Page 80 of Kingdom of Locks

With a grunt and a crash, the familiar figure of Aurelia’s mother appeared in the bedroom doorway.

“What is it?” she asked, clearly struggling to pull her mind from sleep to wakefulness. “Prince Amell? What are you doing here? What happened?”

“I…I…” The prince seemed to be struggling to find words.

Aurelia tried to pull herself together and come to his rescue. “I’m fine, Mama Gail. I’m not entirely sure what happened, but all of a sudden I just became so incredibly tired.” She sagged slightly as she said it, and Amell’s grip on her tightened.

“Lower her into a chair,” Mama Gail commanded, sounding more like her usual self. “Let me look at her.”

Aurelia felt herself placed gently into a chair, and she blinked at the fuzzy sight of her mother’s face peering carefully into her eyes.

“Do you feel sick?” Mama Gail demanded.

She shook her head.

“Is your vision going black?”

Aurelia blinked, considering the point. “No,” she said. “It’s a little fuzzy, but not going black.” She blinked again. In fact, now that she was sitting, her vision was clearing. She still felt unaccountably weary, but not as though she was deteriorating further.

Mama Gail let out a relieved breath, although her face was still lined with tension. She rounded on Amell. “What did you do?”

“Mama Gail,” Aurelia protested.

The prince swallowed. “I…”

“You kissed her, didn’t you?” Mama Gail accused.

“Actually,” Aurelia interjected with dignity. “I kissed him.”

Mama Gail groaned, actually covering her face in her hands. “We talked about this,” she said, her voice coming out muffled.

Aurelia stared at her in confusion. She didn’t remember talking about anything of the kind. But apparently her mother wasn’t speaking to her.

“I know,” Amell said, sounding guilty. “I’m sorry. I never meant to…I just…”

“Hang on,” Aurelia protested. With a flash of spirit, she struggled up straighter in her chair. “What do you mean, you talked about it?”

“Aurelia,” Mama Gail said, ignoring both her question and her false name, “did you start feeling weak when you kissed Amell?”

Flushing furiously, Aurelia nodded. “But only…only the first time,” she said.

Mama Gail raised an ominous eyebrow but didn’t comment on the information that there had been more than one kiss.

“He must have used the kiss as the key,” she said, so quietly Aurelia questioned her own hearing.

“What?” It was Amell who gave voice to her confusion. Although his voice had a definite edge of anger as well. “What did you say? What do you mean he used the kiss as the key?”

Mama Gail looked between them. “It was one of the options he considered, judging by his notes. He was looking for ways to increase the power, remember? One of the principles is that power willingly given is stronger than power forcibly taken, which seems to have given him the idea of the key. Another principle is that—”

“Love is stronger than any destructive force,” Aurelia whispered, horror washing over her as she began to grasp what her mother was saying. Love? As in, romantic love? WithCyfrin?

“How did you—?” Mama Gail shook her head. “Never mind. Yes, precisely that. I believe he’d already formed the intention of marrying you, for other reasons. But from his notes, I got the impression that he’d fixated on your first kiss as a good option for the key, because it would ignite both the principle about power willingly given, and the principle about love being strongest. Alongside it he’d scribbled out some old wives’ tale regarding first kisses carrying magic. I think he was trying to cover as many bases as possible.”

“He’s planning to marry me?” Aurelia repeated, horrified. “He thought he could get me to willingly kiss him?” She pictured it, unable to help herself, and a shudder of pure revulsion ran over her. “How could he ever think I could be brought to love him, after what he’s done?”

A vivid memory gripped her, of the horror she’d felt when Amell’s fingers brushed her scalp. Forgetting her weakness, she leaped to her feet, then swayed so violently her mother had to help her sit again. Suddenly she understood her unconscious reaction. Some part of her had recognized in Amell’s caress—one motivated by genuine tenderness—the type of touch Cyfrin had been trying so unsuccessfully to mimic.

“That’s what he was doing all this time?” she gasped. “With the attempts to be nice, and giving me that physical key, and…” She shuddered again. “And caressing my hair? He was trying to…to woo me?”

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