A month ago, she gained a loving family, a new home she canleave, the freedom of moving without seventy feet of potential tangles.
She hasn’t really let herself look at what she…lost.
No more easy fixes for scrapes and burns. No more quiet mornings knowing it was just her and Pascal and a chore list and then—whatever she felt like. No more little life in a little tower in a little valley.
Rapunzel wouldn’t trade what she has now for anything, but sometimes she misses parts of that little life.
When she falls asleep, she dreams of Gothel again, but not the withered, vicious witch in her last moments. Not even the Gothel who called her clumsy and underdressed, who told her she couldn’t survive in the real world. She dreams instead of the Gothel who brought her pigment made from white shells,and let her paint flowers and flourishes on every inch of the tower, and tucked her in to bed every night for years.
The one who made Rapunzel feel like a beloved daughter whenever she wanted to use her.
It may have been a lie, selfish beyond measure. But for eighteen years, it felt true.
“We don’t have much time,” Cressien hisses, hours later.
He’s huddled with Rapunzel and Eugene in the empty vestibule outside the palace ballroom. King Enver and Princess Verette just swept out the door to go formally begin the official reception ball honoring Rapunzel’s delegation, and Eugene and Rapunzel will follow for an opening dance.
They have only a few moments before guards come to fetch them. And it’s the first time the three of them have been unmonitored all day.
“We have alotto catch up on,” Eugene starts, but Cressien cuts him off.
“It’s Enver,” the minister says. “The man at the hideout yesterday said Enver used to be a duke. And the last our kingdom heard from Astera before this was the announcement of the marriage of Queen Gaelle andDukeEnver, remember?”
Rapunzel remembers Verette’s sayingI learned this lullaby from my mother, Queen Gaelle.But—“Wasn’t the announcement sent a long time ago?”
Cressien nods with an air ofnow you’re catching on. “Over fifty years ago. Before your parents were even born.”
“And the same guy said Verette’s come of age at least four times,” Eugene chips in, rubbing a thumb along the line between his brows. “She remembers a lullaby from her mother, but didn’t the queen die twenty years ago?”
“Dr. Savary said Asterans usually come of age at eighteen, when their hair’s completely white.” Rapunzel feels like the picture’s in her head, but the sketch isn’t coming out right. “Verette’s hair isn’t exactly white, though. It’s more multicolor, like—”
Rapunzel catches herself.
Like the roots.
Like the shells.
“Like starlight,” she whispers.
The door swings open. A guard calls from the hall, “It’s time.”
Eugene wraps his hand around hers and says quietly, “If you want to make a run for the ship, we can probably make it.”
And then what? Return home a failure, after she pushed to go? Her parents will never let her out of the castle again.
Rapunzel shakes her head. “We can do this. It’s just a few more days.”
“Let’s go, Your Highness,” the guard urges.
The walk to the ballroom is short, and then they’re ushered through velvet drapes and into a grand hall. Painted stars and their paths dance across the vaulted indigo ceiling in silver and gold, snowy alabaster columns glow by candlelight, and intricate spirals of pale polished stone inlays lace the floor. Aglittering crowd wreathes the room, a few now-familiar faces of councilors among them.
In the middle of the dance floor wait King Enver and Princess Verette.
It’s just like the ball that started this entire mess. This time, she has to do better than just “have fun.” Rapunzel’s palms start to sweat. Every step of the waltz has fallen out of her head. Everyone is staring at her. Her violet satin gown feels like it’s clinging to her legs, the tiara on her head too heavy, too tight. Even the slippers she’s finally broken in feel too smooth to get a grip on the glossy floor.
She remembers her father just last week, telling her,Sometimes people stare because they like what they see.
Maybe it’s like the birthday ball—but shedidmake it through the opening waltz just fine. She’s practiced her steps. She knows what she’s doing.
