A Grimm Curse: A Grimm Tales Novella (Volume 3) (18 page)

Chapter
2
3

“Thou, queen, art fair, and beauteous to see, but Snowdrop is lovelier far than thee.”

THE GROUP STOLE PAST THE messenger pigeons, which Cynthia quieted with a word, and to the roof hatch that Mona had left propped open. They wound down the servants
’
'
staircase, the air getting warmer and smelling of fresh bread the closer they got to the kitchen.

“Do you know where the mirror is kept?” Mona whispered.

“The small downstairs library,” Cynthia said.

Mona nodded. “There’s no servants
’
'
entrance directly into the room. The closest one is the wom
e
n’s powder room across the hall.”

Cynthia nodded and followed the woman through a honeycomb of passages that wound and dipped through the walls of the castle. On the other side of the stone walls, muffled clangs, voices, smells, and the rush of water were all signs the castle was beginning to stir. She and Rapunzel would be missed soon.

Mona paused behind a door that look
ed
just like all the others and held up a hand. She eased it opened, peered in, and waved them through. The baby in Jurgen’s arms was awake now, sitting content in his father’s arms and taking everything in with wide eyes.

The room was a pale pink monstrosity with silk wallpaper, delicate settees, and mirrors on every wall. It was more of a sitting room than a bathroom, meant for the women who attended the balls to primp and preen between dances.

“I doubt this is what the men’s room look likes,” Jack said, taking in the luxury and gaudiness with a single turn, his goose still tucked under his arm.

“Straight across the hall?
”
Cynthia asked Mona.

Jack’s mother nodded. Cynthia flipped up her hood. “I’ll be right back,” her disembodied voice said before she slipped out the door, closing it carefully behind her. The hallway was deserted. She took three steps across the plush carpet, eased one of the tall double doors open
,
and peeked in. Cathedral shaped windows lined the walls. In between the windows dark mahogany bookcases took up the rest of the wall space. A desk of massive proportions squatted in the middle of the room. Hardwood floors at a high polish were under thick rugs… but no mirror. She took a turn around the room, peering under the desk and running her hands along the shelves. Nothing.

She stood invisible in the middle of the library. A room full of people hiding in the wom
e
n’s bathroom were counting on her. She refused to believe her mother had given her bad directions. There was something she was missing.

Murmuring drifted to her ears. At first she thought the noise was coming from the bathroom across the hall. The baby had started crying or the goose kicking up a fuss. She followed the undertone of noise, circling the room again. The murmur got neither louder nor softer, but she could
tell
from the timbre of the voices it was a man and woman speaking.

Frustrated, she leaned down to yank the hem of the cloak from under her foot again. She hoped hemming
it
wouldn’t do anything to the magic, because she couldn’t continue using it like this. The murmur grew a little louder.

She knelt and pressed her ear to the floor
.
, flipping the rug out of the way.
It was definitely louder here. She flipped up all the rugs and ran her finger along the smooth seems of the joined wood. She sat back on her heels, frustrated. She ran her eyes up and down the dozens of bookshelves. The second time through, something did catch her eye. One shelf was slightly crooked, one side higher by about half an inch. Not much, but noticeable if you were looking carefully.

She unloaded the books onto the floor and lifted the shelf off its crooked pegs. The back of the bookshelf was smooth and unseamed. There was nothing strange or out of place. Cynthia huffed in frustration. She was close, she knew it. She relaxed her eyes and let them wander around this section of the bookshelf. She put her hand on the shelf above the removed one and pulled on the spines at random. No hidden catches, no false books; plenty of dust though. She rubbed her dirty fingers on the cloak. Lady Wellington would never have let the staff get this lazy.

Wait. She ran her finger over the books on the very bottom shelf. No dust. Excited, Cynthia started unloading books from that shelf and—yes! The false bottom popped out. A tunnel of stone with a ladder leading down was concealed in the bottom of the bookshelf. A warm light, like a candle, flickered below. Cynthia didn’t bother going down. The voices floated up to her, soft, but clear.

“Tell me, glass, tell me true. Of all the ladies in the land, who is fairest, tell me, who?”

