Page 11

CHAPTER 11

Korven

“May I?” I asked, sliding to my knees before Seraphine.

Wide-eyed, she gulped and nodded.

I slid my hand behind her ankle, lifting her foot to my thigh. “Fascinating,” I murmured.

“I’d say bizarre,” she replied. “Why have my feet returned to solid flesh? And what about the rest of me?”

I slipped her shoe from her foot, letting it clatter to the ground as I lifted her ankle further so she could see it. She wiggled her toes. “Phinie darling, I’d say this means we’re on the right track.”

* * *

Walking back to the Rose and Briar, we discussed what her body returning meant.

“Do you think one of those men was the right one for me? Or that we must be closer to finding him?” She walked beside me, just her feet and ankles visible to anyone who might be looking. That was another problem to solve; how would we explain as parts of her began to solidify?

“I would guess the latter, considering your repulsion for each gentleman we came across today. Though, if there are any of the forty-two you’d like to invite back?—”

“No!” she all but shouted. “No, there wasn’t a single one of them I’d ever like to see again.”

“Done,” I confirmed. “We’ll arrive tomorrow and find new names ready to be interviewed.”

“And…” she trailed, stopping for a moment at a ripe patch of bramble berries. “How will we hide my feet? I can’t just sit there again with white slippers on the floor and nothing of the rest of me.”

“A blanket over your chair down to the floor should?—”

“Would you eat one of these for me?” she interrupted.

I stopped, backtracking to where she pointed. A rather prickly vine bent heavily with seven bramble berries—purple, plump, and ripe for any passerby to pick. “You’d like me to eat a berry?”

She shrugged shyly. “They’re my favorite. If I can’t have one, I want you to.”

I pondered for a moment what it might be like to share a handful of ripe, succulent berries with Seraphine Dupont. Banishing the thought from my mind, I plucked one of the darkest berries, popping it into my mouth and chewing slowly.

Her breath hitched in a clear sound and she watched my mouth in what I’d describe as nothing short of...hunger.

“Good?” she whispered.

I licked the side of my mouth, something stirring within me as she tracked my tongue. “Delicious,” I replied, pulling three more and tossing them into my mouth.

We continued on down the hill. She stayed close to my side, careful to not be trampled by the people of Thornhill darting through the streets.

The Rose and Briar stood tall a few streets away and she spoke up. “I’ll leave you to your night. That is, if you don’t mind escorting my feet back to ou—your room.”

“Can’t do it,” I replied, nudging her now muddy slipper towards one of the many food stalls along the market road. “I’ve met enough strangers today. Looking forward to a quiet dinner with an old childhood friend.” I smirked when she frowned. I paid for my roll of bread, nuts, dried meat, and cheese.

“Old childhood friend?” she asked on our way back into the inn.

“What else would you call what we were?” I opened the door for her, staying close to her feet as we headed up the stairs. The downstairs tavern was only half-full. I had no doubts it’d be overflowing in a few more hours.

“I’d say we were...strangers who met one day under a sycamore tree.”

“Strangers…” I wondered at her use of the word, unlocking our room and pushing the door open to allow her to step inside.

“I mean,” she continued, slipping out of her muddy shoes and stepping towards the meager fireplace. “We were barely ten years old.” She shrugged. “Strangers.”

I had fond memories of those few weeks we’d spent together as carefree children. I’d never call us strangers. “We are more strangers now than we were back then.” I set my dinner on the small table, pulling a knife from my belt and slicing the bread in half, making a sandwich of sorts with the meat and cheese.

“Would...would you mind lighting a fire? My feet are cold.”

“Done,” I said through a mouthful of food. I lit the fire and left her to warm her toes, finishing my dinner quickly before changing out of my tunic and into a softer black shirt that fit my wings better. Seraphine sat silently before the fireplace the entire fifteen minutes. Her toes wiggled before the flames and she wrapped her ghostly arms around her ethereal knees.

I kept the silence, too. We didn’t need to speak. We’d heard enough speaking for the day in meeting so many men who, honest-to-goodness, were not worth Seraphine’s time. Nor mine.

I flipped each page of the books still open across the floor and stood beside her, holding out my fingers to warm them at the fire. “Can I sit with you, Seraphine?”

She looked up from the dance of flames, her mouth opening slightly in the movement, her eyes big and bright as if just now remembering she was not alone. She closed her mouth and nodded, casting her gaze back to the hearth.

We watched the fire together for a few minutes. My eyes lulled, the familiar sounds of the tavern below, along with the crackling of wood and full belly, calling for me to get some rest.

“I wonder who we’ll meet tomorrow,” she said casually.

“You mean, you wonder if we’ll meet him tomorrow.”

“Yes, I suppose I do.”

Surprised by her miserable tone, I asked, “Don’t you want someone to love you? Will you be happy when we find him, and he kisses your lips? You’ll wake from your curse, free to love him back or not.”

“No,” she whispered.

“Why?”

“Because even if we do find this man, even if he does break this curse and saves us both from death, I am still to become a princess. I am still to live my life under my future husband’s thumb.”

“Ah,” I puffed. “You wish to be free of your title just as much as your curse.”

“Yes. I wish to return to my life in Moonstone Wood. I love my work crafting remedies for the Forestfae and experimenting with Moonstone crystals, so I wish my parents hadn’t found me.” She paused a moment, turning her head and resting her cheek on her transparent knee. “I’d rather you’d have found me than them. I’d take the curse over what my future as princess holds.”

My brows rose. “You’d rather face death than become Princess of Riche?”

She shrugged. “They sound like the same fate to me.”

Surprised and moved by her admission, my wings flared. “Tell me about your life in Moonstone Wood. What sorts of trouble have you gotten into since you left the sycamore tree?”

Her gaze shot to mine. “It wasn’t I who left!”

I huffed a laugh. “I remember it perfectly, Phinie darling. You said, ‘I must go, but I’ll be back, Prince.’”

“I did come back! It was you who were gone!”

“I waited all day and night for you to come back to me. You never did. My mother found me as dawn approached. She forced me back to Brackish Castle, but I was able to leave you a?—”

“A notched feather,” she said softly. “I know. I found it the next day when I returned and waited for you to come back.”

“I couldn’t get away after that.”

“I know. Well, I know now.”

I hefted a heavy sigh. “And that was the end of it. Two children. Two friends ,” I amended, “playing and reading under an old sycamore tree before their lives moved on without the other.”

“I wouldn’t think you’d be so sentimental.”

I leaned back on my hands casually. “I’m not. I just want to make sure we remember the events as they were.” I quirked a brow her way. “Strangers don’t share their first kiss either, Phinie. But childhood friends often do.”

“You remember that, too?”

“I could never forget that.”

The air felt too torrid, too sparked, too warm next to the fire. Seraphine Dupont was beautiful, and I remembered thinking the same thing at ten years old.

She was also a hidden princess, betrothed to a prince–though I wasn’t sure that was still happening—and cursed by me, soon to be dead if we didn’t find the one who could love her most. We had no time for these memories to bring forth whatever we’d never settled between us. I doubted she even remembered much of what it was like that summer—climbing the sycamore, telling each other jokes, reading books we had brought from our homes, and lying under the summer sun, my small wings wrapping around her once when she fell asleep.

No, I doubted she remembered those little details.

I convinced myself that I barely did.