“I also accept. But that would leave me once again in your debt…if not for these.” Verette looks behind her and motionsto a guard. They come forward, bearing a bushel basket heaped full of something white and strangely shaped—
“THE SHELLS,”Rapunzel gasps. “You—you remembered—is it okay?”
“We have more verai than we will ever need,” Verette says firmly. “They may not be as iridescent now, but I suppose that means you’ll just have to come back when the shells start washing ashore full of starlight.”
Rapunzel doesn’t bother with a handshake; she lunges right at Verette and wraps her in a hug. “I guess I will.”
It takes them the better part of an hour to weigh anchor and embark, but they leave the harbor with an escort from the Asteran navy, Leona perched at the bow of the foremost ship. Eugene makes his way to the stern and watches until she and Astera both sink behind the waves.
It’s strange, leaving a place that could have been home. That was home to the life he should have had, to the people who wanted him. He doesn’t know who he would have been under Enver’s rule, if he would have changed their odds for the better or followed his parents and uncle into an early grave. Part of him will always miss that life.
He turns and finds Rapunzel at the bow, laughing with Cressien, the breeze tugging at her hair as she keeps a firm grip on her sketchbook.
And Eugene knows that if his parents could see him now, they’d be happy, even if Astera isn’t his home. Everything they wanted for him, he has: a girl he’s madly in love with. A job that will let him use his skills for good. A future he’s proud to chase.(And the outrageously ample inheritance doesn’t hurt either.)
It’s not just their dream he’s living, but his own.
He pulls his own battered copy ofThe Tales of Flynnigan Riderfrom his satchel. The inside cover creaks as it falls open.
Eugene pauses.
Something’s…off.
He’s never taken the time to really study the endpapers before. They’re soft cream marbled with pale silver, the Asteran royal seal embossed inside. There’s nothing odd about that. Right?
He flips to the back. The endpaper there is clearly one sheet, folded in the middle, one half making the very last page of the book and the other half glued to the back cover, the standard method. When he turns again to the front…
It’s clear as day. The marbling pattern is flipped on the inside cover. The embossed seal is right side up.
Leona said yesterday the royal insignia should be upside down.
Someone cut the endpaper down the seam and pasted it back wrong.
Eugene’s brow furrows. He takes a knife from—well, a gentleman never tells—and carefully slides it along the edges of the endpaper, slicing through the lines of glue. Then he peels back the sheet, exposing the raw board of the cover.
Thunderstruck hope rises in his chest.
Beneath the endpaper, framed in wobbling paste lines, are scrawled two ragged words:
FIND ME.
Epilogue
“I’ve submitted my final report, Your Highness.”
Rapunzel, who has been absorbed in sketching out the mural she’ll start probably the instant they get home, looks up.
Cressien is leaning against the railing of the bow. He’s already been more at ease this past week, and the prospect of Hughes moving to their kingdom has him positively sparkling, which manifests in Cressien as a slight upward tilt at the corner of his lips.
“I’m glad,” Rapunzel says tentatively. She tugs on Pascal’s coat as he clings to the railing beside her. “Now you can relax. Is it still a wasted effort to ask you to call me Rapunzel?”
“It is,” he confirms with a faint tinge of humor. “While the circumstances were less than ideal, I’m relieved I had the opportunity to review my previous reports and…recalibrate. Of course, I was in no way biased by your saving my life.”
“Of course,” Rapunzel says with a very feeble attempt at gravitas.
Cressien’s eyes crinkle, only for a moment, but Rapunzel counts that as a win. “I am looking forward to continuing our work together.”
“Me too,” she says honestly. “I’ve been thinking a lot about the kind of princess I want to be. I want todothings. I want to make people’s lives better.”
