Chapter 15
Déjà Vu
W ith the faerie cat there to help her through the ring, Tabitha had intended to make herself appear directly in the White Palace. But perhaps some part of her thought it would be more logical for her to retrace her previous route exactly, because when the mist cleared and she could make sense of her surroundings again, she stood by the witch’s cottage.
It wasn’t as inviting as it was before. The door hung open, letting out a moan when the wind moved through it, but Tabitha didn’t fear it either. Fallen leaves crackled under her feet as she moved closer. She hadn’t intended to come here, but perhaps the fates were telling her that she had some unfinished business left inside?
After taking a few more steps, she realized that it wasn’t just the wind moaning. Someone was inside. Someone in pain.
She ran and saw the witch lying in a crumpled heap by her oven.
Dead.
The moaning behind her abruptly ceased. It became a child’s voice. “I didn’t mean to kill her,” he said.
Tabitha turned and found two towheaded and dirty-faced children huddled by the kitchen door. Then everything made sense, and the sick horror of the situation made Tabitha want to crumble in on herself. But for the children, she had to be strong. “Are you Han’sel? Gret’sel?”
The boy shook his head. “That’s what the Fae Queen called us. They’re not our real names.”
Tabitha nodded, crouching so the children would see her at eye-level. “It’s all right to keep your names hidden, but you can call me Tabitha. I heard that you might be living with the Fae Queen. I asked my friend if he would rescue you.”
“The prince wanted to help us,” the boy agreed. “He stayed with us until the Queen called him away. He said he would make sure that she was too distracted to come after us.”
“Of course he did.” Tabitha had been so distracted herself that she had almost forgotten that she had asked Tom to help the other captive humans, but naturally he had come through anyway. “And then what did you do next?”
“The prince told us to keep going until we found ourselves home. He said that people only get lost in the woods if they don’t know for certain where they are going.” The boy frowned thoughtfully. “But I don’t think I was as certain as I should have been. We’ve been gone for a long time, and I was afraid that our parents might be cross with us or might not want us back at all.”
It wasn’t an unreasonable fear. The children were children still, but who knew how time passed from realm to realm? Any home they had could no longer be open to them.
The boy continued. “And when we met the witch . . . she seemed so nice. But she offered us those sweets, and I remembered what the prince said: be careful of anyone who gives you sweets without greens. And it’s true. Her love wasn’t the true kind, and she only wanted to eat us up. She reached for my sister and I . . . I shoved her back. I didn’t know she was so old she would break!”
Tabitha glanced at the wide-eyed girl behind the boy and quickly shook her head. “That isn’t your fault. You protected your sister as any valiant knight should.”
The boy cried, tracks of tears already marking his dirty face. “I don’t want to be a knight! I don’t want any more stories or games. I want to go home. I was just afraid . . . What if there is no place left for us?”
Well, this was at least a problem she could fix, drawing the sobbing boy into her arms. “There will be a place for you, though it might not be exactly what you remember. And this is what I want you to do.” She took the brass key from her pocket and handed it to him. “You must be a pair of dreamers, so I want you to take this key as a token. It saved me once from this place and then it brought me home. I believe it will do the same for you.”
She waited for the boy to take the key and give her a solemn nod.
“Picture your home,” Tabitha instructed. “Get the key to take you there. And if you find your parents there, you stay. But if you don’t, tell anyone who will listen that you have a home at Granny Tailor’s old shop in Castletown of Umbrae, and I will be there to make certain it is true.” Tabitha might not be old enough to be the natural mother of children their age, but she always had a thing for strays.
Perhaps it was time she let some more humans in amongst the cats.
“You promise?” the boy asked, trying his best to rub his tears away. “And you won’t give us sweets without greens?”
“I will do the very best that I can. I would take you with me now, but there is somewhere else I must go.”
“To save the prince?” The boy exchanged a glance with his sister, sharing something between them. “The Queen keeps him so close, I don’t think he always saw us. Not until he told us to run from her and anyone who tries to give us sweets without greens. But if he knows the Queen is like that, then he must know he shouldn’t stay with her.”
Tabitha reached for the answer Tom had given her. “He doesn’t have a choice. She has his name.”
“Couldn’t he change it?”
Change his name? “Perhaps.” It was such a simple solution, but of course she hadn’t thought of it before. “But that would take a lot to give up a name. It’s what connects him to his family and what makes him a prince.”
The boy was undeterred. “You could give him another name instead—like you said you’d take us if our home wasn’t there anymore.”
“I am going to try.” She was certain that if she tried to move herself and the faerie cat again, they would make it to the palace, perhaps in the middle of the Spring Celebration.
And if offering Tom another name to cling to was all she needed to do, and if he was willing to accept it, then perhaps she had found the way to bring him home.
She just needed him to hold on a little longer.
Leopold Tamias Lynister.
The fair-haired queen called him back to her chamber even faster than Leo had feared, already knowing what he had done. At times, it seemed as though she must have eyes everywhere.
“You let the children go?” she said without preamble, a coldness in her gaze.
Leo bowed his head and didn’t try to deny it. “I am sorry, my queen.”
“You should be. You know how easy it is for children their age to get lost in the woods and how dangerous it can be.”
