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L eopold took the seat opposite her, leaning back into the soft cushions and stretching out his long legs before him, crossing them at the ankles and settling in. He expelled a tight breath ready to dive into a long tale. She waited, her hands folded in her lap while he gathered his thoughts. He pressed a hand against his forehead, rubbing there, trying to find the words and the way to begin.

“For years, I’ve been searching for a way to break the curse. I never thought I would have to depend upon someone else to help me do it.”

His voice was a bit muffled behind his hand. Then he dropped it and looked at her, giving her a faint smile.

“The moment the curse was enacted,” he continued, “was the same moment the book disappeared from me. As though it had fallen through a portal, forever out of reach. I have spent my lifetime searching for a way to break this infernal torment. Searching for that book with the thorny language. That day in town, when you tried to sell it, I caught a glimpse of the cover. I could not believe it had finally returned to this world carried by a scribe who was able to read strange languages. I thought my luck had finally turned. I would finally see the end of this vexatious blight. I would finally reclaim my life.”

He shoved up the sleeve to his elbow and then extended his arm, tilting it so the light flickered over his forearm. A blood-red brand was there, deeply embedded. It was a crimson rose wrapped in a snarling, twisting vine of brambles and thorns. It was the same image on the cover of her book. The same image in the stained-glass window in the library.

“That’s why you stopped me that day,” she said, staring at the brand.

She resisted the urge to reach out and run her fingertips over it, to touch it. Was it painful?

“It is.” He pushed down his sleeve and placed his arm against his lap, holding it there as if to hide it from her.

But she’d seen it. And it would forever be burned into her mind.

“You know, I was not always a recluse hiding in this enchanted castle, nor was this castle always enchanted.” He gave her a faint smile, as he remembered, and then it faded. He cast his eyes downward, as though looking through the material of his shirt to where the brand resided on his forearm. “I was a prince once.”

Her lips parted in a silent gasp, but she remained silent. When he told her he was no lord, he meant it. When she called him your grace as she tried to guess his title, he rebuffed her. Now she understood why.

“I was heir to the throne of a powerful kingdom. One that ruled this small province for centuries. It’s extinct now. It’s nothing more than a myth whispered by those who live in this realm, if they even remember.” Finally, his gaze lifted to hers and she saw the depth of his soul in that one glance. So many emotions flickered there—pain, anguish, regret.

“I was determined to be a fair and just ruler, like my father. But then one day war came to our borders. A war I was unable to stop. An ancient enemy returned, one that should have been magically bound for eternity. I sent a small company of warriors and soldiers to the borderlands to fight. They never returned.”

He turned his face toward the fire, the light flickered across his hardened features. The story he was telling affected him deeply.

“I assumed they were all dead, and I had sent them to their doom. Days later, a lone survivor returned, bloodied and beaten, his body broken. Nothing more than a ghost of the man he once was. He rambled about monsters made of shadow and smoke. I thought he was mad. No one had seen such things in our world. He was dying, you see. Whatever shadow thing he fought infected him, turning him into one of them.”

He paused here, his gaze returning to her. At the mention of the shadow thing, her heart lurched, and a sick feeling crept into the pit of her stomach. She believed without a doubt she had seen this shadow thing along the docks in the port. Her father’s crew, too, had seen it. Somehow, it had crept back into their world. She thought of the book and the whispers from the pages. Whispers that had not returned since she started translating it once again.

“He was someone you knew,” she guessed.

He nodded. “My brother.”

Albert. The name written in the margin of the book leapt to her mind. Though she didn’t ask him, she was certain this was the name of his brother.

“I refused to let this dark magical being take him, control him, and turn him against me. He was all the family I had left. My mother died when we were children. My father had recently passed. In desperation, I sought something—anything—to keep him from dying and turning. The old kings forbade dark magic, but I searched for it, anyway. I sent emissaries to seek out libraries and bring back whatever volumes they found, buying them from their owners. Stealing them when they had to.”

He paused here, as though remembering that time. His hand brushed across his chin, his palm whispering against his skin.

“At last, I found the spell sealed in an ancient book written in the cursed language. I broke the seal. I said the words in the cryptic, thorny language. It was as though the shadow beast sprang from the pages. I begged it to save his life. To make him whole again. But that came at a steep price. A price I was willing to pay. I offered myself in his place, if only to save my brother.”

He pressed his lips together.

“And, so, it cursed you,” she finished.

Nodding, he said, “Cursed me to live between worlds. And marked me.”

Gooseflesh erupted along her arms and snaked down her spine, leaving a cold tingling sensation. He knew, all this time, the book was the key to breaking his curse. He knew the moment she showed it to him standing on the street outside the bookshop. That was why he insisted he hire her. Why he continued to insist she translate the book despite the strange occurrences in his castle.

He gave a humorless laugh. “When my brother found out what I’d done, he didn’t even thank me. He didn’t understand the price I paid for his life. Instead, he tried to kill me and steal the crown.”

Again, he stopped here and rose to his feet. He moved toward the hearth, leaning on the marble mantle with his back to her, as if he didn’t want to tell her the rest of the story. The muscles in his back were pulled taut. Tension filled the space between them.

“What happened then?” she asked, her voice timid and soft in the small room.

His back stiffened, the muscles flexing under the soft material of his shirt. “I killed him.”

A sorrow filled her, as she stared at him, and suddenly, unbidden, hot tears pounded against the backs of her eyes. He sounded so desolate, so guilt-ridden, when he said it, it was all she could do to remain seated. She clenched her hands into tight fists, wanting to go to him, to offer him comfort but uncertain what comfort to give him.

Finally, he turned to face her. For the first time, in his face, she saw a hint of something ancient. It struck her then, then. In all her readings, she never recalled an ancient kingdom that once ruled the realm of Cassoné.

She had one more question to ask him. “If I may ask, what was your brother’s name?”

“His name was Albert.”