I shivered. He was a beast, true, but I’d always known that about him on a deep and visceral level. Even without knowing him, I’d recognized that he was no hero, and yet it’d been one of the traits of his that had drawn me in like a moth to a flame. I’d liked his fire and his darkness. I’d craved more of those things. Even in the short time I’d known him, that was the side of him that had thrilled me most.
“It wasn’t I who made the charm, girl.” Danika jerked her chin toward my ring.
I clenched my hand, dropping it to my lap. “Wha—what?”
“It was him. Took him years of trial and error and deal after deal to figure out the loophole. Don’t you see, lass? He fought like the devil for you. Day in and day out. Anything. Everything. All of it was for you, Shayera. He was the one who dreamed up that ball when you turned nineteen. He has been your guardian angel all your life.”
“What!” Papa sat forward. “Th-th-the charm was—”
“Him,” Danika snapped, her eyes burning like fiery darts. “A man you deemed unworthy for your daughter. One of the best men I’ve ever known. And your selfishness, your cruelty at keeping them apart... Look at the mess you’ve made.”
Mama gasped. “Where is he, Dani? Where is he?”
“I don’t bloody know,” the fae cried, wringing the wand between her hands. “He left the night of the ball. No trace of him remains at his castle. For all I know, he could be dead—”
“No!” I cried, jumping to my feet so swiftly that it caused the chair I’d been sitting on to topple over with a loud clatter to the kitchen floor. “He’s not dead. He’s not dead. Help me to find him, Danika. Please.”
Her lashes closed and she swallowed hard. “I can’t, child.”
I started to tremble as the enormity of what’d been done to him and to me hit me square in the face like a tsunami. I didn’t understand any of it, but I knew I had to find him. I had to know the rest of our story. I had to know what was true and what wasn’t. I had to know him.
THE NEXT MORNING, I stood upon the threshold of my family home, staring at the faces of the people I loved most in this world and the house that’d been my shelter from the storm for so long. I tried to ignore the aching in my breast for all that I was walking away from. I had good memories here. Great ones, even. Birthdays. Family nights. Long talks into the wee hours about boys, and love, and dreaming of my own happily-ever-after. Yes, there’d been secrets kept from me. But I could see the love and attention and devotion my parents and family had shown me all my life.
Briley’s cries caught my attention, and he hugged my waist before burying his face in my chest and begged that I remember him. “Don’t forget me, Shay. Don’t you ever forget me.”
My heart squeezed and I doubted myself all over again. Am I making the right choice? Is this the right decision? Going seemed vital, but leaving hurt so badly. I kissed the top of his dear head and inhaled his unique scent of shampoo and peanut butter, two scents that would forever remind me of him and of home. “I’ll never, ever forget you, Briley. How could I? You’re my best friend.”
He sniffed and looked up at me through tear-stained, bloodshot eyes. “Forever?” he asked in that dear, sweet voice of his that would remain forever young.
I gently brushed the blond mop of hair out of his eyes one last time. “For always,” I whispered, giving him a soft smile.
I would never have left him for anything less than the Dark One. But what had been done to Rumpelstiltskin and me meant that we had to see things through to the end. I didn’t have much faith that he’d forgive me for what I’d done to him two years before. All I knew was that our story couldn’t end that way.
I had to try.
I knuckled Briley’s tears up and kissed his soft cheek one last time. In this land of magic, Briley would forever remain young, in both body and mind. Like one of Peter Pan’s Lost Boys, my dear, sweet Briley would age no more. Leaning forward with my hands on his shoulders, I whispered, “I promise I will come back for you. Okay?”
He nodded. “Okay, Shay Shay.”
I smiled, though my heart hurt so badly. Leaving the people who I knew loved me dearly for some man who wanted nothing to do with me in this life was a cruel kind of torture for me.
I went back and forth between knowing I was making the right decision to questioning my motives and desires all over again. I was obsessed with making things right, but I couldn’t understand whether it was simply the magic making me feel that way, or if these all-consuming emotions were a remnant of things I’d once felt so deeply that they were everything.
