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With a trembling hand, I start to scoop it up. It cracks more.
Another scene swirls through me, around me, and I press a hand to my head. But the colors don’t settle. Familiar, lavish rooms — rooms I lived in, spent time in, hurried through so I didn’t have to see my stepsisters and face their disparaging remarks. Yet darker, twisted somehow. Distorted, like I view the memories through water. And straining. Something straining. Or someone.
To break free?
A chill goes through me.
Straining, fighting. Pleading. The feeling of hands on my arms, pulling me —
I gasp and scramble backward, crashing against Reena’s bed. Its frame creaks. I snap my gaze to the broken charm. A sliver seems to be disconnecting from the rest. A glow burns inside the charm. Soft and greenish. A glow that…pulsates.
Like a frail, weakening heartbeat.
I swallow hard. It’s never had that before. Nor has touching it ever brought images of anything else — merely comfort, like it somehow keeps my mother close.
But it’s also never truly broken.
Kirran’s words prickle through me.“Removed memories have to be contained somewhere, in an enchanted object.”
My heart freezes, and I stare at the glass charm.
The magic of a dear spring fey friend had enabled my mother to attend the ball, where she met my father. Her entire outfit had been magically transformed out of her simple attire. The glass slipper that had been lost remained enchanted even after the magic wore off, even after my father returned the shoe to my mother. Supposedly because it hadn’t been with the rest of the ensemble.
If it had been altered once, why couldn’t they have reduced its size to enable her to carry it with her always?
The charm isn’t a charm.
I send up a prayer of regret and press my foot down on the shoe charm again.
More images streak through me. Faces of people I’m certain that I know, intermixed with those I sense I once knew. Then hands grabbing at me again, holding me down. Blinking lights, colors churning like I’m spinning. Hands on either side of my head. Warmth and icy chills at the same time, a bitter mix of something between summer and winter.
A voice I can’t remember asks me something. I answer with a nod.
Gasping in a breath, I withdraw my foot from the pendant. The inside glows a touch brighter. The pulsing still mimics the double-beat of a —
My throat goes dry. No, not adyingheartbeat. One that’s waking up.
Coming back to life.
My memories.
I grip the edge of Reena’s bed and haul myself to my feet. And then I stomp down on the tiny shoe again. More memories invade. A muted conversation between Vallda and me. And a friend of hers — a friend with wavy black hair and sharp gold eyes. The girl seems familiar, and though she smiles kindly at me, a buzzing noise fills my ears.
Leave. Leave now.
Whether I didn’t hear it then or just ignored it, I stay. I see her take my hand as I sink into one of my stepmother’s chairs.
Teeth gritted, I slam my foot down once more. The crunch echoes, and within it, a new voice crackles…
“The stroke of twelve shall break the spell.”
The murmur floats around me from nowhere. Yet somehow, it lives inside me too. Part of my past in a way I cannot understand. Or maybe it isn’t my past, or isn’t only my past. But as quickly as it fills my mind, another voice counters it. A voice that brings me to my knees. For I know this one, have held it in my heart all these years.
Papa.
“And she will be safe? Her grandfather will never know she exists?”
A singsong, haunting female voice answers. “Yes, yes, royal blood shall be bound till trod on the ground. But then all the truth will thus be loosed.”
