I arrived at the Beast’s chambers to the sound of raised voices. I sighed, closing my eyes for a moment before stepping in through the door.

Oh, thank goodness, said Henshaw. You’ve arrived. He raised his voice. Everyone else out.

I frowned. Did he have some terrible news to impart to me? I looked over at the bed, afraid I would see the Beast had regressed. But he was sitting up in bed, glaring at me.

Well it’s about time. He sounded sour.

I raised both eyebrows at him, and he looked away.

“Being troublesome, is he?” I asked, not bothering to lower my voice. His shoulders twitched, but he didn’t look back around.

Henshaw’s quiet voice sounded in my ear. He hasn’t been what I would call pleasant, no. I’ve seen the magic you can work, so I’m hoping you can calm him if I just give you some space. But call me if you need. I won’t go far.

“I’ll do my best,” I promised, and he murmured a farewell.

Walking slowly over to the bedside, I glared at the Beast. His eyes skimmed the presumably now empty room and fixed on me. When I woke up, you were here, and old Henshaw told me you had hardly left my side. Where have you been?

“Excuse me?” I put as much icy outrage into the words as possible.

He frowned at me. I wanted to speak to you, but Henshaw refused to let anyone fetch you. He defied me—all of them did! My own servants, in my own castle, during a momentary weakness! He ground his teeth together.

“Well, good for them,” I snapped. “I didn’t know they had it in them.”

He growled quietly, so I picked up a heavy book from a small table beside him, lifted it over my head and let it drop back onto the table. It landed with a loud bang, and he fell instantly silent.

“If you act like a wild animal, Your Highness, I will treat you like one. If you wish to have me here, at your bedside, I will not endure roars, growls, or abuse of any kind. And I will also not listen to any insults toward your servants. For three full days and nights, we attended you tirelessly, nursing you through an illness that could have been deadly. And you dare to criticize me for finally resting once you are out of danger? Or them for placing the well-being of another person before your every whim? You are arrogant, entitled, and self-absorbed. They may put up with you as their employer and prince, but I can assure you that I will not.”

I stopped, sucking in huge breaths as I tried to calm myself. It was the second time I had exploded at the Beast, and it felt good to express my true feelings. I thought he might order me from the room, but he did not. I sank down into a chair, and for a moment we both sat in silence.

Eventually he spoke, his voice cold. I have a memory from when I was fevered. I thought it was real, but it must have been merely a dream. I thought that you were here, and that you thanked me for saving you.

“You remember that?” I flushed slightly.

You did say it? Even though I am…what was it? Arrogant, entitled, and self-absorbed?

I sighed. “You are all those things. But you also saved my life. Both can be true at the same time, you know. And I behaved badly breaking into your room. I can acknowledge that without taking away the endless list of ways in which you have behaved badly.”

Endless list? He huffed, irritated, but I stared at him with a stony face until his cheeks turned the faintest pink. His next words were more hesitant. When I awoke I saw you, and I remembered what you had said. I thought you would want to see me.

“And when Henshaw told you I was resting?”

In the middle of the day? Ridiculous! It’s not as if you were ill. His voice became hard again. They were trying to keep you from me, and I do not appreciate disobedience.

“Trying to keep me from you?” I shook my head in disbelief. “Has your illness made you delusional, too? You might consider listening to and believing your servants from time to time. I can’t imagine what makes them so loyal to you.”

I am their prince.

I stared at him, my brow furrowed. “No. You are a monster, locked away in a remote castle.”

He froze, such a stricken look in his eyes that I felt guilty. I had meant to shock him out of his prideful attitude, not to truly wound him. But then he opened his mouth, his row of sharp teeth glistening, and growled. I immediately stood up and strode from the room without looking back.

He stopped abruptly and called after me, Sophie, Sophie! but I ignored him. I had been clear that I would not allow him to growl at me. He needed to know that I had meant what I said.

