Page 95 of Where Shadows Bloom

I could plunge it through his back.

It would be so easy.

But then what? A dead king would bring me no closer to the girl I’d lost. The girl I loved.

When the last inch of his white cape slipped around thecorner, I slackened with relief.

After he left, I ducked around the corner and strode down the corridor, left and right and left, to the Hall of Illusions. Courtiers did not even glance at me as I passed on the fringes of the hallways, all of them clothed in white just like the king had asked.

I approached the corridor wherein was housed the Hall of Illusions. To my surprise, there was someone standing there, a woman shouting at the golden-armored knight before her. She had a book pressed to her chest.

Eglantine.

“I’m here on important research for the king!” she insisted.

“Madame, the king made his wishes very clear. No one is to enter the hall.”

“But—but he means to start restorations on it, and he requested a list of artists to commission, and I have a book of names right here!” she insisted, holding up her book. “I only mean to take some notes!”

“Shouldn’t you be preparing for the fête?” he asked.

Eglantine opened her mouth, but I neared the two and interrupted her, saying, “Soldier, I’ve just left my post at the king’s hallway and was instructed to come here next. I was told you’re being sent to guard the ballroom with the others.” When he said nothing, I thought of Ofelia, and how, when she was in doubt, she would add more details to her story. “I’m a new recruit. Came from the countryside. Trained inspecial combat with Shadows. I hear they are a particular problem in this part of the palace, along with strange noises. Is that true?”

“Yes.” The soldier’s voice quavered.

“I’ll take it from here.” I saluted the knight and, after a beat, he saluted me and then left.

“Mademoiselle...?” murmured Eglantine.

I took one cursory sweep of the corridor—no onlookers, no Shadows—and swept the helmet off my head. Shaking out the hair that had begun to stick to my face, I felt I could finally breathe for the first time in hours.

Eglantine beamed at me. “Excellent work.”

“Let’s hurry.”

The two of us slipped through the double doors. I set my helmet aside on the parquet and frowned at the room before us—dark and strangely empty. The walls here were more like that of a cavern than those of a palace. Stepping forward a little farther, I could see the vast wall of mirrors—and a pale figure standing in the glass.

I gasped and put a hand to my sword, but Eglantine raced past me, pressing her hands to the glass.

“Maman!” she cried.

The woman standing before Eglantine in the mirror looked much like her but younger, with her dark blond hair in a long plait. She, too, wore spectacles, and several golden bracelets on her wrists.

“You’re so beautiful,” said the woman—Sagesse. Her voice caught with tears as she pressed her hands against her daughter’s, as though she could push herself through the glass to her.

Then, in the panel of a mirror to her right, a faint shape appeared. Its edges grew more defined as the silhouette grew closer and closer, and then I saw her, the light in her eyes, the joyful tears, the bright smile she wore just for me, and I had never felt such an equal blend of agony and joy all at once. “Ofelia,” I gasped.

Ofelia, Ofelia, my beautiful one, my sunlit girl, trapped forever in a world of monsters and darkness.

Had I only seen her yesterday? It felt like an eternity had passed. I drank her in like I was dying of thirst.

Her fingertips pressed against the glass, pressed up where mine were. Her chest heaved as if she had been running. I searched her for any scrapes or bruises, but apart from her cheeks, red and shining with tears, she looked the same as she had when we’d parted. I longed to brush her cheeks dry, to kiss her face until she’d cry no more.

“I love you,” I said, declared, vowed, promised, pledged. The words that had echoed in my heart for years finally rang out like bells celebrating a homecoming.

“I love you so much,” she said, the most beautiful refrain to the most beautiful song. Her fingers caressed the glass. “And I’m so sorry. Lope, I’m so sorry. I’ve been awful to you.Horrid and selfish. I should never have been so thoughtless toward you. I never should have doubted you. I should have listened to you.” She leaned her forehead against the glass, sniffling. “You were right about everything. I’m a fool. And a worse fool for how I’ve treated you for all these years. Like you were only a servant. You’re not, Lope, you’re an artist and a hero and my dearest friend, and anything else you want to be. You’re—you’re everything to me. And I... I shouldn’t have read your poems, either. I’m so sorry.”

My sweet, gentle girl. I never should have doubted her kindness. Not even this wretched palace could tarnish her golden heart. “I forgive you. Of course I forgive you.” I touched my brow to the mirror, too, and for a moment imagined it was just the two of us there, without Eglantine or Sagesse. That there wasn’t a sheet of glass between us. That I could feel her warm skin against mine.

---