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Grumpy says what everyone else is thinking. “In the queen’s castle, you mean?” He pushes up and takes his plate to a washbasin.

Feeling the sudden need to defend myself, I try to explain. “I didn’t mean—I was trying to pay a compliment.”

Mood broken, Adelaide reaches for my free hand under the table and gives me a reassuring squeeze.

This beautiful, innocent, and incredibly brave young woman has been through hell and back the past few days—poisoned, kidnapped, hunted—yet she persevered, and here she is, holding my hand, facing her uncle’s justified anger.

She never ceases to amaze me.

“Who’s ready for pie?” She tries to lighten things back up.

Happy, who seems to be the one in charge, nods. “Excellent idea. Grumpy, brew some coffee while you’re up. It is time we talk.”

Pie is served, and coffee is brewed.

Adelaide takes a sip, and her eyes light up, and she looks over at me. “This tastes just like what you gave me at the cabin. I forgot to thank you that morning.”

The look she gives me hits me square in the chest.

“It’s a local cocoa bean. I remember you saying something about coffee.” I break eye contact after Grumpy clears his throat.

As we sit around the table, I try to pay attention to every single word being said, knowing our lives depend on it. But it’s impossible to tear my focus away from the beautiful woman who has become my lifeline.

“At birth, your mother gave you a gift. An enchanted heart necklace.” Happy starts.

“My locket.” Adelaide gasps, reaching for the necklace that she never takes off.

“Yes.” Happy smiles. “But when you were taken through to another realm, it enacted a spell to protect not only you but the heart stone… or Heart of Glass. It took your memories. And at first, it seemed like a good thing—maybe you were safer without them. But Doc saw how unhappy you were, and we decided that protecting you from yourself was doing more harm than good.”

I see the tears in her hazel eyes, and not caring what her uncles think, I reach for her and pull her into my lap. She lays her head on my chest, fighting back tears, worrying the locket in her fingers.

“He began using lunar therapy with a moonstone to try to help you get the memories back, and then the dreams started.”

“I saw him using a milky-colored stone once. I thought it was an opal. It was the last time I saw him, the day I was taken.” The last few words are a knife to my belly, and my guilt threatens to swallow me whole.

“Yes. That was a moonstone.”

“It was you he was talking to, wasn’t it? I heard him tell someone I remembered,” she whispers.

“It was.” Happy nods.

“But how?”

“I have my ways. But in your therapy sessions, you began revealing to Doc memories of not only your time in the woods but also the castle. A castle you hadn’t been in since the night you were silent born.”

“Silent born… what does that even mean?”

“Your mother knew the queen was planning to take her life, and she feared for yours. The queen, or Jocelyn as we knew of her, was an old childhood friend of your mother’s. It was Jocelyn who was intended to wed your father, the king. But from the moment Prince Philip met Princess Ravenna at the equinox gala, it was clearly true love. And their love caused a deep hate to grow in Jocelyn’s broken heart, and that hate turned into revenge. She came back years later after finding an enchanted mirror, talking about taking what was hers. Everyone assumed it was nonsense until the true queen, your mother, got sick right before you were born, and strange things began happening. Accidents. Attacks. The kingdom was falling apart into chaos. And the longest winter we’ve ever faced was upon us.”

“This is all just—I don’t know what to say.” Her voice is quiet, but her heart beats wildly in her chest against mine.

Happy continues explaining, and the pieces start falling into place. “That night, when they knew you were coming, your mother drank a potion that would make you born silent, like a sleeping death. If the queen thought you were silent born, or stillborn, you wouldn’t be a threat. Because the same prophecy that told her Fairest Blood is the only thing that can make her enchantment permanent also foretold that that blood was the only thing that can destroy it. Your blood.”

“So she needs my heart to complete the spell? Like my literal heart?” Her doe eyes widen.

My blood boils with rage at the thought of the queen or anyone else harming the woman I lov—captured.

I can’t possibly. She deserves better. I tune out what I’m feeling and start formulating a plan to save the woman I could have loved once upon a time. A time when I wasn’t the enemy, the one who led her toward her tragic fate.