A discreet cough alerted me as I walked past Henshaw. I briefly slowed my steps. “I’ll be back later today. In the meantime, I recommend leaving him entirely alone, although what you do is your own business, of course.” There was no reason for his servants to endure his displeasure in my place.

The Beast’s growl rumbled from inside his room, and Henshaw sighed. I think you make an excellent suggestion, Your Highness.

I sighed as I walked away. The Beast would be furious, but I didn’t regret my suggestion. I had warned him, so he had no one to blame but himself. And I needed him to see that I was a person of my word.

But as I walked away, a memory floated to the front of my mind, a small detail that had obviously been noted by my subconscious but not processed at the time. The book I had slammed against the table had not been the book on economics we had previously read together, it had been a volume of fairy tales.

He had remembered our deal and must have asked a servant to search one out for us. Had he been waiting all day yesterday for me to come and see the book he had prepared? Perhaps it had been his attempt at an apology. My steps faltered, but then I shook myself and hurried on. I had endured more at his hands than could be atoned for by a single book. The Tourney alone had made me ill twice, and that was to say nothing of Celine’s leg or of poor Marigold.

And this morning he had showed no willingness to change his ways. I had challenged him on being an animal, hoping to call out the man who remained. But it seemed he wasn’t ready to relinquish the monstrous part of himself.

And yet, as I wandered aimlessly through the castle, my thoughts kept returning to the fairy tales and to the memory of the Beast flying above my head as he leaped to wrestle a wolf with his bare hands—for me. There was something here I did not understand. A missing piece. He wasn’t the prince he had presumably once been, but he wasn’t completely the monster I had expected, either. Perhaps if I could unlock the secrets of the curse, I would be able to understand him.

My steps gained some vigor. There was so much of the castle I still hadn’t searched, and here I was with the perfect opportunity.

It took me a little bit of time to find Gordon, my unofficial guide, but I eventually tracked him down. He had already proved useful as a page boy, keeping station just outside the Beast’s bedchamber and running errands or messages as needed. He was enthusiastic about going on another exploratory mission and spent the first ten minutes trying to convince me that we should start with the dungeons. Eventually he admitted that he wasn’t allowed down there on his own, and his fascination instantly made sense.

However, I stood strong in my veto. The dungeons repelled me for the same reasons they attracted a young boy. I hoped I could discover the secrets of the curse in a part of the castle not likely to be infested with rats.

We soon found ourselves exploring yet another wing of the castle. This is the king and queen’s wing, explained Gordon. No one much has come here for years. Just the maids who do the dusting. Some of us play hide-and-seek here sometimes, though. It’s the perfect spot because the adults never come here. And I usually win because of all the practice I’ve had with Gilda.

I shook my head in sympathy with the long-suffering Gilda.

When we reached the king’s chambers, I stood for a long time, staring at another portrait of King Nicolas. This one depicted him alone and was considerably smaller, yet it still managed to dominate the room. Certainly nothing about this image changed my impression of the Beast’s father.

“Why does no one come here?” I asked, hoping to push him into revealing more information about the royal family.

The lid of a golden canister on the dressing table lifted into the air and then resettled into place with a clink. I already told you. He was a bad man. No one liked him. Plus, he cursed us all, so I guess that made people hate him worse.

I froze, my mind racing, and my mouth going dry. King Nicolas had cursed his kingdom? Not the Beast? If I had been wrong about him in this, what else had I misunderstood?

Half way across the room, the lid of a chest rose into the air and then dropped back down.

“What…” The word came out too quietly, so I tried again. “What do you mean? About King Nicolas and the curse?”

I already told you, Gordon sounded stern. I don’t think I should be telling terrible stories to princesses.

I rolled my eyes. “That’s very considerate of you, Gordon, but completely unnecessary. I’m pretty tough, you know. How about you tell me the story about the king and the curse, and then I’ll tell you how the Beast fought off a pack of wolves, and how I got us both back to the castle.”

