Page 46 of The Frog Prince (The GriMM Tales #6)

And then it was just the two of them and the fast-approaching footsteps of the person Alwin had missed the most.

“Brother,” he whispered as he watched Lorenz shake Cin off before he could even try to explain what he was about to see.

Their eyes locked, Alwin’s human face the only thing Lorenz was focusing on.

He ran the rest of the way to the carriage. Dust rose from the ground behind him, and Cinder’s birds rushed away before him. Time slowed down. Alwin’s existence distilled into Otto’s hand on his back and Lorenz’s arms thrown around his neck through the window.

“Alwin!” Lorenz called into his shoulder.

Alwin wanted to return the hug so badly that he thought he’d die from the ache of it. His fingers balled into fists inside his pockets and he clenched his eyes shut, turning his nose into Lorenz’s neck and inhaling him as if it would be the last breath he’d ever take.

Something tugged at his wrist, and he opened his eyes to see Otto smiling at him, pulling his hands out of his pockets and sliding gloves onto them so gently and slowly that only Alwin noticed.

With his hands hidden from sight, Alwin could reach awkwardly through the window to hold Lorenz. The sob that ripped from his lips broke Alwin’s heart, and he felt his own tears slide down his cheeks as he embraced his brother. His home. His family.

“Alwin,” Lorenz said into his shoulder before pushing himself upright and grabbing Alwin’s upper arms. He held him away, grip firm and grounding on him as he stared at him. “You’re alive. I knew you were alive. I kept telling everyone you were out here.”

“All is well, Brother,” Alwin said, smiling at Lorenz and looking into those mirror eyes as if it was the first time he’d ever seen them.

In a way, it was.

The first time as the new Alwin. This in-between being he had chosen to become to help those he loved most.

“I have missed you,” he said.

Lorenz’s arms trembled under Alwin’s touch. “I have missed you too. We all have, Brother.”

A shadow of a doubt filled Alwin’s mind, and it must have shown on his face, because Lorenz, despite not having seen him in nearly a decade, recognized it immediately. “Alwin?”

Alwin looked at him, afraid and weary and ready to just flee into the forest again. Where he was known. Where he was accepted.

“You believe me, don’t you?” Lorenz asked. Alwin nodded, knowing it was feeble and unconvincing. “Alwin?”

“I… There is much to tell. Much you do not know—” The words got stuck in his throat and a croak left his lips, making him gasp and pull back on instinct, covering it.

“Easy, my prince,” Otto said softly, putting one hand on Alwin’s back, stroking between his shoulder blades.

It drew Lorenz’s attention. “And you are?”

Otto smiled that friendly, welcoming smile of his. “Otto. I am Alwin’s…um…”

“Mine,” Alwin said through the haze of his panic. “He is mine.”

Lorenz continued to frown. “Was he the one hiding you from us this whole time?”

“He’s the one who brought me back.”

Lorenz locked eyes with him seriously. “Where were you, Alwin?”

“I’ve been—”

“Maybe the middle of the road isn’t the best place to discuss this?” Otto suggested gently, glancing around them.

Lorenz paused, taking his own cursory look around. “You make a good point. We had best hurry back to the palace then; we will be able to talk privately there.”

“No,” Alwin said.

Lorenz flinched, visibly hurt. “What do you mean? You have no intention of coming back?”

“I have every intention…only…there might not be a place for me there anymore.”

“What are you talking about? Of course there is a place for you there! It’s your home, Alwin. We’re your family .”

“But I am not the same Alwin anymore,” he said quietly before looking up. “I am not the son, the brother, or the prince you used to know.”

“None of us remained unchanged.” Lorenz shook his head. “All we ever wanted was to find you alive. To have you back. Nothing you say can change that.”

“You should not promise that before you’ve heard my story. It may not be something you can hold to.”

“I will promise what I damn well want. And what I want is for my brother to return home,” Lorenz declared. “Whatever you feel I need to know, tell me now, because I am not leaving here without you.”

The tone of his voice was wholly surprising, as was the fierce tilt to his chin. Alwin found he was staring at a completely new person, not the little boy who would chase after him and hide behind him from scoldings.

He’d entirely grown up.

“Sit inside with us,” Otto said.

Lorenz turned to look at him before nodding and squeezing into their carriage.

