found herself in a larger-than-expected entrance hall. There was a stone desk in the center, and a few rotting scraps of paper lay atop it, advertising the museum. Aurora tried to pick one up, and it fell apart in her hands.
The room beyond must have once been a “step into history” experience, preserved as it would have been during Alysse’s time. Fake food on the dining table, iron tongs by the hearth, even the remnants of soft furnishing on the chairs. A desk against one wall was almost perfectly preserved, its display under a sheet of glass. Notes believed to have been written in Alysse’s own hand, according to the sign. Her childish handwriting overemphasized the spikes of the letters as she recorded her day.
Aurora pressed her hand on the glass. Proof that even Alysse had been a real person, hundreds of years ago. A famous queen, growing up and concerned with the most mundane things.
No one would stop Aurora if she removed the glass and stole the papers. But if she touched them, they too might vanish into ash.
“Can you feel anything?” Finnegan said. “Any traces of magic?”
She shook her head.
There was a staircase in the far corner of the room, spiraling both up and down. Half of the steps up were missing, and Aurora wouldn’t trust the damaged floor above to support her, so she tested the strength of the first downward step. It held firm, so with a glance back at Finnegan, she began to descend.
There were no cobwebs, and very little dust. Aurora followed the stairs around, the light fading away until she could see nothing more than the gray outlines of the walls on either side.
She could see nothing at all in the room below. The air here was cold and clammy.
Finnegan handed her a candle, and she concentrated on the wick, shaping her curiosity into fire. The candle lit a small circle around Aurora’s feet, revealing a cracked stone floor.
Aurora stepped fully into the room, and her foot caught on something soft on the ground. A blanket. She bent down to look closer. It was in almost perfect condition, the fleece soft under her fingertips. Too new to be from before the dragons came.
Finnegan descended the stairs behind her. “What is this place?”
“I don’t know,” Aurora said. “I thought just the basement, but . . .” She held the flame higher. “Someone’s been living here.”
A few books were piled on the table. Novels, mostly, adventures, but one was the story of Alysse that Aurora knew so well. The cover was ripped in half. Beneath it lay The Tale of Sleeping Beauty.
Most of the pages had been torn away.
She looked through what remained between the jagged edges. Someone had slashed across the paintings that remained, marring the faces of Aurora’s parents, of the prince, of Aurora herself. Only one page had survived intact. The final words still read the same as they always did. And we will all live happily ever after.
Aurora raised the candle higher. It finally illuminated the walls.
They were covered in writing. Every inch of space had been marked, some words scratched into the stone, even more painted with ink that looked like blood. There was a crude map of Vanhelm, but the artist’s attempts had been covered with more repetitions of the same words: burn them burn them burn them. A few childhood nursery rhymes covered a second wall, and at the bottom, four words in a weak attempt at a poem.
Fire, stone, bone, blood.
On the far side, two huge words had been gorged in the wall. Only her, it said.
“Celestine,” Aurora breathed. They had stumbled across Celestine’s nest. Not from before the return of the dragons—she could not have hidden here unnoticed. But sometime since the destruction of Vanhelm, Celestine had lived here. She might be living here still.
“You’re sure?” Finnegan said.
“I’ve seen her writing before. That note.” Aurora moved closer, running her fingers along the scorched letters. “This was her.”
Why would Celestine have come here? It was too clear a landmark to have been a coincidence. Aurora glanced at the books on the table again. The story of Alysse, and the tale of Sleeping Beauty. The girl with the ancient power of Vanhelm, and a princess with the magic of fire.
Only her.
“Well,” Finnegan said, “this is the most disturbing thing I’ve seen in a good year at least, Rodric kissing you included.”
Aurora took a step back, eyes fixed on the wall. Paper crunched underfoot, and she bent down to