Gordon crowed. Really? That’ll show up Michael, all right. He’s been full of stories about how he saw you arrive back. His face glowed. I wish I could have seen him fight. I once saw him sparring with some of the guards, and he was so strong.

“You go first, though,” I said.

Gordon grumbled for a moment but began his tale willingly enough. He clearly didn’t understand everything he was relating, a by-product of his having heard the stories by listening through doors, I supposed. But he knew enough to paint a frightening picture, and I found myself wishing I had asked the question in a room that didn’t contain a life-like picture of the king glaring down at me.

King Nicolas had used his position and authority to amass wealth and power, repressing his people and taxing them heavily. He made constant use of his mirror to spy on his people, ruthlessly crushing the merest hint of disloyalty. The nobility were afraid to question him, even in the privacy of their own homes, and the people dared not rebel. But conditions in the north of the kingdom became so bad, that a small group of rebels did develop.

Eventually the king rode out himself to find and kill them. He chased the leader of the group to a small, remote village. Whether the people were really sheltering the man, or whether the king merely thought so, no one would ever know. Because, the king had descended on the town with a troop of guards. He had called out all the villagers, and when they claimed no knowledge of the rebels, King Nicolas had slaughtered every single one of them with his own hand. From their oldest elder to their smallest child.

I gestured with my hand for us to leave the room and hurried out without waiting to hear if Gordon had seen me. I was struggling to breathe, too choked up to speak. The monstrosity of it! What sort of sickness lived in such a man, that he would do such a thing, and with his own hand? He had violated the most sacred tenets of a ruler, and I no longer wondered at his bringing down a curse powerful enough to destroy a whole kingdom. The High King demanded love and sacrifice from his rulers. The king of Palinar had shown nothing but hate, greed and selfish ambition.

I found my voice. “And so, the kingdom was cursed for his despicable act?” I had always understood the importance rulers had for the well-being of their kingdoms. When true love governed, prosperity followed for all, after all. But it seemed an injustice to see it working in the opposite way.

Well, no, not right away, said Gordon. He had led me into the queen’s chambers, and this time I didn’t see any of the objects scattered throughout it move. In fact, his voice sounded from right under her portrait, as if he were gazing up at it. He returned home to the capital. And then Queen Ruby died, and that’s when we were cursed.

“How…” I stopped to clear my throat, afraid to hear the answer. “How did she die?”

Dunno. No one ever really talks about her. I just know that everything changed after that. I never felt any different, though. He paused. Are you really sure you can’t see me? Who would have thought being invisible could be so uninteresting?

I shook my head, unable to focus properly on his prattle. Stumbling backwards, I sank down to sit on the bed. I was filled with an absolute certainty that—one way or another—King Nicolas had killed his wife. It turned out that a king violating his responsibility to his people was not enough to bring down a curse. But a king that broke trust with both his kingdom and his own family? Apparently, that was enough.

In my shock, I reached out to Lily, meaning to share the horrible revelation with her, and her now familiar absence hit me yet again. I wished desperately for some sort of comfort in the midst of such evil, and I had not even suffered the worst effects of it.

It still seemed strange to me that the very people to suffer under King Nicolas were the ones to also suffer the effects of the curse. Hadn’t Matthew even told me the royals had been originally excluded from it?

As I pondered this thought, an explosion took place in my brain. I thought back over all the pieces of the puzzle I had been told or had managed to cobble together myself. What if I had been thinking about it wrong all along? What if the servants even had it wrong? What if the people had not been cursed, exactly, but had instead been saved? Moved en masse to another realm where their royal family could not touch them.

And now it seemed that the Beast was the only royal who remained. Was it possible I had chosen wrongly in the forest? Could Lily have been right, and if I had let him die, the whole kingdom would have been free to return to the normal world?

My stomach churned at the thought that his death might be the answer. And that, if it was, defeating the curse might be beyond me. Because I would not have a hand in killing him.