Gisela’s laughter carried from outside, and Alwin caught sight of her talking to one of the Hallin guards. Alwin thought he looked familiar. He couldn’t recall the guard’s name, but he knew Gisela was safe.

“Are you certain you don’t want time alone, my prince?” Otto asked again.

Alwin slid his gloved hand into his, squeezing in answer. Otto nodded, settling on the bench so his entire side was pressed to Alwin’s, providing comfort and strength.

This was it. There was no turning back now. All he had dreamed of and all he had dreaded had come to find him, knocking on his door. All he had to do was answer.

“Alwin?” his brother said.

“Do you remember my last diplomatic trip?” Alwin said.

“Vaguely. I wasn’t very interested in all of that…back then.”

“Or now.” Alwin smiled. News had traveled often through his frogs.

Lorenz seemed startled but nodded. “Or now. But we investigated extensively after your supposed death. I had all the secondhand accounts, but nothing that explained further than what the queen claimed. According to her, you left her palace early and that was the last anyone saw of your party. She sent her condolences.”

Alwin’s hands tightened into fists. “I’m sure she did. Was it eloquent? I always found her to be dreadfully lacking in prose.”

Lorenz was smart enough to read between the lines, leaning forward. “Tell me what she did.”

Alwin paused and Lorenz let him. He waited, patient and kind and trusting.

Years away from him had made Alwin weak to his presence.

Otto’s hand on his back was steady but ultimately not enough to hold him together.

The dam broke. The walls crumbled to nothing.

All of Alwin’s pain and suffering and solitude came pouring out.

He talked.

He told his brother everything.

How she had propositioned him. How he had turned her down.

The fake letter from Lorenz that had sent him flying home.

How swift and agonizing her revenge was.

He cried out his guilt at their people falling because of him.

His regret for not giving her what she wanted and causing them so much pain.

His fear that he’d never see their family again and his hope that he still somehow would.

“She made me rot in the forest alone for years, waiting for someone to finally see me. Made it so I could listen to people’s woes and barter for solutions without ever getting anything in return.

She made sure people were repulsed by me.

She made sure they feared me. She made it so they were reluctant to look at me.

And yet my only salvation was for someone to love me. ”

Lorenz’s grief carved the lines on his face deeper as matching tears ran down his cheeks. His lips moved silently as he tried to piece the story together. Finally, a realization hit and he looked up.

“Wait…” Lorenz said. “The…the Frog Prince. It’s you? He’s you?”

Alwin breathed in and reached for his glove, tugging it off to reveal four spindly green fingers with rounded tips.

“The monster is me,” he whispered, looking down at his hand. The hand that trembled and twitched until human fingers wrapped around it.

Otto’s, he thought at first, but then he realized the hand was smaller. Softer.

“That monster gave my love the life he had always wanted,” Lorenz said. “That monster gave me a chance to have someone who makes my life whole and worth living. The monster doesn’t exist. There’s just Alwin. My best friend. My brother.”

Alwin looked up, tears obscuring his vision until Lorenz was nothing but a vague shape in front of him. His lips trembled and a desperate sob ripped from them.

“Mother and Father…” he managed to get out.

“Cannot wait to see you.” Lorenz took his other hand as well, showing no fear or disgust. “Nothing, Alwin. Nothing could change the way we feel about you. Face it, frog boy, you’re stuck with us.”

The laugh that tumbled from between his lips was shaky and watery and slightly manic, but real nonetheless, and Alwin surged forward, enveloping Lorenz in his arms.

“Welcome back, Brother,” Lorenz whispered and Alwin hid his face against his brother’s shoulder.

They had mere hours to reach the palace. After so many long winters, only hours stood between him and finally being back where he belonged.

W ith Gisela, Farwin, and Jurgen waiting at a local inn, Lorenz and Cinder led them down the now-unfamiliar halls of the palace, their shadowed figures hardly making a sound.

Alwin didn’t want to wait a day to regroup or rest, even though the temptation to hide was strong.

Seeing the imposing face of the palace growing larger in the distance as they passed houses of Hallin architecture had been surreal.

Being inside again was even stranger. Nothing had changed from what Alwin remembered, yet everything had at the same time.

So desperate was Alwin to return that he hadn’t realized these halls would no longer feel like home.

They weren’t the warm, comforting arms that had cradled him in his memories.

He didn’t know how long it would take before they felt that way again.

Perhaps they never would. And as his steps echoed around stone walls, he realized he was strangely at peace with that.