Page 37 of Rumpelstilzchen

It wasn’t until the Queen’s black magick had also passed through the shadows that he was able to shift his focus. It had heated the blood in his veins, yet Boy knew he’d only experienced a burst, a fraction of the pain his geist had felt because the shadows had swiftly responded to shield him. He’d felt their strain as they reflected it back and away from him, but still, he’d doubled over when all the air had been forced out of his lungs. It had been when he was gulping in large breaths and tears dripped from his chin that the torrent of long-suppressed memories had surged forward.

Even now, perched on the stool in front of the spinning wheel and wrapped in the familiar weight of the shadows, his ears still rang with the low whisper of a name that promised salvation.

Spools of magickal thread glistened in the early morning rays, and his fingers ran the length of the golden thread around his neck. The key to the door turned in the lock, and heeled footsteps filled the gargantuan room.

Boy’s spine straightened in resolve, his heart slowed to the steady but sure rhythm of hope, and he rose to face Queen Schön.

She wasn’t half as intimidating as he’d once thought her to be, now that he was no longer kneeling but standing. Her Majesty was short, shorter even than him. Was that why she always wore heeled shoes?

She reminded Boy of the fine china cup his brother had brought back from his first trip to market. He’d gloated how expensive it was, how excellent his bartering skills had been to win it, but when his clumsy miller’s fingers had snapped the handle clean off while demonstrating its proper use—pinky out—it had been a valuable lesson in how just because something looked impressive, that didn’t make it so.

Boy took in Her Majesty’s jewellery that adorned every limb, including her hair. He noted the luxurious fabrics that swished with every step nearer to him that she took. His gaze bounced from guard to guard, each embellished in the shiniest of armour. And he saw only the china cup. How easy might it be to snap off her handle and render her all but useless? Boy was nothing more than a farmhand, after all. He glanced down at his fingers—and smiled.

“Marvellous!” Her shrill voice bounced from the high-vaulted ceiling. “This almost makes up for the disappointing night I’ve had!”

Queen Schön hadn’t noticed Boy’s staring, so singularly fixated on the wall of glittering golden thread. She clicked her fingers, but the pale-coloured lace that wrapped each long finger dulled the sound. Still, her ever-attentive guards produced a scroll and an ink pen.

She snatched up the items, and the nearest guard dutifully turned and bent at his hips for her to use his back as if he were nothing more than a living bureau. Had Boy not heard her earlier vehement desire to kill her own son, he would have been horrified at the dehumanising nature of the act. As it was, it served only to galvanise him.

“I’ve had a trying night, son of a miller, so let’s make this quick, shall we?” She licked the tip of the pen, and Boy’s lip curled. “To be included in my Collection, I will add your name to this contract. There’s the brief matter of the binding spell, and then my guards will escort you to your new room in the Tower.”

Pen poised in readiness, she waited, stiff with impatient expectation.

Boy had been overlooked in favour of other things—of other people—more important his whole life. This was no different. Except that it was. He inhaled, and it was as if time itself held its breath.

“Rumpelstilzchen.” He enunciated clearly and spoke with his whole chest.

Not missing a beat, the hand that held the pen automatically scratched into the parchment, and her painted lips repeated the sounds out loud with rote immediacy. “Rum-pel-stilz-chen.”

The pen stilled.

Her eyes narrowed.

Boy’s heart pounded.

Purple luminescence shone from the scroll.

The handle of the metaphorical fine china cup had indeed snapped off, and the entire cup had fallen to the floor as if in slow motion, where it smashed into pieces.

She turned that cold gaze Boy’s way, her face pinched into the perfect picture of evil.

Her guards rushed him.

Boy smiled.

Worth it.

twenty-two

Rumple

Rumple’s grasp on his magick was vellum-thin. He flexed his fingers against the floorboards of the Prince’s cottage looking for purchase as he fought for every breath. He needed to leave, but the black magick that had afflicted him for so long had burrowed deep, and the burn of its release had locked him in human form. His bones charred as the blackened marrow bubbled, his tendons stretched beyond compare as the magick wrenched at his cartilage, and he felt the yawning chasm it left behind as the purge conflagrated his every nerve.

Vaguely, he became aware that the occupants of the room were waking despite having used his magick to keep them in a sleep state. The Prince, twisted in his sheets, was heaving for air with as much force as Rumple was, and the sound of his efforts disguised Rumple’s unwelcome presence in their home. For now.

Unable to dematerialise, the tarnished looking glass behind him was his only chance of escape. Strenuously, he hauled himself around. His shadows, brittle like firewood, were of little use, but he drove them into the wooden boards as if they were spiked grapettes and he was scaling a mountain. Rumple couldn’t remember another time when existing had been so effortful, but thoughts of Boy alone with the Queen spurred him onward.

His left foot was the first to slip through the darkened surface of the looking glass, and its cooling relief was instant. Like bathing in liquid mercury, the sensation was refreshing, and Rumple diverted his focus away from the emergent chaos of the bedroom he had invaded and onto the magickal salve of the shadow realm. Invigorated, he pushed himself faster, harder, until all that remained in the human realm were his head and shoulders.