Cynthia had only heard the voice once or twice, but it was unmistakable. Queen Gisela, Wilhelm’s mother. The words she spoke sent a chill down Cynthia’s spine. The mirror must be below.

“Thou, queen, art fair, and beauteous to see, but Snowdrop is lovelier far than thee.”

The second voice was unfamiliar. It was light with a musical quality. It also seemed to be stuck in last century’s dialogue. Beauteous? And who says thou anymore?

“You see?” the
q
Q
ueen said, calm, quiet, and deadly. “It’s been saying that for weeks. She’ll only grow in beauty now that she’s leaving childhood behind. With the feast over I want you to take her away into the woods. I never want to see her again. Understand?”

“As you wish
,
my queen,” a deep voice rumbled.

Cynthia furiously reconstructed the bookshelf and backed into a corner where she would be sure to be out of the way. She waited, but no one appeared from the hidden passageway. She hurried to the center of the room and pressed her ear to the floor, but the room below was quiet. There must be another way in and out of the concealed room.

She went to lift her hair off her neck but ran her hands into the hood. She’d forgotten about the cloak. Why did she have to overhear a plot to murder a spoiled princess? Why couldn’t she just walk into the library, straight through the magic mirror, and out of this mess?

She ran back across the hall, closing the door to the wom
e
n’s bathroom and throwing back her hood to find both Jack and Jurgen trying to calm the goose and the baby and keep them from making a lot of noise. Mona looked frantic and Rapunzel like she was about to throttle her.

“Where’ve you been?” Rapunzel asked.

“I’ve got to go.” Mona wrung her hands and glanced at the servant’s door. “I’m expected in the kitchen. If I’m late it will raise suspicion.”

“Go ahead. Just tell me where Snowdrop usually is this time of day,” Cynthia said.

Mona gave her the directions, squeezed Jack into one more desperate hug, whisper
ed
ing
something in his ear, and left the room with tears trailing down her cheeks.

Jack looked forlorn and lost. He ran a hand over the goose’s head, and tried to look immune to what was going on around him.

“Rapunzel, I need you to get everyone into the library. There’s a secret passage in the bookshelf. The mirror is below. Take these.” Cynthia slid her feet out of the shoes and held them out to her friend. “If I’m not back in half and hour, go ahead with out me.”

“You’re being a little dramatic,” Rapunzel said, shaking her head at her. “What happened? You were gone for a long time.”

“The queen is planning on murdering her stepdaughter,” Cynthia said. “I can’t just leave knowing
—”
—“

“Go,” Rapunzel said, taking the shoes and nudging Cynthia back toward the door. “We’ll wait for you.”

“Half an hour,” Cynthia repeated. “I don’t want you caught
—”
—“

“Just go,” Rapunzel said, exasperated.

Cynthia disappeared back under her hood and slid into the hallway. The thick carpeting squished comfortably between the toes of her bare feet. There was a way to get there through the servant’s stairway, but this route was more direct. Time was short. The more they hung around, the more likely she and Rapunzel would be missed from their cell.

As it was the hallways buzzed with servants, and even invisible, Cynthia had a difficult time avoiding them. The sun was well up now and she was trying to remember when they were brought breakfast yesterday. They could sound the alarm any second.

She stumbled on the hem of her cloak and almost tumbled into a ladie
’
s maid with a full breakfast tray. She went over the directions Mona gave her in her head. Did she say turn right at the third or fourth hallway? Cynthia gambled on the fourth, counting down the doors until she found the sixth one on the left. She studied the non-descript white door. It could be the princesse
’
s
’
rooms. She pressed her ear to the door, but heard nothing. She eased
it
op
en
.

The room was dim and empty. Neatly made bed, curtains drawn, nothing but the most bland landscape paintings on the wall. This was a guest room. She must have taken a wrong turn. She closed the door, and hurried back to the main corridor to backtrack. It must have been the third turn, not the fourth.

Coming down the corridor, one
more
of
servant
s
Cynthia glimpsed that morning
didn’t make an impression
on Cynthia
, but the woman she had in tow did. Princess Marcella glided along the
O
riental carpets like she belonged there, her face a mask of indifference.

