Chapter 7

Marc

It was strange to both dread and anticipate something so much.

I could count on my hand the number of times I’d been alone in Pénélope’s presence; those quiet, charged moments where I’d wished for the nerve to take her hand, to tell her she was beautiful, to explain to her how I felt. But always my fear had ruled me. Fear that she’d reject me or that the Duke would learn I’d been too forward and take her away. That all of Trollus would laugh at my presumption – for daring to believe that I had a chance with Angoulême’s eldest daughter, the sister of the girl favored to become Queen.

But now everything had changed.

To Trollus society, she was no longer out of my reach, but me out of hers. The Duke himself was pushing us together, as were Anaïs and Tristan, and I could have no fear of rejection given it was now Pénélope in pursuit of me. I could have nearly everything I wanted, and all that was required of me was to feed her bits of information that she could then take back to her father to exchange like currency for another day of life.

But instead of making me happy, the chance to spend time alone with her felt wrong: she wasn’t doing it because she wanted to, but because she had to. It made that short interlude where I’d thought that her feelings for me might exceed the bounds of friendship now seem like wishful thinking on my part. Love meant many things, and a kiss could mean nothing at all. The result was that all I wanted to do was run as far away from this meeting as the witch’s curse would allow.

Instead, I accepted her invitation to meet at the bridge nearest the falls, reading and rereading her short note explaining that she wished to embark on a quest to live her life the way she had always wanted to, and that there was no one she wished to accompany her more than me. The truth and a lie in one, because one might wish all of eternity for something and never take a step toward making it reality.

The weather on the Isle had grown cold, the spray of the waterfall misting as it met the air of the cavern, creating a fog that sparkled in the lights lining the bridge. The structure was new, a marvel of architecture made of pale stone and glass that created the illusion of stepping stones floating over the water. Pénélope stood at the highest point, hair hanging loose in a black curtain down her back. One hand was balanced on the railing, while the other reached out to catch the falling water.

At the sound of my boots, she turned, tiny drops of water clinging to her lashes like dew on a flower. Then she smiled, and every thought in my head disappeared: the waterfall, the lights, and the city all falling away, leaving behind nothing but her.