With one final pat, I gently extricated myself from Briley’s arms and looked at my Papa. He was so tall and handsome, and his dark-blue eyes shimmered with unshed tears. He remained stoic in the face of my decision.
“You will always be the measuring stick, Papa. Always. I love you.”
He sighed and nodded before quickly pulling me into his chest and giving me a tight squeeze. “Je t’aime, ma petite papillon.” I love you, my little butterfly.
I sniffed and nodded. “Et moi, tu.” And I, you.
“I hope that someday you can forgive us both,” he whispered, holding onto my fingers and giving them a soft and tender squeeze.
“I already have.” I cupped his bristled cheek and he kissed my palm.
“Shayera,” Mama said softly a second later.
Mama had stopped crying, but I’d heard her weeping all night. I studied her face, which was as youthful as my own. In a world where no one aged beyond their prime, the only true way to measure years was in the eyes, in the look that could only be achieved through decades worth of pain, trials, and heartache.
Mama closed her eyes and I hugged her. She was so warm, and she smelled of the rose garden she tended every evening. “I’m sorry, Mama, but I have to go.”
A tiny moan escaped her before she nodded and said, “I know, my love. I know.” Then, framing my face in her cold hands, she looked at me, and I saw the pain glittering in the depths of her brown eyes. “Please understand, everything I did, I did for you.”
I didn’t entirely forgive her for the willful withholding of information, but I knew that someday I would. Whether Rumpelstiltskin agreed to accept me or not, someday I would be able to completely let the pain go. I had to believe it. “Can I just ask one thing?”
She paused for several heartbeats before finally nodding.
“Why didn’t you want us to be together? Why did you fight so hard to keep us apart? Wasn’t he good to me then? Didn’t he love me as Papa loves you?”
She blinked, and finally I saw a shimmer roll through her gaze, but still no tears fell. “Every day, Shayera, I remember something else from the other life. But I don’t remember everything. There is no justification for what we did, other than we loved you. And his reputation precedes him. He has done things, terrible things. Now, whether that justifies the end results isn’t up for debate. All I know is, as your mother, I only ever wanted the best for you.”
“And he’s not it?”
She wet her lips. “I was scared of him then too, Shay. Scared that he would hurt you. Scared that someday he may not want you anymore. That he would change, leaving you alone to mourn what you no longer had. And then... I received a book. She sighed.
I frowned. “A book?”
“Yes. From him. He kept you in his castle for three months. Three months where I heard nothing from you. I knew nothing about you. You were going through a test, and I feared I’d lost you then. He’d taken you away from us because of sins your father had committed in the other time. He stole you from us. The memories of that truth haunt me even here, in this new world, alongside the pain I felt at your leaving, the fear that he’d never return you back to us. You have to understand why I did this, because that was all I remembered. That hurt. But then, last night... I remembered something else.”
I frowned. “What? What did you remember?”
The picture I got of Rumpelstiltskin from my mother w
asn’t the greatest. I could see why she’d feared our reunion, and why she’d fought so hard to stave it off. But she didn’t know what I knew. No matter what, no matter how, I had to go back to him. I simply couldn’t remain here any longer.
“A book. I remembered a book, Shay. And in it was a detailed accounting of your entire day, as seen through his eyes. And I saw how day by day how you tamed the great Dark One. I remember that when I finished reading it I knew he loved you.”
“And now? You don’t think it could be the same?”
She shook her head. “I just don’t know. He’s vanished to Gods only know where.” She shrugged. “Maybe he doesn’t want history to repeat itself anymore. Maybe he doesn’t want—”
I grabbed her hands and squeezed, silencing her next words because I couldn’t bear to hear her say he didn’t want me. I didn’t know why it mattered so much, but it did. “I have to know, Mama. It’s the only way for me to move on.”
