layer of deep, blood-red liquid. When the red reaches the halfway point he stops, and repeats the process over the yellow rock. The yellow layer is heavier than the red, sinking to the bottom of the vial.
When there is barely room for a single other drop he pulls the vial away, removing the pipe and stoppering it. Ignoring my gasp, with his left, gloved hand he smothers both rocks, yellow, then red, until the rocks and his glove smoulder gently.
He shakes the bottle, seemingly oblivious to the pain, and I watch as the liquid inside it turns pale pink.
His mouth becomes a resigned line, his forehead puckering, before he opens them and looks right at me. Keeping his gaze locked on mine, he peels his gloves away and lays them on the table. Eyes blazing, he looks down at his hands, and I do the same. Then I gasp, forgetting about my back, forgetting everything else.
Every finger on his left hand is black. His thumb is still palest pink, as is the whole of his right hand, but his left palm is the same colour as an abyss.
I can’t take my eyes from it, from the wrongness of it.
He makes a soft sound in his throat and I see him looking at me, as I stare at his hand. I try to find words – any words – to ask what it is, but they’ve all gone. Instead my mouth is open, my brow furrowed in something like horror.
He sees it and something snaps shut in his own expression. He drops his gaze and turns back to his work, opening the vial and carefully tilting it, until a single drop of the potion sits on the tip of his left thumb. Then he puts the vial down on its iron base.
He lifts the small knife and cuts into the flesh of his left thumb at exactly the place where the drop of Elixir sits. For a fleeting instant the blood that oozes from it is red, before it pales to bright, pearlescent white when it touches the Elixir. He tips his thumb and the white drop falls into the vial, settling as a delicate ivory sheen on top of the pale liquid.
I look back at his thumb in time to see it turn black. I watch the skin change; I watch the darkness spread across the remaining unmarked skin on his hand. It feathers down on to his wrist, stopping in time to become a horrifying mimic of the glove he’s removed, and my stomach turns
He walks over to me, the vial of Elixir in his healthy hand, but it’s the other one I fix upon. He places it, bare, blackened, behind my head, the coldness of the cursed skin a shock against mine, and lifts my head, pouring the contents of the vial into my mouth, every drop. It tastes faintly of metal and I look up at him, both repulsed and full of pity.
His eyes when he looks back at me seem ages-old and fathomless. “Swallow,” he says, and I do.
He lowers my head and moves away, returning with a second vial, and when he brings that to my lips I smell poppy.
I drink that one down without hesitating, suddenly wanting oblivion.
The last thing I remember is him scooping me up again. His gloves are back on, tattered and burned, covering the damaged flesh beneath.
I dream, but once again I know I’m dreaming, for beyond it I can feel aches in my body; somewhere in my lower back it feels as though the bones are grinding together. Knowing it’s not real doesn’t feel important though, the knowledge slipping away from me as soon as I’ve realized it. I find myself standing at the edge of a room, high-ceilinged, with large glass windows and a flagstone floor. It’s nowhere I’ve been before, of that I’m certain; it’s a place of privilege and opulence. But the most remarkable thing about the room is the man made of silver, on a throne carved from gold.
The man is the Sleeping Prince.
I wait for terror to grip me, to shake me and tell me to run, but it doesn’t. I can’t make out his features properly, other than his golden eyes; they are indistinct, shifting. He looks up and seems to see me. He smiles softly, his expression approving. I’m wearing a long, red dress – a gown, really – velvet and soft to the touch, like the skin of a peach when