Page 88 of Of Monsters Of Kings

“I’ll need to if I wish to be convinced. You might not see me, but I’ll be watching. If a monster you prove, then I’m willing to declare myself wrong. If a fright you fail to give, then I’ll happily tell everyone you’re lacking in ghoulish essentials.”

A grave importance settled over what had started as an amusement. My mind took off with its new ancient awareness, and I stitched together a future where Huckery was proven right or wrong. I became sure that Huckery must be proven wrong, because if not, I’d lose my chance to convince the prince not to hate himself.

Convincing him felt very important.

Huckery snapped his jaws, then settled back on his haunches. “Climb on.”

“What?” I blurted.

“Climb on,” he snarled, then glanced away.

He didn’t want me to make a big deal of his offer, so I obeyed without another word and sat to one side to accommodate my full-length skirt.

I whispered directions in his torn ear that was mostly hairless, then shrieked my delight when the prince bounded over my wall of bars. He landed on the other side and erupted into an immortal run. I shouted at the speed and surprise of our pace.

Wonderful.

Huckery raced us through Vitale toward the location I’d whispered in his ear, and the smoothness of his gait didn’t leave room to feel I may fall, though I held tightly to my tiny top hat.

When the werebeast prince skidded to a stop, I slid off his back. “Thank you, Prince Huckery. How delightful that was.”

“Don’t talk about it,” he growled, then padded away to the shadows of the closest apartment building.

I was on my own.

The last time I’d stood here was with See’s princes and my mother’s body. The road had been empty of flowers with new seeds germinating after the lupin harvest. The white and crimson clove flowers that now spread in a blanket between the buildings spoke for how long I’d spent in slumber and monsterdom while life in Vitale moved on as normal.

I felt a pang of… nostalgia? Of regret? No, neither of those was correct. The pang was one of guilt because my memories of human life were monotone and hueless, yet I’d shared that life with Mother. I preferred a dusk-until-dawn existence, and Mother would never share in my happiest days, and so I carried a weight of betrayal in my heart.

Though Mother did renovate the hotel last night. She might not converse with me as she once had, but Mother remained with me in monsterdom and life. I could thank my instinct to bury her close by for that.

Monotone and hueless though my human memories were, I was glad to have access to them. Some stuck out from the rest.

There was the day Mother told me she would one day wither.

The day Mother began to wither.

Then the day she’d finally withered away. Attached to this last memory was a dark resentment that I hadn’t much thought about until speaking with Huckery at dusk. I resented a woman who lived in this building.

The landlady had smirked her glee as agents pressed me against the wall and dragged me around. She’d relished the upset and turmoil despite my mother lying dead only feet away. I lifted a hand to the cheek she’d clawed with her slap and recalled the way her screeches had rung in my ears.

Yes, the landlady was in need of a spook.

I strode to the entrance and snapped off the handle to enter.

Blinking up the stairs, I stopped at the door to the apartment I’d shared with Mother. I’d never expected to return here, and the feeling wasn’t altogether pleasant. I missed my mother. If there was a choice to have her back, I’d return to this life of monotone and grayscale.

Wouldn’t I?

Guilt panged me again as I blinked inside the locked apartment. Turning to unlock the door first, I then swept it wide open. When I arrived in my old bedroom, I saw the landlady had troubled herself to patch over the hole to the elevator shaft. How curious to fix that when she hadn’t bothered to fix anything in the building when Mother and I lived here.

I kicked in the hole again—just the little one I’d made, not the bigger one the law agents had created to get in. Then, bracing myself inwardly, I crawled into the elevator shaft where Mother had died.

The landlady hadn’t broken up the platform in the shaft, but the smell of bleach filled my senses. She’d scrubbed away the decay. The bleach smell was cloying and wonderful, and I inhaled. All in all, I couldn’t fault what she’d done with the place.

Lying flat on my stomach, I faced the hole and propped onto my elbows to cradle my stitched face in both hands.

Then I did something I’d never dared to do when Mother lived.

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