“Why not?”
“It’s not safe for you.”
“But when I’m a woman.”
“Especially not then.”
“But it’s safe for you.”
“Yes.”
“Why you and not me?”
“Thorn.” Jada said her name on a sigh. “We are different people. No two people in all the world are alike, thus none of them lead the same lives or follow the same rules. I may leavethis place; you may not. It’s a simple rule and one you’ve known all your life. You’re a stupid girl, but even you should be able to understand this basic truth.”
“Doesn’t what I want matter at all?” Thorn demanded in growing frustration.
At this, Jada stilled and turned to look upon Thorn. In these moments, her physical stature ceased to matter and she dwarfed Thorn in every way. As it did when she was displeased, Jada’s magic unfurled around her, seeming to take the shape of giant white wings, her hair frosting and rising also to bristle with a life of its own.
If Thorn didn’t immediately apologize and promise to do better, those powerful wings would enfold her until she couldn’t move, her body drowsy as if she slept, though she didn’t feel sleepy in her head. She hated it. So, Thorn didn’t understand what drove her now to defy Jada, to run the risk of her displeasure, the suffocating suppression of those unseen wings.
Except that she wanted the joy that awaited her in the outside world more than she was afraid.
“Thorn.” Jada spoke her name with quiet menace, the wings of power stirring the air currents. Thorn quailed inside, but made herself stand tall. “You are allowed to wantsomethings. But I have a duty to you. A sacred responsibility I have devoted myself to since you were born. All your life, I have protected you from danger. I know what’s best for you. Have I made myself clear or do you need me to contain you, for your own good?”
Thorn’s brief rush of courage ran out and she shook her head. “I only asked,” she protested meekly.
“You used to be such a sweet girl,” Jada observed. “I don’t know what I’ve done for you to be so unkind to me, so ungrateful for all I’ve given you—and given up for you.”
“I’m sorry.”
“I’m sorry,” her guardian mimicked in a whiny voice. “I have some more objects for you to evaluate. You can make it up to meby being useful. I need to be able to sell these in the city on my trip next week.”
“You’re leaving again already?”
“Yes, I told you that.”
Thorn didn’t think she had, but she didn’t argue, of course. Instead, as she obediently catalogued the rest of the items, Thorn contemplated how she could turn the alone time to her advantage. Maybe she could use the opportunity to try to figure out how to pass through the fence like her guardian did. Jada always followed the garden path to the far end, where the deep shadows of the forest draped lavishly over the arched gate in the rose-covered fence, and she somehow opened it. Thorn had always been made to stand well back by the cottage, unable to see clearly. A few times, Thorn had tried the gate. The latch never budged for her.
Worse, a feeling of repulsion made her skin itch all over, until Thorn couldn’t bear to stand so close to the gate any longer. That same feeling plagued Thorn any time she came too near the briar hedge, the golden roses seeming to lift their heavy blossoms to stare menacingly at her, the leaves peeling back to reveal curved black thorns ready to pierce her skin. Thorn knew that sensation meant wards. There were wards on the bookshelves Thorn wasn’t allowed to access, the enchantment blurring the titles of the books and pushing against Thorn coming anywhere close.
If Thorn wanted to pass through the gate, she needed to learn to overcome that repulsion long enough to find a way through the wards. She had no talent for wardmaking, but maybe she could break wards? Undoing wasn’t the same as doing. Thorn could methodically test the forbidding briars to see if she could determine what kind of wards twined through them. Probably she wouldn’t be able to escape this time, but maybe she could learn? Or maybe she couldn’t.
The thought saddened her immeasurably. She was trapped, perhaps forever.
It didn’t help that her seat faced the bookshelf with the large piece of polished amber holding a butterfly poised in flight. None of its color remained; its once brightly scaled wings had leached away into deeper shades of tawny ocher, like the golden roses outside when they faded into brittle remnants, leaving this skeletal shadow preserved for all time. It might be melodramatic, but Thorn saw herself much the same way. Her life over before it began, she might exist forever in this safe bubble, all her color gradually leaking away and leaving her a remnant of the person she might have been.
Fuming about it all, Thorn channeled her simmering frustration at her hemmed-in life into the psychometry analysis. Soon enough she had a detailed provenance for all seven remaining objects. They might be boring, but that also made them quick to get through. At least none had been soaked in violence. But, under their onslaught of impressions, she was already losing the lovely feelings from the prince’s belt buckle, too easily forgetting how that felt, howhefelt. She couldn’t keep it, but—the rebellious thought bubbled up in her mind—perhaps she could keep a little piece of it.
Feeling terribly brave and quaking inside with fear at being caught—though she could hear Jada’s snores echoing down the hall—she unpacked the belt buckle, careful to keep the creases of the paper intact. Working swiftly, she pried out a tiny jewel from the edge, from a place no one would notice, hopefully. With any luck, the next buyer wouldn’t see the gap, or they’d think it lost by accident. Surely no one would guess that meek and obedient Thorn had taken it.
She pressed the tiny gem into a bit of sealing wax and secreted it in her apron pocket, checking first that no holes would allow it to escape her, and made herself take meticulous care in rewrapping the package and tying the strings to hold it closed. There.
Giddy with the unaccustomed power of disobedience, and with Jada’s snores still audible, Thorn decided to look for bookson rune-breaking. On the far side of the library, two walls of shelves held the locked and warded books too dangerous for Thorn. When she was littler, Thorn had tried to read the titles on the spines, straining her eyes in frustrating attempts to read the letters that blurred, bounced, and jigged out of meaning. Even if she resisted the itchy repulsion of the wards and put one eye right up next to the words, they refused to make sense.
Thorn considered those warded shelves, which certainly contained useful information. She couldn’t access them until she learned to break wards, however, so that made for a neat circle that led nowhere. Instead she searched the shelves she was allowed to access for elementary books on runes.
Then, realizing the snoring had stopped, hearing Jada’s steps approaching the library door, Thorn snagged the leftmost book at random, stowing it in a deeper pocket of her skirt, then scurried back to her worktable. Making a show of stretching, she pretended to be surprised by Jada’s entrance.
