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Prologue
Once upon a time there was a man and a woman who had long, but to no avail, wished for a child.
SOPHIE
“Do you have it?” Gregor whispered.
“Easily, my love,” Sophie said, and with a leg up from her beloved, she took hold of the top of the wall surrounding the tower and hoisted herself onto its ledge. Once balanced, she reached down to pull Gregor up beside her.
They needed to be silent now and dropped down into the tower’s garden with the faintest of thuds as their boots hit thegrass. What grass it was too, lush and green. The garden grew some of the most beautiful flowers, herbs, and vegetables Sophie had ever seen. The rumors were proving true, which meant they must be swift, or risk being discovered by the immortal monster who lived here, a powerful sorcerer who no one had encountered and lived to tell the tale.
An exaggeration, Sophie imagined. How could anything be known if no one lived to tell it? Trespassers were supposedly found outside the wall around the tower as shriveled husks, but others had survived to find those husks. Maybe it was even an outright lie, perpetuated by the tower’s inhabitant to keep people away. But whoever lived here must command some magic to grow the most delicious-looking vegetables in all the kingdom.
The monetary reward was worth the risk, and access to such a garden could change the fate of whoever claimed it. Crops had not yielded the usual harvest for several seasons in Falchovari, long enough that villagers and even people in the city surrounding the castle were beginning to whisper of a coming famine.
Lothar, master of the Thieves Guild, had offered a hefty sum to whoever returned with some of therapunzelin particular, lettuce said to be the wellspring of the sorcerer’s immortality and the reason the tower and all its secrets had stood for centuries.
The tower’s longevity was true at least, for Sophie had seen it in the distance all her life from the safety of the city. Up close, it even shimmered as if infused with magic, or like it was made of many colors warring enough against each other that, in the end, it looked opalescent. If any of the rest was true mattered not, only their success. Nor did it matter whether real immortality was possible for peasants or only for the likes of the evil Queen, who had cruelly ruled Falchovari for almost 200 years.
The garden courtyard was narrow but large enough for a path between the plants that grew all along the interior of the perimeter wall and the exterior wall of the tower itself. Sophie gestured for Gregor to head left while she went right. They were to gather whatever they could in the sacks slung over their shoulders, but their primary goal was the lettuce.
Hood pulled low, in all black clothing identical to Gregor’s, Sophie usually would have blended with the shadows, but the moon was high and clear, brightening the courtyard, which was brighter still from the vivid colors of the plants. She made haste, shoveling whatever she could grab into her sack, even flowers they might sell tomorrow. If these plants were as magical as they appeared, surely they would not be easily bruised or wilted.
The tower was at least five stories tall, and only the side facing the heart of the kingdom showed a window at the very top. As Sophie hurried around the tower’s base, she saw no sign of any lower windows, nor of a door. The perimeter wall had no door or gate either. Scaling it had been the only option.
She had nearly made it halfway around the tower where she would meet back up with Gregor when she spotted the lettuce growing near a set of especially clean stones when much of the tower’s base had moss and vines creeping up it.
Sophie never would have thought that lettuce could look beautiful, but it was. As lusciously green as everything else, and yet the stems of the fabledrapunzelwere such a vibrant yellow, they almost looked gold. She began to harvest it with gusto, but so entranced was she by its colors and smell—had any lettuce ever smelled so enticing?—that she was lowering her mask and bringing a leaf to her lips before she could stop herself.
The flavor of the lettuce proved its look and smell were no exaggeration of its splendor. Sophie immediately wanted more, and a powerful craving filled her. She braced herself on one of the stones of the tower to reach for another leaf.
The stone sank inward, and the clean stones beside it moved of their own accord as if by magic to reveal an opening into the tower and a staircase leading up.
What treasures awaited inside?
“Sophie,” Gregor hissed, barely audible but preceded by his hand on her wrist, halting her from the step she had been about to take. “We are contracted for the flora alone. We must go.”
Sophie looked into Gregor’s eyes, brilliant blue in contrast to her brown, the only part of his face visible with his mask still up, and thought of all the hardships they had overcome since they met and fell in love as teenagers. She thought of how badly they longed to wed, but since they’d had nothing as orphans, they’d turned to the Thieves Guild to have something of a future and now lived as much at the mercy of Lothar as they did the Queen. But having enough to survive didn’t mean having enough for a wedding or a future outside the guild.
If they could find something to steal that Lothar wouldn’t discover, something priceless they could escape with, maybe even to the neighboring kingdom of Hallin, they could start over and finally bear the child they had been desiring for so long.
All previous attempts at growing a life inside Sophie’s womb had failed, and after five long winters of being barren, a new start might be the only thing capable of healing whatever ailed her.
“Sophie,” Gregor hissed again, softer, his eyes beseeching her, eyes she had so longed to see in the face of their babe.
“One look, my love, just one, and it could change our lives forever,” she said. Perhaps eating the lettuce had bolstered her with something powerful, perhaps ithadmade her immortal, and braver for it. She offered a leaf to Gregor, but he shook his head.
“We can’t. We have lingered too long.”
“We can. How much grander our wedding, how much grander ourlivesmight be if we find treasure Lothar never needs to know about.”
Gregor turned his head to look up the stairs, then back at Sophie. “Your face looks aglow, my love. You ate the lettuce?”
“I did. And once we have our true treasure and are safely away, so can you.”
Gregor remained skeptical but nodded. He had never been able to refuse Sophie anything. “Lead on then, but let us be quick.”
The stairs seemed to go on forever, winding up all five stories to the top of the tower with its lone window. The room the stairs spilled into was a single circular space. Besides the window, there was another door across from where they entered that they assumed led into a closet, for the tower could fit no more within it.