Making a split
-
second decision, Cynthia changed directions and followed her at a distance, making sure to step lightly even though she was invisible under the cloak. She really didn’t have time for a detour, but her curiosity refused to be denied. Perhaps she just wanted to make sure Remi’s loyalty to the princess wasn’t misplaced. Was she really on their side? It was awfully early for her to be at the castle.

The maid paused in front of a set of double doors flung open wide. She curtsied and announced Marcella to someone in the room. The person was hidden from Cynthia’s line of view. She edged closer to the princess as she curtsied to the hidden figure. Cynthia’s blood ran cold as the small sitting room came into view. The one person she could have gone the rest of her life without seeing.

Marcella had an early morning meeting with Prince Wilhelm.

2
4

“Just the usual demands of royalty.”

“
YOU’RE UP AND ABOUT AWFULLY
early,” the prince said. He was dressed casually in slacks and a morning coat. He held a curled letter in his hand, indicating a messenger pigeon had delivered it. The frown that had been directed at the letter was still hitched on his face when he looked up, but he managed to plaster on one of his charming smiles for Marcella.

“What did you expect, dangling the promise of a royal wedding in front of me?” Marcella said with a coy smile. “Any progress with the bride-to-be?”

Wilhelm’s smile didn’t falter, but his eyes flicked toward the letter once more.

“Is anything the matter?” Marcella asked.

The princess’s acting was good. Cynthia couldn’t decide if
Remi
had sent her to check and see if she had gotten away, or if Marcella really was here at the crack of dawn to see if the prince had broken Cynthia’s spirit yet.

“No,” the prince tossed the letter on a nearby side table. “Just the usual demands of royalty.”

Cynthia almost gagged at his superior tone. Had she really considered marrying him as a possible option?

“Let’s go see if a night without a pillow and blanket and no breakfast has changed our little
caged bird’s tune,
” Prince Wilhelm said, offering Marcella his arm.

The princess never made it to Prince Wilhelm. The plush carpet rolled and recoiled. The princess pitched sideways and Cynthia immediately crouched down, trying to keep her own balance. It took a second for her brain to catch up with what her body already knew. It must be an earthquake.

“WAKEY, WAKEY!” a
voice boomed overhead. It was as if the words were being broadcast by loudspeaker directly into Cynthia’s brain. “YOU’VE GOT SOMETHING
OF
MINE IN THERE.” The castle shuddered again. Cynthia gave up trying to stay on her feet and clutched at the carpet.

Her scrambled brains were trying to make sense of the rocking floor and booming voice.
Remi’s
comment from the night before broke through the clutter.
Her son has gotten himself in quite a bit of trouble, with a giant if you can believe it.

Jack. The giant. She had to get them out of here.

“What is that oaf doing, banging my castle around!” the prince fumed from where he clutched the doorframe.

If anything was going to be done for Snowdrop, she was going to have to trust Marcella.

“NO USE HIDING, JACK. I CAN SMELL YOU,” the voice bellowed.

“Who is Jack!” the prince screamed at the ceiling.

Taking advantage of his distraction, Cynthia flipped her hood off, reappearing on the floor of the sitting room. Marcella, slumped close to her, whirled in her direction. Cynthia put a finger to her lips and pulled the hood back up disappearing again. Marcella’s expression of shock was enhanced by her perfect lips in
an ‘O’
of disbelief.

Cynthia crawled to her side and placed her lips close to her ear. “The queen is plotting to kill Princess Snowdrop.”

Marcella jerked at first when Cynthia’s voice drifted out of nowhere. But when she processed her words her
face hardened
. It was a face that was grim and unsurprised.

“If you can take care of that, I’ll get Jack out of here.”

Marcella may not have known exactly what was going on, but she hesitated only slightly before she nodded, her eyes on Prince Wilhelm.

“I’ll figure something out,” she whispered. “Go.”

Cynthia lurched to her feet.
S
he snagged the curled up letter on the side table and stuffed it in her pocket as she staggered into the hallway, the floor still galloping under her feet. There was something about the letter that reminded Cynthia of the first night of the feast when she’d found Prince Wilhelm on the tower with the messenger pigeons.

