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I looked down and discovered a scar. A fissure of skin, a tight little seam, like a string. The outline of an acorn.

I hadn’t realized it was there. I hadn’t checked before coming here. I’d been too overcome, too frazzled.

Aire’s hand skimmed the line. “It resembles...”

“An acorn.” I gulped, not meeting his eyes. “It’s an acorn.”

He must have heard the lack of surprise in my tone. He must have sensed other emotions as well, in the way Aire often sensed things.

Things like remorse.

He inched away. Only a little, and maybe only to get a better view. Maybe.

Apprehension stalled his tongue. “I don’t understand.”

He looked to me for explanation. He waited, even while the passion in his gaze sharpened into suspicion.

I combed through my hair, struggling to get my pulse under control, struggling to face him. I shuffled back even farther, requiring space. He didn’t object, nor try to reclaim his hold on me, like he would have a minute ago. Already, he grasped that I’d been withholding knowledge from him.

“Aspen?” he asked, a smattering of hope clinging to his voice.

“I used to be a fairytale,” I whispered.

Piece by piece, page by page, scene by scene, I told him the truth. My roots. The second acorn. Mother bringing me to life with it.

Then Mother’s commission to build a presentation compartment for an object of value. Her summons from the Royals. Then her illness.

I told him of my plan to heal Mother. Of my plan to steal what might cure her.

I recounted the day I delivered the presentation case. The night I ventured to the castle. The night I met him.

The night I stole from the Crown.

The night Nicu followed me.

I wanted to leave my friend out of it, to spare Nicu any blame in knowing about the acorn, in keeping my secret. But that would have meant withholding one more thing from Aire. I couldn’t do that.

I told him everything.

There was a moment of silence, and in that moment, the candles flickered, and the shutters quivered. And Aire was silent, an awful absence of sound. I followed the quiet, physically tethered to it. One small tug was all it took to respond, to move as he moved.

He stepped away from me. He twisted around and bent his head, thrusting his fingers into his hair. An unknown weight threatened to collapse the set of his shoulders.

When he spoke at last, his voice was a thread, thin but about to snap. “Did the Crown inform you? Do you know who found the last acorn?”

Of all the questions, I hadn’t expected that. But I should have.

In that instant, I realized that I should have. I knew the sound of him when pained, when grieving. This was the sound of Aire whenever he spoke of his past.

“My wife did,” he said. “Robin found it.”

My heart broke. I recalled his story, that she died trying to protect a treasure.

The third acorn. While picking blooms that day, she must have discerned the groove mark in its shell.

That’s why Aire spurned fairytales. Because Autumn’s tale had taken his wife from him. She’d found the last acorn, had died protecting it from bandits, so that it could be shared with the world.

Aire must have given it to the Crown, to honor his wife’s intentions, her final act. I hadn’t known this, but it didn’t matter. I’d stolen what she had tried to save.