“I know,” she whispered. “Just please, don’t f-f-forget—”
“I never, ever will.” Pulling her into me, I kissed both her cheeks, and she kissed mine back.
“If...if something happens, Shayera. You know you always have a home here with us. Right?”
With my heart hurting in my chest, I nodded and whispered, “I know.”
I released Mama, gave Uncle Kelly a quick hug, and then turned away before I could lose my nerve. I had to leave before could I let the doubts creep in. It would be too easy for me to convince myself that I was being stupid, and that I had no business going and should stay.
“Danika,” I whispered to the breeze. I felt the air squeeze with the fairy’s magic. Then there was a loud pop, and there she was, in all of her fae splendor. Iridescent dragonfly wings spread out behind her, glimmering with morning dew. Spools of pearlescent spider-silk webbing threaded throughout her dark locks. Her wide eyes looked lovingly down at me. “You ready?” she asked in her bell-like tone.
I nodded and ignored the tiny hitch in breath I heard behind me. I walked down the steps. “Yes. Where is he?”
Danika pointed to the locket I never took off. Threads of blue still glimmered like spun sapphire ash in the sunlight. “That blue is his love for you. It still burns, Shayera. Whether he wishes to accept it or not, soul magic—the twin flame—can never be so easily extinguished, though you—and he—can walk away from it. Be aware that he may not want you there anymore, but if you close your eyes, and whisper the words ‘to you,’ your soul will guide you right to where he is. The rest, my dear, will be entirely up to you.”
I swallowed and clutched at my always-warm pendant. What a fool I’d once been to believe soulmates didn’t exist. I’d been little more than a child, and I’d deserved his anger and rancor for what I’d done the night of the ball. I was just hoping that he would see I’d grown since then, that I was different, and that maybe he could show me who we’d once been and who we could be again.
“If he does reject you, or you him,” she said softly, causing my gaze to cut to hers, “just call my name and I will open a portal to you. Good luck, my little heart.”
I squeezed her cold hands one final time, closed my eyes, and saw him in my mind, just as he’d been that night: haughty, terrible, and magnificent.
“To you,” I whispered, and immediately I felt the world move.
Chapter 11
Shayera
I didn’t know what to expect when I arrived to wherever it was that I was going, so when I stepped out of the tunnel of starlight and into a world of nothing but darkness and colorful balls of phosphorescent gases, I suffered a moment’s terrible panic. Immediately, I held my breath.
Can I breathe here? Will I die here? Am I all alone?
Those three thoughts hammered away at my skull and caused me to twist and grab hold of the starlight tunnel before it vanished entirely. I clung for all I was worth. Fear kept my arms rigid and my grip white-knuckled. My lungs were starting to burn with the need for a proper breath.
Have I misjudged somehow? Is Rumpelstiltskin nowhere anymore? Is that was this is, the edge of nothing? Of never? Am I even still in Kingdom?
My heart banged like a drum in my chest.
Then, a sound full of terrible pain and agony echoed through the vast nothingness. The shriek caused the emptiness to seem loud and oppressive in contrast. The cry had been so full of heartache and torment that in my shock at hearing it I gasped, taking that first sweet swallow of air. My knees trembled with powerful relief.
It was cool and icy, but not unpleasantly so. I could sense the power of the portal beginning to diminish in my hand. I should jump back in. There is nothing for me here. And I definitely don’t want to be alone with whatever made that sound.
The cry rang out again, just as powerful as before, raising all the fine hairs on the nape of my neck and my forearms. As though my fingers had a mind of their own, they released the tunnel, and instantly it sealed shut behind me, separating me from any notion I might have of tucking tail and returning to home.
I clutched at my shirt as the first fat tear fell down my face, swiftly followed by another, and then another.
I was all alone.
“Oh my gods,” I breathed. I began to panic as I stared in vain through the thick curtain of black and swirling colors looking for any sign of life other than the scream of the damned.