Leo thought she might strike him with her magic. Perhaps he even welcomed it. He knew that he had to please the Queen, that she must love him, but a rebellious part of him tried to test her anyway. Something, anything to crack the facade of perfection around him.
She paused and gave him a more indulgent look. “But I can understand why you did it.”
“You do?” That would surprise him greatly.
The Queen laughed. “Of course I do. I’ve kept enough humans to know how jealous you can become of one another.” She brushed her fingers over his arm, and he did his best to seem like he enjoyed it. “Is that also why you kept that other girl away from me? You were worried she would steal my attention away from you? I saw that you were with her as well, allowing her to return to her own realm.”
Jealous? The Queen thought he was jealous? But if she kept other humans like pets and animals, perhaps it made sense for them to regress into such petty squabbles.
And Leo wasn’t about to contradict her now.
“I didn’t want anyone to see her,” he agreed, his hand reaching for the missing hair bead unconsciously. “You’re not angry with me?”
“I should be.” Her hand fell to rest on her flat stomach. “But Spring is on her way here, and perhaps some jealousy is good for you if it brings you your former spark. Perhaps you still have a few more stories for me, and that would please me ever so much.”
Leo nodded. “I’m trying to remember.” That much was true at least. He had sworn himself to the fae prince in order to rid his kingdom of plague, but he was trying to remember the specific deal, certain he must have left an opening for himself somewhere.
The magical bargain had to be proven invalid if he were to ever return home.
“I know you are,” she answered, almost purring with pleasure. “And I long to show you how little need you have for such petty jealousies. If only there were time.”
The Queen started kissing him after that, her hands wandering suggestively up his shirt. The familiarity of the movement filled him with an excitement that quickly devolved into self-loathing and dread. His memories were still so cloudy. Had they gone that far before? Had he enjoyed it, or at least been made to let her think that he did? And, more importantly, would he be expected to allow it to happen now, when it would only feel like he was simultaneously betraying himself, the Queen, and also someone else.
A girl who still held his missing hair bead.
But a knock sounded, and a brownie voice called for the Queen. An interruption so welcome Leo would have kissed the brownie far more eagerly than the Queen, even though he knew that Bramble disliked humans and held far more jealousy for the Queen’s attention than Leo ever had. “The feast has been prepared, my queen.”
“Yes, Bramble. We are coming.” The Queen stepped back from Leo with a sigh. “We will announce Spring’s coming to the court and then perhaps we shall have time for a celebration of our own.”
The suggestive look in her eyes settled it. Leo had been determined to make himself a distraction so the children might escape, and the Queen would lose interest in discovering anything more about his dream girl, but he couldn’t be made to do anything like this again.
He would find a way to end things tonight, even when it became difficult for him to remember anything but the missing hair bead.
Even if he had to forget his own name.
Tabitha lasted for as long as it took for the children to disappear using the key. Then everything seemed to hit her all at once. Just like them, she was weak. A child. Hearing her mother yell or being attacked by a stranger. Unable to defend herself. She wanted to pull at her hair, pick at her skin, take control of the unnatural fear coursing through her. She hadn’t hurt herself like that in years, but she didn’t have Tom, and at least one of the cats standing in the space he usually occupied seemed to be judging her fiercely.
“You don’t have to tell me,” Tabitha said, grappling for another way to corral the clawed monster inside her soul. “I know that was my fault. I should have done more to stop that witch before she had the chance to meet those children.” There. She had named her shame and fear, and that alone seemed to help. At least the emotions inside her had been acknowledged and given more defined boundaries instead of staying a shadowed beast. “I suppose I didn’t see her death as right, since I was the only one threatened.”
The faerie cat stared ahead at the trees while she answered. “Were the children wrong to defend themselves as they were the only ones threatened?”
“No,” Tabitha said with a sigh. “They weren’t wrong.” Of course they weren’t wrong, but Tabitha would have given anything to erase the haunted looks from their faces.
The matron’s tales never seemed so horrible until you had to see them in the flesh.
“And if she never met those children?” the faerie cat pressed. “Why shouldn’t your wishes serve you alone?”
Because that would be a selfish thing. Because she wasn’t worthy. The thoughts came instantly, though Tabitha knew better than to say them out loud.
“I suppose I had so many people tell me I wasn’t worth as much as others, that I couldn’t help but believe that it was true. And perhaps I saw some nobility to it—thinking I could prove my worth or serve others more fully if I served myself less. But it seems there are some wishes I can’t grant without also granting a few for myself.”
She couldn’t protect others from pain without first removing that same pain from herself. She could wish for herself to be stronger, but not without believing she had the right to be strong.
Just like she couldn’t truly love Tom without trusting and respecting his love for her.
The faerie cat finally nodded and looked back up at her. “Do you know what wishes you want granted?”
Tabitha couldn’t see too far in the future, but she knew what she wanted right now. And she thought she could finally give voice to the rest of the tangled emotions inside her soul. “I want to help Tom, and then I want to go home. I don’t want to be a princess, but I want to believe that I no longer belong on the same path as my mother, and it isn’t wrong for me to want something different than the life she offered me, even if I sometimes miss her something fierce.”