“I will not forget,” I whispered, leaning my head down so that I might let my own lips brush the shell of his ear, and let one of my hands fist in his hair as I held him even closer. “Though places and ages pass, never will I forget you.”
CHAPTERTWENTY-TWO
I did not knowhow far we flew like that or where we went, not even whether it was in this time or the next but when the birds let us down it was in a forest on the edge of a river. The water of the river was pewter and the forest shades of grey and white of mist. The mortal world, then, for nowhere in the Wittenhame could be so plain.
“Will you bring restoration to every place then, husband?” I whispered as his arms unraveled from me and we found our feet. “To all who served you? Will they dance for ten years like in the story of the Wittenbrand?”
In answer, he drew out a key from around his neck — my golden key. My hand flew to my chest where it had been before.
“Shall we look at this room one last time before I close it forever?” he asked as if that would answer my question.
I did not want to go back into that room and watch my days disappear, but I nodded gravely to him.
“How was it, husband, that you triumphed over Death in the end?” I whispered as he set the key in my hand and he leaned in to where he could speak over my shoulder as he replied.
“He could not forbid me rise. Not when I had brought all things to a close. Not when my blood had graced the Wittenbrand and bought a new age. He did indeed try to hold me down, and I fought him for what felt like an age and half an age but in the end, the Bramble King wins, and all those who set themselves up as his enemies must fall — even Death himself.”
I made a sound of agreement in the back of my throat. Had I not once been his enemy? I found that I much preferred a world where Bluebeard was Bramble King, for while I could not predict all that would mean, I knew it would be a world much better than the alternative.
“Do not hesitate too long, wife,” he whispered in my ear. “For our enemies still roam across this earth tearing apart its sinews and nesting in its bones. I feel them as if they were an itch within my own body. I own a violent urge to drive them out and drink their despair as a tonic.”
“Don’t let me slow you, then,” I said dryly and I turned the key in the air and strode into the room before I’d taken in what I was seeing.
The moment I did, I froze.
The hourglass at the end of the room was shattered, not a garnet was in sight, and there was broken glass and bent, molten metal on the floor where once it had been.
“My days,” I gasped.
“Gone now,” my husband whispered to me and when I looked at him he licked his lips nervously, pitched his voice low, and met my gaze with a burning look in his. “I fear, true wife, that you are burdened with me for many centuries to come for while I shared in your days and spent them like water while you still lived and I had perished, now you spend my days for yours have all run out. We drank too deeply of them and found their end just as the poison sapped your strength.”
I swallowed, feeling slightly ill. “And how great is the store of your days, Bramble King, can you spare even one for me?”
But his laugh was the type that restored strength to the bones like a hearty broth. It rang out full and deep and echoed through the chamber and he smiled so widely at me that I found myself beginning to smile too, when at last he was able to answer me.
“Speak to my riddle, Mad Princess. How deep is the ocean, how many are the stars, what number will you give to the insects that crawl upon the mortal earth? Know you that my days number more than all these.”
“Oh,” I said, feeling too stunned to say more.
“And now, bid your sisters goodbye for you’ll not see them again,” he said firmly, and I looked around at the crumbling walls, the ceiling that had fallen in revealing a blank sky, and the pillars crumbled to dust. Nothing at all remained of the room except for the books the others had kept.
I walked to the nearest one and opened it. I was Margaretta’s. And when I opened it, I saw a pretty girl of about nineteen dancing at a ball in the court of Pensmoore and there was the king I had known, only he was a child, and she danced and danced with a mortal man. I flipped the page and she held a baby as soft and golden as she, flipped another, and she ran with him as a toddler, and with every page I flipped I saw her life as if it were a story spooling out into children and grandchildren and the bounty of life and when the story was over the book faded from my hand.
“She lived the life she was meant for, her days returned to her with interest,” Bluebeard said, leaning casually against a crumbling wall and kicking at a piece of mortar. “Will you read the others?”
“I think I ought to,” I said, swallowing. “Someone should remember them.”
“I remember,” he said firmly.
“And do you miss them?” I asked, raising a single eyebrow. He cocked his head in confusion.
“I honor their sacrifice, though in the end, it was no loss to them, as I did try to tell each of them when I stole her as a bride.”
“But it might not have gone that way,” I reminded him, sensibly. “And you were never very clear on what you meant.”
He waved a hand. “Success was never in question.”
“I rather think it was,” I said acidly, because it was all very well and good to be glad of a victory but rather silly to pretend it had been a sure thing when it had been anything but that.