“Dear gods, what did I do? What did I do?” I asked after several more tense seconds of nothingness. For all I knew, I was alone with a monster who’d just smelled me, and those screams were a call to feast or a declaration of war.
I wondered yet again whether I was still on Kingdom and if not, whether my siren powers could even work here. Is this a land of magic? Or has my own defense been nulled?
I was going to be sick. I should just call for Danika. I should turn back. But what if he’s here?
“Who are you?”
I squealed at the sound of a little boy’s voice and twirled on my heel, tossing out my arms as I tried to karate chop it. But I saw nothing. I frowned.
“Down here,” he said in a bright giggle.
I looked down. And at my knees was a dark shadow with bright-red-glowing eyes. I screamed and tossed my hands over my mouth.
The boy’s laughter only squealed higher.
“You-you-you’re a... a demon!” I said, pointing at the face that in the darkness appeared evil and monstrous, with a bulbous nose and a thick brow bone.
But he did not cease his laughter. Instead, the shadow covered his stomach and bent over. He laughed even harder. The sound was youthful and full of warmth, so at odds with his grotesque form. “I’m not a demon,” he whispered a few moments later, after he’d gotten the majority of his giggles out. “I’m Demone.”
And then he snapped his fingers, and where just moments ago there’d been no light at all, there was now a ring of it surrounding him. He squinted as he looked up at me, and I saw that he didn’t resemble the great evil I’d manufactured in my mind, but rather an ebony-skinned boy of six to seven years, with smooth and plump cheeks, dancing-laughing eyes that glowed the red of fiery cinders, and a tiny little pointed tail that waved back and forth behind him.
My heart rattled in its cage, because he suddenly reminded me sharply of Rumpelstiltskin after he’d transformed for me. Is this boy his child?
The boy grinned. “You’re a human. A pretty one at that.”
His words were nice, but my mind was definitely taking me toward ominous places. I wrapped my arms tightly around myself. “I won’t let you eat me.”
My words, not meant at all to be funny, caused him to break out in another fit of hysterics. He cried golden tears that sizzled when they plopped off his chin and struck the dirt path beneath his cloven hooves.
“You are a very weird human girl,” he said with a soft shake of his head before holding out his hand to me.
He had only four fingers, not five, and at their tips were nothing but long black claws. His hands looked more reptili
an than human, sort of like a chameleon’s would, with fat fingers that appeared to have scales running down them.
It definitely wouldn’t take much for hands like those to tear my delicate human skin to shreds should he wish it.
“I won’t eat you, girl,” he said it softly, cajolingly.
I shivered and frowned. “Who said I was thinking you would?” But I was.
The laughter in his eyes dimmed and he cocked his head. “Papa hides me from humans because he says I frighten them. But I think you are pretty. Do you not think I am pretty, girl?”
It was the sadness and shiver of raw honesty in his voice that had me ignoring my survival instincts and sliding my hand into his. I’d expected his skin to feel slimy and cool to the touch, but his was as warm as any human’s, and a small spark of power hummed along my palm at our point of contact.
“Ohh,” he breathed and looked up at me. “You are from Kingdom.”
I frowned. “How did you know that?”
“Only Kingdomers make magic. But your magic is soft. You haven’t much.”
Offended because I certainly did have much, I very nearly told him so until I recalled what touching me had done to Rumpelstiltskin. I’d promised myself I would never again abuse my powers with others. “No, you’re right,” I whispered, “I haven’t much.”
“That’s okay, I still like you. Come with me, human.”
“Shayera,” I said it without thinking.
The boy, who’d already begun to turn, went perfectly still and sucked in a sharp breath. “The Shayera? As in Caron?”
Not really sure I liked where this was going, I found myself on high alert again, just when I’d begun to relax. I went to pull away, but he clamped down on my fingers with a grip far stronger than I’d imagined for one so young.
“Let me go, boy.”
He shook his head. “Don’t leave, mistress. It is only shock that caused me to react so. You see, master has spoken of you for so long that we’d all begun to think you were nothing more than legend and myth.”