Page 26 of Rumpelstilzchen

He pounded his leather-clad fist into the stone floor, and his shadows swirled the leaf’s ashes upward. Rumple tracked their course and watched in astonishment as the dull and lifeless dust transformed into a twinkling and vibrant glitter that bathed everything it touched in a layer of golden wonder.

Without a shred of doubt, Rumple knew this was Boy’s doing—the glistening shine was the exact colour of his honeyed hair. He had breathed life into the Midnight Tree in much the same way that he had revived Rumple. Galvanised, he stood. He wanted to immerse himself in his Heart’s magick. He tilted his face upward, relishing the delicate tickle of the sparks upon his skin.

Slowly, he turned in a circle, and his foot stubbed against a small book that was partially hidden under the cabinet. Curious as to how this volume had escaped his earlier attention, he stooped to pull it free. The front was so faded that Rumple needed the indentations in the leather cover to read the title: Handbuch der Geisterjagd.

The Ghost Hunting Handbook wasn’t one he remembered acquiring, but when he swept the dust from the aged cover, the memory of the night he dispatched the thieves in the forest rang clearly in his mind. Only hours later, he’d found his Heart and had entirely forgotten about the books he had purloined.

Rumple opened the first page to find the handwriting so old that it was now a rusted brown colour—barely did it contrast against the yellowed vellum within. But if anyone had a vested interest in documenting all there was to know about his kind, it was a ghost hunter.

Hunters were travellers who spent their lives wandering the forest. Whenever they stumbled across a settlement, they made it their business to ingratiate themselves and learn whatever they could about any problems the locals might have had. No issue was ever too strange, and for the right amount of coin—or for decent board and lodgings—they would see to it the problem never bothered the residents again. Every so often, hunters met at taverns or safe houses along the way and would trade knowledge and stories. Quite probably the very same stories that Boy’s older brother had overheard and repeated to his siblings.

Rumple flicked through the pages; the first was an unnecessary dedication, the second a list of definitions, the third a sketch of a simple dwelling in the woods, and the fourth a rambling biography about the hunter who wrote the book. Rumple turned to the fifth page and found what he was hoping for—an elementary introduction to geists for humans.

However, Rumple’s mouth soon drew into a flat line. Whoever this particular hunter was, he had learned of the shadow realm. This was the problem with younger geists, especially those who had only just gained enough power to interact with the corporeal realm—they were arrogant. At some point, one of them must have been captured and interrogated for this information. At least, Rumple hoped that was the case, or else he’d hunt this geist himself.

The hunter who wrote this handbook also knew that the shadow realm could accept human items. Rumple clicked his tongue in annoyance. Thankfully, he didn’t mention that shadow magick could infuse everyday items, functioning much like a witch’s hex or curse. A low chuckle crawled up his throat at the idea of how scandalised hunters would be if they ever learned that the shadows could seep from the very weapons they held and turn them against the bearer.

Struck by that thought, Rumple lowered the book onto his lap. Was this to be his solution?

He couldn’t bring Boy—as a living human—into the shadow realm. He also hadn’t yet learned what state his Heart needed to be in when he did claim it. In any case, he couldn’t do any of this until he found a way to break Queen Schön’s spell, but maybe this was to be the compromise while he carried on his search. He could infuse an item that Boy would always wear with his magick, and the shadows within would be under command to always protect him.

It wasn’t the solution he wanted, but it was all the solution he had the time to achieve. If the Queen inducted Boy into her Collection, Rumple knew he would be stretched thin trying to provide that protection himself. The number of pointless errands she sent him on, all to the furthest reaches of the kingdom, would put them both in an untenable position—it would take only one request for a spool of golden thread while he was away, and their deceit would be uncovered.

The item would need to be small. Something the Queen wouldn’t notice as being out of place, but also something that would always remind Boy of Rumple’s presence. Nothing that could be lost, nor Boy easily parted from.

Rumple stood, the handbook forgotten as it slid to the floor where some of the pages scattered. He paced, with one hand braced under his chin in support of his mental efforts.

Boy had entered the Royal District with only the clothes on his back. Clothes Rumple had already ruined once, and likely the Queen would replace soon if his projections of her next offer to Boy proved to be accurate. Not clothing, then.

Given that Boy was supposedly able to spin straw into gold, his hands would be a focal point, so nothing around his wrists either. Pity. He would look good restrained in such a way.

Which left only the parts of his body hidden by clothing. Such as Boy’s neck. Rumple stopped his pacing. Something delicate and light, easily hidden under a tunic and a mass of flaxen curls.

He approached the ledge beside the Midnight Tree and poured water from the copper kettle into the polished stone basin. When the last of the ripples had lapped the edge, and the water’s surface lay still as glass, Rumple peered in. He moved gracefully from looking glass to looking glass within the Royal City until he found who he was searching for.

fifteen

Boy

The day hung dull and heavy in the opulent room that was Boy’s latest prison cell.

When the Queen and her Royal Guard had escorted him here earlier, he had kept his head down and his gaze firmly fixed on the floor in front of his feet until he heard the massive doors click shut behind her. His heart had beat in his throat and stars had danced at the edge of his vision long after she was gone.

This was his final test. She had made that quite clear. If all the sacks of straw in this room were not spun into golden thread by the next daybreak, he would die. But if they were, then he would be conscripted into her Collection. Boy didn’t know what that meant, not really. She had explained, in her own way, but the depth of her words were still sinking in.

The first thing Boy had done, when his rabbit-heart had calmed enough that he could swallow his saliva without it hurting, was reluctantly raise his chin to locate the sacks. They weren’t hard to find.

The Queen had called this her throne room—and what a room it was. Bigger than anything Boy had ever known to exist. If he had to guess, he’d say it rivalled the size of the clearing around his family’s mill. He could almost see it. The run-down building with the old thatching infested with mice would occupy the space where ornate lacquered screens stood sentry around the throne and its dais.

His whole family had shared that building. They’d argued with one another as they hoisted dried grasses into the rafters and had laughed when one of them invariably landed in the weir. How different his life had been then.

The vaulted stone ceiling of the throne room was so high that Boy reckoned he could have stacked one mill on top of another, and they still wouldn’t have touched its apex. And there, banked high and kept in place by wooden ladders, were countless hessian sacks that spanned the length of one wall, just as they had done in the Fachhallenhaus. Except this was on a scale much too large to comprehend.

Boy had dropped his head then, and sank to his knees.

Last night, when the Queen’s Shadow had shared his magick with him—had showed him how he spun the straw into gold—it had still taken so long that Boy had drifted to sleep with his head resting against the man’s firm thigh. Even if his geist were to appear now, in broad daylight, and begin work straightaway, Boy feared there wouldn’t be enough time to spin it all.

Boy was doomed to fail.