Page 110 of Where Shadows Bloom

I had no words. And neither did my mother. The king was my father, but only in the barest sense of the word. He didn’t want me. He didn’t love me. He was a liar, a coward, a foul mockery of a father and a king.

Lope took a stride closer to him. I wanted to reach out, to pull her back, to protect her—but her head was held high. She grinned, looking him fearlessly in the eyes. “Long live the king.”

He spat in her face. She laughed.

Rage thundered through me; an inarticulate sound of fury ripped from my throat as I made to claw at him, butMother and Françoise held me back.

“Please,” said Mother to the Shadow King. “Take him away from here.”

With anothersnap, Léo and the Shadows that had bound him were gone. A memory that would never touch us again. As Lope cleaned her face, I marched over to her, pulling her back into my embrace where she belonged.

“You’re unbelievable,” I said, muffled against her shoulder. “And perfect.”

Her ribcage reverberated with the sound of her laugh. She wound her arms around my middle, both of us pressed close, warm and glowing like embers.

“Your Majesty?” Lope called to the Shadow King. “With King Léo gone, what will become of the door he made?”

“It is useless now. No one can open it, from your world or from mine.”

She exhaled, almost as if she didn’t believe him, and she held me even closer. “How—how many other doors remain? That allow Shadows into the world above?”

“Just your own, Lope de la Rosa.”

“Then the Shadows—”

“They will stay here with me and with the king’s beloved.”

A beautiful, relieved smile crossed her lips.

The Shadow King twisted his head toward my mother. “Now then. The bargain is complete. Three of you may return to the world above. Ofelia, Marisol, Sagesse—wouldyou like to say goodbye to the others?”

King Augustin, Queen Caroline, Philippe, Françoise. They had showed me such kindness and warmth, even in this cold, desolate place. And they’d remain here forever. All of these people doomed by the greed of the king.

My father had sacrificed them all to get what he wanted.

I could not be like him.

A plan began to bloom in my mind.

“You’re concentrating,” Lope murmured. “You’re going to bite your lip raw.”

“I have an idea,” I said. “We must talk a little farther from the others.”

I asked the others for ten more minutes. Though I knew time moved strangely here, that above seconds or days or years could pass in such time, I needed just a moment in private.

A moment to gently break the heart of my beloved.

She followed me to the beach. I pulled her down to sit side by side with me, the waves before us, the crystalline moon above us.

“Whatever your plan is,” said Lope, “I’ll gladly partake.”

Her loyalty made my heart soar—and then sink as I thought of the pain I would soon cause her. I squeezed her hand tight and hated the words forming on my tongue. “I can’t go above with you.”

“What?”

Her voice broke in two. I dared to meet her gaze, but the despair there made me crumble. Tears spilled from my eyes, and she hastily brushed them aside.

“You—you don’t have to go with me, if you don’t want to,” Lope whispered. “I can go my way, and you can go yours—”

---