillar.
I gasp for breath when the harsh, unnatural light subsides. After a moment, I peer around me. It’s still dark, but it takes me no time to realize we’re not in Astoria anymore.
The air smells rich, like dense forest and hundreds of years’ worth of fallen evergreen needles. Firs tower around the meadow Mortimer has plunked us down in; they’re menacing shadows in the dead of night.
“Where are we?” I ask, surprised to find my words come out as a croak.
“Briadell.” Mortimer adjusts his long robes and starts forward, stalking toward the trees.
I hurry to keep up with him. The last thing I want to do is get lost in the northernmost mountain kingdom. Well, technically it’s not the most northern. That honor belongs to Elsland, the troll kingdom at the very top of our map.
“Briadell?” I demand, shivering in my lightweight gown. “Why in the world would you bring me here?”
The fairy doesn’t bother to answer me.
“Mortimer!” I glance around, uneasy. “Briadell is wild! There could be animals out here.”
He chuckles, but it’s not an assuring sound. “Oh, there are. Wolves, mountain cats…bears.”
I stumble over an exposed root. “Where are we going?”
But he needn’t answer. The trees open, revealing a lake and a tall, statuesque palace that sits on a peninsula in the middle of the water.
I stop dead in my tracks, refusing to go any farther. I’ll take my chances with the wildlife.
Mortimer shoots me a hassled look over his shoulder. “Are you coming or not?”
Folding my arms over my chest, I look him right in the eyes. “Not.”
Briadell’s true royal line is cursed; everyone knows it. Few have seen their current prince, and they likely never will. He is a recluse, a hermit. His features are twisted, and his eyes are said to be black, depthless pits. The mountain kingdom’s prince is as ugly as the land is beautiful.
At the gnarled prince’s demands, a duke rules in his stead, overseeing the kingdom from the small city of Dathpore, near the Farthendale border. Without the help of its prince, Briadell makes a living exporting timber and gold from their plentiful mines, and few people bother to give him as much as a thought.
He is but a tale, one older children tell young ones to frighten them.
I was never scared of him, not ever. But now? Cowering in front of his palace in the dead of night? I’m properly spooked.
Mortimer looks as if he’s about to physically haul me to the castle when something behind us catches his eye. He looks beyond me, and I whirl around, not about to let something sneak up on me in the dark.
A shadow approaches, someone human. I edge behind Mortimer, hoping his magic will save us. If it doesn’t, at least I’m confident I can outrun the old man.
“Mortimer,” a deep voice says. “Why have you returned?”
“I’m here to grant you your blessing.” The fairy grabs my arm and not-so-gently yanks me forward. “I’ve brought you a wife. Please, keep her. I assure you, I do not want her back.”
“Mortimer!” I exclaim.
“You must understand, this is out of my hands,” Mortimer explains to me in the most impartial way imaginable. “Henri saved a goat from a ravine—”
“It was a girl,” the man interrupts. “Not a goat.”
“And the council assigned him to me as punishment for—” Mortimer stops abruptly. “That doesn’t matter. All you need to know is that Henri is a knight looking for a bride, and you are a girl looking for a knight. Congratulations. Do not expect a wedding present—I won’t be sending one.”
And just like that, the fairy disappears.