Page 41 of Of Monsters Of Kings

“Why, because I’m…” Grotesque, revolting, horrific. “…a monster.” More vacant looks. “Because I don’t feel good about the change. I liked how I looked before, or I at least wasn’t repulsed by it.”

“Repulsed?” Toil gasped. “You mean to say that you’re repulsed by the sight of your true form?”

I squeezed my eyes shut. “Perhaps it’s not really my true form.” Maybe one day it might go away, and I would be as I was.

“But how can this be, lady?” Sigil hushed. “You are as tendrils of dancing steam over a simmering cauldron, you are as the aroma of spring flowers and culinary herbs drying overhead, you are as the most priceless and rare ingredient of a charm or curse.”

“Summer snow,” Toil murmured.

Hex scoffed. “Summer snow. Nothing so plain. She is pure hope of a newly broken heart.”

Sigil added, “The breath of an unburdened king.”

Their eyes rounded at that statement, reminding me sorely that in not much time, their eyes wouldn’t have much eyelid to speak of, and far more blood and slime.

“You’re exactly right, Prince Sigil.” Toil gaped at me. “That’s what she is. Rare beyond rare.”

I didn’t like to be the target of so much gaping. “Those things sound very rare indeed, and I don’t doubt that I’m rare—a new monster who only slept for three weeks and now one month more, one made up of so many parts, a stitched-together thing. My issue is that I…” Unshed tears clogged my throat, reducing my voice to a warbling whisper. “I can’t quite put my finger on what the matter is.”

I knew what bothered me, but admitting that I was afraid to see myself filled me with shame. I shouldn’t place importance on my looks, and yet there it was. Perhaps seeing myself made this all real, and I had to believe it a dark, odd kind of fairy tale for now.

Sigil was walking toward me along the wall, and I couldn’t fathom how he’d been ten feet below me at one point, then all the way up here in the next.

He extended his hands. “Give me the box, Lady Patch. We can do this part. I can’t understand why you will not look at yourself, especially your new form, when I would love nothing more than to gaze at you all the night. But maybe one time soon, you’ll feel up to it. Until then, let us help you safeguard this snuffed space.”

The mirror shards rattled in the box from the force of my trembling hands. “Would you, really?”

Toil and Hex were on my other side as suddenly as Sigil had appeared.

Hex bowed. “Yes, lady. We will help you.”

“And then we’ll capture you, okay?” Toil said. “Be ready.”

“I will,” I promised, and then unfurled from sitting before reaching for the ladder propped against the wall. “Don’t let me delay you too long. I appreciate any help you can give.”

They settled into work, and without me saying so, the three princes made sure to face the reflective part of the shards outward. Working with small knives I hadn’t seen before, they cut slits in the thick concrete wall and jammed the shards in, not appearing to mind the trickling blood leaving their fingers and palms. That might have something to do with the way my broken collarbone healed overnight because otherwise, a person should be very concerned about such cuts.

I sat by my mother’s grave and made sure to keep my full focus off the three princes working above as my skin started to itch with the onset of dusk. Now, they would be monsters, and Toil had reminded me twice to be ready for capture. I didn’t wish to let him down. Watching their shadowed forms from the side of my eye, I could see that they blinked here and there, not very far at once, and always the same distance—about six feet. They could do it in rapid succession. Blink, blink, blink. But they couldn’t just teleport a huge distance or very short distance at once. Just six feet. I would have time to run before they got to me, but I couldn’t risk watching them fully in case I fainted again. I’d keep an eye from my peripherals like this. My mind seemed fine with that.

I plucked a hellebore from Mother’s grave with my stitched-on fingers and toyed with it so as not to look completely upon their monstrous forms. “You mentioned curses and charms. Do they really exist?”

They laughed in unison, and I felt a pang to hear the chiming chuckles of King See’s princes.

“Surely, Lady Patch,” Sigil said. “That is the nature of King Bring.”

I considered that. “King See sees all possibilities.” Though I couldn’t say that I understood much of what that really meant. I could put together that the past, present, and future were visible to him, however, by the name of his princes.

There was a scowl in Toil’s voice. “He sees and does nothing.”

I tilted my head. “Does nothing? King See?”

“One and the same,” Hex said in scathing tones. “Sees all and does nothing.”

I pursed my lips and plucked petals from the hellebore bloom. “King See did help me for a long time at great inconvenience to himself. I don’t feel right being privy to comments that insult him.”

“Just so,” Sigil called. “You must understand that we do not serve King See, we serve King Bring.”

I could understand that a small bit. “They don’t get along?”

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