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I did not know what to say.

“You must,” said the prince more to himself than to me. “Or you would not want her to love you.”

“Do not presume to know how I feel, mortal,” I hissed. “Ineedher to love me.”

I needed her to speak my true name.

“At some point, if you do not love her, someone else will.”

“What do you know about love?” I countered. “All your advice has only made my creature hate me more.”

“What worked for my princess may not work for yours. Have you tried asking her what she wants?”

She wanted freedom, and that was beyond what I could give even if I wanted to. Magic was binding. She was the only person who could free herself now, and her choices were to speak my name or live out the next six years while I descended into madness and eventually ceased to exist.

“What if she does not tell me?”

“Then I suppose you will take something else from me.”

Chapter Fifteen

A Riddle

The prince of thorns is an idiot, I thought as I sprawled on my bed, staring up at the bland ceiling.

I wanted to hate him.

I was definitely angry with him, especially at how we had parted this morning. After everything we had shared, he’d thought to diminish it by offering a letter from his true name.

AnI.

I already had aU.

I should feel excited. It was two steps closer to guessing Casamir’s true name, and all I needed were five more letters, but I could only think of last night. It wasn’t even the most passionate parts that clung to my memories now. It was the moments when the cruel elven prince had gently kissed my forehead and asked if I was okay, when he had offered his shirt and then the apple, when he had expressed concern over my wellness and feared he had hurt me.

He had made mefeelthings…not just desire butdesired.

He had done all that and then ruined it with a stupid letter.

Why is he an idiot?I fumed.

I tried not to think about him but failed.

I had already softened toward him, had already felt the long-forgotten rise of hope inside me, and now that it was awakened, I could do nothing but wallow in misery and try to convince myself that nothing that had happened last night was real.

Except that every time I looked in the mirror, I saw reminders of his touch—bruises and swollen skin—and I could recall every action that had led to each blemish.

Those thoughts drove me from my room and motivated me to search the castle for any clues that might lead to Casamir’s true name—if they existed. I only hoped I could avoid the elven prince as I roamed his corridors, but as I did, I noted how this place was far from personal.

If I had wandered here on my own, I would have assumed the castle was abandoned with its moss-covered walls and flowering vines crawling from floor to ceiling. There were no portraits, not even of himself, and instead of soft carpet, there was an array of ground cover—vines, shrubs, mosses—at my feet. One fed into the other as I turned down each winding hall, pausing to look out windows that were either draped with vines or obscured with thick branches from trees that had grown into the facade of the castle.

There was no doubt about its beauty, though I wondered if all elves lived this way.

I came to the end of a hall where a set of stairs rose into darkness. I looked about before I took them, slow and steady as they wound upward and opened into a large bedchamber. While the colors in the room were dark and grounding, there were four floor-to-ceiling windows that made the room bright and full of light.

A large four-poster bed sat against one wall, each post richly carved, and the curtains that hung to veil the bed were open and dark green in color. A broken mirror hung between two of the large windows.

I realized I had been here before, that this was where Casamir’s five brothers had sent me at the start of my punishment. I remembered the soft carpet at my feet and the hearth and fireplace nearby.