“Here, let me.” Rapunzel sets her satchel on the desk and starts gathering the ones that landed the farthest away. “These are the verettes Asterans have given you, right?”
“Yes.” Verette’s voice is unexpectedly hoarse. When Rapunzel glances over her shoulder, she realizes the closet isn’t just crammed full of the charms, it’s actively overflowing.
For the first time, it occurs to her that it can’t be convenient keeping them all on a barge like this.
“You look like you’re running out of room,” Rapunzel says carefully. “Do you not want your father to see?”
Verette stares at her, wavering between denial and surrender—a struggle Rapunzel knows all too well.
Then she sits on a wooden chest with a long sigh and starts taking the moth ornaments out of her hair. “A few years ago, Father threw away all the verettes people had given me. He said it was just clutter. I didn’t know why he did it.”
Rapunzel’s hands tighten on the charms.
Verette continues, “It was right after my first coming of age ceremony. I’d been so excited and nervous to become queen, and then it just—didn’t happen. He said I should be grateful I got such an amazing party, but that it was too soon for anything else, and then a few days later, all the verettes were gone.” She swallows. “And then the next day he gave me this barge, and said I was old enough to have my own.”
Rapunzel remembers every night she lay in her bed in Gothel’s tower, promising herself,I’ll leave tomorrow, I’ll go see the world for myself and nothing will keep me here.
And every morning she woke up and found a clumsy flower Gothel drew on the chore list she left behind. Or a pan of burnt muffins (“This is why you do the baking, Flower”) waiting on the oven. Or a new bolt of fabric—never quite enough to make a whole new dress, but Rapunzel always got creative piecing hers together.
It was all part of Gothel’s prison; Rapunzel knows that now. But there was a reason she reached for her mother when she fell.
Rapunzel reaches into her satchel and pulls out Pascal, who blinks sleepily in her palm. “This is my best friend, Pascal. My—Gothel, the woman who pretended to be my mother, she gave him to me for my seventh birthday. But anytime Italked back, or asked a question she didn’t like, she’d threaten to take him away and leave him in the woods.” Rapunzel sits on a crate. “The first lie I ever told her was that he’d run away, and he hid in the tower with me until I left. I’m still afraid to tell my real parents about him, even though I know they’re different. I’m just…scared.”
“I would be too.” Verette lifts a finger for Pascal to inspect. “I…I don’t even know how old I really am, because of him. I don’t think anyone does, besides him. I was older than eighteen when he allowed the first coming of age ceremony, and then he just kept saying they weren’t real ones, they didn’t count, and…no one could stand against him, so it just became normal.” Her eyes well up. “I shouldn’t want to give him another chance. Iknowbetter.”
“My real parents are—wonderful,” Rapunzel says haltingly. “They work hard for the kingdom, everyone loves them, and they’ve been so kind to me. But.” Something’s building inside of her, a seed long buried in the earth, finally pushing sprouts aboveground. “I’ve been trying so hard not to see Gothel in them that I only saw them as perfect. And it made me feel scared whenIwasn’t perfect. But I know they love me as I am, and I love them even if—if I think—they don’t get everything right. I mean, Eugene stole a piece of jewelry and almost got executed for it under their law—without a trial! We could make another tiara, but there will never be anyone else like Eugene.” The words spill out faster and faster. “Gothel only ever wanted to use me, and now everyone wants me to take iteasy and settle into being a princess, but I feel like I’mmeantto help people. Like I’m supposed to appreciate the good my parents have done, and still…”
“Do better,” Verette finishes. “Were you—scared, leaving your tower?”
That’s the easiest answer for Rapunzel all night. She smiles softly. “It’s always terrifying when your dream comes true. But Eugene says the good part is, you get to go find a new one.”
“I want to see the starlight fountains run again,” Verette says fiercely. “I want to help Astera move forward. I…I want to seeyourkingdom.” She wavers a moment. “And my father is never going to let any of us go.”
Rapunzel passes her the verette charms she’s picked up, simple hemp and clay to silk cord and gold bead, every one a blessing from the people of Astera, every one a dream in Verette’s shaking hands.
“I think,” Rapunzel tells her, “you’re old enough to decide that for yourself.”
Minister Cressien finds Rapunzel in the palace gardens the next morning, ostensibly doing a floral study of a cluster of lily and aster. Secretly, she’s also counting the guard patrols and how often they pass, because this particular bend of the garden lies en route to the entrance to the Starlight Spring.
And for once, Pascal isn’t hiding, instead gleefully sunbathing on the warm stone bench beside her pastel sticks.
For a few moments, Minister Cressien watches her push yellow ochre across the page. Part of Rapunzel is bracing for a remark about the pigments on her hands, the absence of her shoes. Instead he says, “You have a unique style, Your Highness.”
Rapunzel looks up. “You can call me Rapunzel, you know.”
“I would rather not,” he says—but with no trace of rebuke. “It serves us both to remember that this is my job, Your Highness. That said…as minister of diplomatic affairs, I’ve seen the continent’s finest art collections, from portraits of monarchs to scenes of legendary battles. Your style differs from the…traditional schools.” His gaze flicks down briefly to her bare feet, in case Rapunzel was not sufficiently aware he was shifting into metaphor. “It draws on both realism and elements of folk art, styles that appeal to commoners and nobility alike. Unconventional. But I believe it has its own strengths.”
“Thank you,” Rapunzel says. “But you were right. I wanted to show my parents I could help them, and I rushed into this before I was ready. It must have been really upsetting to feel like I was underestimating how hard your work is.”
Cressien’s head inclines. “I appreciate that, Your Highness. Nevertheless, itismy job to help prepare you to engage with the rest of the world, and to provide accurate and unbiased information to your parents. Your mother merely wished me to keep her informed on your general safety and well-being, nothing more. Upon reflection, I suspect that my personal troubles may have influenced me to be unjustly severe in my reports. You deserved a fair assessment, one I failed to provide due to no fault of your own.”
“Do you want to talk about it?” Rapunzel asks.
He shakes his head. “I appreciate that as well, Your Highness, but no. But if I may…I understand the desire to be helpful, and I applaud it. However.”
“It can be exploited.” Rapunzel scrubs a swath of gray over the flowers.
“Well, yes,” he agrees, “but I don’t believe I need to tell you that. Your mother likes to remind me that there is more in me, more to my life, than my service to the kingdom. I don’t believe I really listened to her until too late. You should know that the day you returned, your parents…well, they came alive again, in a way I never thought I’d see in my lifetime. It must be difficult for you, adjusting to losing your magic, but please understand that that was a wound only you—not the sundrop flower,you—could heal.”