The giant was now singing, “FE, FI, FO, FUM!” happily above the castle. Cynthia raced down the hall, bouncing off the walls every few feet as she was thrown around. Down stairs, around corners, she fell, giving herself a bad carpet burn on both hands. She kept going.

Had it been half an hour? What if Rapunzel had already left? She flung open the door to the library and stumbled to the bookshelf. The secret passage was already exposed. She flung herself down the hole, almost tumbling off the ladder. The air was cooler down here, dank and musty. Flickering candlelight greeted her. She threw off her hood.

In a small, cellar like room, the castle continued to sway, dust sifting down as the stones groaned around her. In the dim light Cynthia glimpsed low wooden tables with deep, iron pots and leather bound books laid out precisely. Strange diagrams were chalked on the walls and dried herbs reached their spindly stalks from the ceiling like fingers.

The six foot tall mirror was floating several inches off the ground. It took up an entire side of the small room. The silver frame was a heavy, ornate thing that looked at home in a castle. A soft light glowed from the smooth surface.

She spun in a slow circle. The shaking castle stilled as her shuffling feet resonated around the tiny room, making it feel too large.

They had left without her.

Cynthia leaned on one of the wooden tables, her legs finding it difficult to support her weight just now. She checked the room again, like they might be hiding somewhere, but the sudden departure of the giant confirmed it.

They’d actually left.

She had told them half an hour. If she’d been in Jack’s shoes with an angry giant tossing the castle around like a toy, she may have fled too. But for Rapunzel to strand her here…

Cynthia bowed her head, resting it on the table while she tried to pull herself together and make some kind of coherent plan.

She had nothing.

She turned to the mirror again. Tucked underneath the frame, in the dark shadows of the cellar was a small lumpy object. She tilted her head and crept closer until she was on her hands and knees, ducking her head and reaching for the thing.

Hope revved in her chest when her fingers touched a familiar object. She pulled one of her shoes from under the mirror. Tucked in the toe was a note written in haste with
a handwriting
she would have known anywhere.

I hope one works just as well as two. Follow as soon as you can.

Cynthia laughed in pure relief.

“Tell me glass, tell me true,” she whispered, reaching a hand to the milky surface.

“This is an interesting turn of events.”

The voice hit Cynthia like a slap. She could have gone her entire life without hearing it again.

She turned like someone was wrenching her head around.

He lounged in the shadows that clung to the edges of the room. Stone ground on stone as the concealed door he’d come from slid shut. There was obviously a shorter
path
to this room than the one she had taken.

He
slouched into the faint light of the mirror, his hands in the pockets of his perfectly tailored pants and gave her one of his charming smiles. There was no warmth behind it.

“I come down here hoping to ask the magic mirror about the giant that seems intent on shaking my castle to pieces, and instead find you.”

Cynthia didn’t answer him, but scrabbled behind her trying to feel for the mirror without taking her eyes off the prince.

“How did you get out of your cell?” Prince W
ilhelm mused, fixing her with a
tight smile, his gaze dancing across her face as if the secret were written there. Why, why, hadn’t she just kept her hood up?

He shook his head in mock disappointment as he took another step toward her, close enough his expensive cologne prickled her nose.

Cynthia’s fingertips found the mirror frame. She shuffled back until she pressed against the glass, which was soft and pliable against her spine.

A silent prayer sighed from her lips as the prince reached for her. She clutched the shoe in her hand and threw herself backwards.

A brief glimpse of the prince’s
dumbfounded
expression was all she got before the slight resistance of the mirror gave way, and she was falling.

Her head hit the floor hard enough it bounced and her vision darkened for a second.

Before her sight cleared, someone tugged on her right foot, dragging her across the floor. She picked up her head enough to take in the simple wooden standing mirror she was half in, half out of. Instead of her reflection, there was the prince,
fury
warping his handsome features, as he tried to drag her back into
Elorium
. Cynthia shrieked and kicked, the heel of her
bare foot
catching him on the temple. He lost his grip on her and an unknown pair of hand yanked her away from the mirror. Her feet slid the rest of the way through. The image of the prince vanished. The
mirror blinked
white before reflecting a terrified Cynthia sprawled on the floor with Rapunzel still clutching both her upper arms.

“You sure know how to make an entrance.”