Be bold, be bold, but not too bold.
It’s important that we learn the lessons our mother didn’t.
Once, there were three sisters who lived in a subdivision of a suburb. Three girls, Vivienne, Jude, and Taryn. The eldest was one of the Folk herself, with split-pupiled eyes and ears that came to slender points. The two youngest were twins with cheeks as plump as peaches, ready to be eaten up. Their father was a bladesmith who sold his swords over the internet. Their mother helped him run his business. She didn’t like to dwell on unpleasant things, like mistakes or regrets or burning down her past and running away from husbands in Faerieland.
And when Mom’s past caught up with her, she didn’t even have to live with the consequences. She and Dad, dead in moments. And us girls, taken across the sea to be raised by a monster. The three lost sisters. Doesn’t that sound just like another tale?
Let’s skip ahead, past all the blood and the crying and the fear of a terrifying new place with terrifying magical people.
Let’s skip to the beginning of what I did that was wrong.
It started with Locke slipping a note into my rucksack. He must have done it on the grounds of the palace, where tutors instruct the children of the Gentry—and us—in history and riddle games and divination and all the other things needed to be productive members of society.
If I came to your window, would you come out?
Locke, constant companion to the youngest prince of Elfhame. Hair like fox fur and a laugh that could charm the apples to drop from the trees. Why would he bother slipping that—or any note—to a mortal girl?
I guess I caught his eye.
There was a day when you were practicing for the tournament and I was reading a book of stories. Locke peered over my shoulder, looking at an illustration of a serpent curled around a princess with a long knife.
“How does it feel?” he asked. “To be stuck in a fairy tale?”
“How does it feel to be one?” I countered, then felt foolish. Talking to one of Prince Cardan’s awful friends was always risky, but when Locke grinned, it felt like boldness instead.
“I like stories,” he said. “And perhaps I like you as well.”
Then three days later, the message from him.
Fairy tales are full of girls who wait, who endure, who suffer. Good girls. Obedient girls. Girls who crush nettles until their hands bleed. Girls who haul water for witches. Girls who wander through deserts or sleep in ashes or make homes for transformed brothers in the woods. Girls without hands, without eyes, without the power of speech, without any power at all.
But then a prince rides up and sees the girl and finds her beautiful. Beautiful, not despite her suffering, but because of it.
And when I saw that note in my bag, I thought that maybe I was no longer stuck in a fairy tale, maybe I could be the hero of one.
All through dinner at Madoc’s long table, where Oriana fussed over little Oak while Vivi made faces at him and you stabbed at your venison, I was hopelessly distracted. My thoughts strayed again and again to Locke. Later, in the parlor, I tried to finish the embroidery I was adding to my velvet cape, but I stabbed my own finger with the needle, over and over, until even Oriana asked me if there was something wrong.
Do you remember that night? You sat before the fire, limned by flames, polishing a dagger, your brown curls tumbling over your face. I wanted to tell you about the note, but I was afraid that if I did, you would warn me it was some kind of trick. That Locke was just trying to humiliate me. You knew he was a boon companion of the youngest and worst of the princes of Elfhame, after all. You knew what Locke and his friends found amusing: cruelty.