Astrid

I am numb. I am more than numb; I am completely and utterly...normal.

The whole town is gathered on the small hill by the side of the lake that stands guard between Ainsfrel and Portian, leading out into the great unknown seas by which my father and Sir Rotwell used to travel during their business trips.

Today, he also travels, but he is never coming back.

Wives, husbands, fathers and mothers and children wail all around me. They mourn for their losses, cursing the beast to the ends of the earth.

It is a good thing Kieran did not come with the rest of us through the mirror. I glance over and see my friends from the castle hiding in plain sight, blending in with the crowd as best as they can, though someone is bound to notice that they are not a part of this small ecosystem.

Beside me, Lady Tremaine weeps silently beside her husband, who keeps his head low in the hopes of being unable to catch a glimpse of the flaming boats on which they are sending our loved ones away. Perhaps he is in denial.

I do not know if I am in denial or grief, or if I have already accepted the inevitable truth. No tears well in my eyes. There are no sad thoughts. All I can think of is how far the boats might travel until they stop at a point where the frozen sea has not yet melted, how one child is tugging at her older brother’s hand before the boy slips her a piece of candy, how Katya’s black bonnet looks almost too gaudy. But it suits her, in a way.

When the boats travel far enough that they start to look like little ants on a chilled gray surface, more of the crowd disperses. Only the families and close friends of the three victims remain, but even then, they start to thin out.

Katya passes by me before she follows her husband further up the hill.

Her eyes, the colour of the sea before us, match mine. They are filled with wet sympathy. When I open my mouth, I find that I cannot say anything, cannot even thank her.

I do not need to. She takes my hand and squeezes it.

We nod at each other once before she trudges up the snow-tipped hill.

“I thought I did something wrong,” Lady Tremaine speaks for the first time that day. Her eyes are still trailed out to the sea. “I give him a sleeping draught sometimes, something herbal. To help him…” she sniffs. “To help him sleep past the pain, yes? I gave him one the night before he...”

I watch her rub at her red nose. Her husband wraps an arm around her shoulder.

“Who would have known.” She bursts into tears again.

Numb, numb, numb. Sir Rotwell holds her tighter. He reaches out to squeeze my shoulder. Numb, numb, numb.

“You can stay with us for the night, if you would like,” he offers kindly, not understanding my position. “Take a few days off work.”

I shake my head and find my voice. “I cannot. But thank you, sir.”

Lady Tremaine kisses me on the cheek. Sir Rotwell makes me promise to visit tomorrow. And then they, too, leave.

Bayorn comes to stand by my side. We stand in silence as we watch Imogen and Eli stroll up and down the riverside, pointing at things in the distance. How strange it must be for the boy to see all the other children, witness the outside world moving on its own while the rest of us remain frozen.

“Forgive my intrusion, my lady, but the hour is almost up.”

Isabelle flanks my other shoulder. The warmth of Bayorn’s arms against mine and her hand running up and down my other arm gives me the courage I did not know I needed.

“I will be right behind you,” I tell them.

There is something I have been clutching in my hands all this while, something I retrieved from the house before attending the funeral. My fingers nimbly unfold the crumpled white handkerchief Papa always used. I trot down the hill to the edges of the lake.

I crouch to touch the frigid water. Ripples amplify and then die off.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

A spot of my father’s blood still taints the middle of the handkerchief. The last remainder of my only family left – at least, the last of him I am willing to let go of. His inventions still fill the study in our old house, untouched.

The cloth falls from my hand like a leaf. The water immediately devours it, turning the bright red into a deeper, browner shade. It is carried a distance away by the current before it sinks deeper into the abyss.

“You’ve finally gone back to her, Papa.” Finally, my eyes warm. “Someday the three of us will be together.”

I stay still for far too long. At some point, I glance at my watch and rise to stand.

When I turn, Damian waits a few feet away.

His eyes are stoic. Rimmed with pink. I immediately forgive him for our last encounter.

“Hello, Damian.”

“Hello, Astrid,” he says in that sweet, sincere tone of his. “How are you…”

“I would rather not answer such an obvious question,” I say without trying to be curt.

He folds his hands behind his back and approaches. “Then may I ask you another question? And will you promise to be truthful?”

“When am I not truthful?” I try to crack a smile, but it falls short.

He does not succumb to my jest. Instead, he looks me dead in the eye and sighs, as if I have already disappointed him.

“Do you work in the old castle?”

If my heart were not so empty, it would jump right out between my ribcage. My lips part, but no sound escapes.

He takes this as confirmation to his suspicions. “I saw you the day after your father passed. In the woods, where our group scoured for the creature. You and your friends. Tell me – are there more of them there, or do only the five of you remain? People say the place is abandoned and haunted.”

Damian scoffs at his own words. “I suppose those are the kinds of rumors the wealthy allow, is it not? To keep wandering strangers at bay.”

He has found the castle, a voice in my head whispers in brief panic. He knows who my friends are.

But out loud I say with a steady tone: “I do not understand why you seem to be implying my status of employment is a crime.”

“Did I say that?” he raises a brow. “I only mean to inquire after your wellbeing. Who is your employer?”

“Someone you should not trifle with.”

“I see,” he steps forward. “Is it because he knows something about the wild beast’s whereabouts?”

My breath hitches in my throat. He takes one more step, and now his exhales brush against the bridge of my nose.

“What would be criminal, Miss Delacroix, is if you know something about the creature and nevertheless choose to withhold such information.”

“Why would I do that?” I spit acid, finally regaining control over the muscles in my leg to step backwards. “My father is dead because of it.”

“Why indeed,” he muses. “Why would you turn your back on your family? Your friends here? Your home? Lives have been lost because of it. Yet I cannot seem to be rid of the suspicion that your sudden disappearance from home has something to do with the sudden reappearance of the animal.”

About a million defences spring to mind. No, the beast escaped months after I entered the castle. You are just blinded by your disappointment at my failed promises. How could I defend the creature that took my father’s life? This is not my home anymore; not without Papa.

But all I can do is lift my chin as high as I can without having my lips quiver. In a hard voice, I tell him: “So this is the height of your kindness, Damian – to antagonize me while I mourn for my father. Do you expect my weakness to give way to the answers you want?”

To his credit, he does not reply.

I try to step around him.

He grabs my wrist before I can move past his shoulder. When he whirls around, his sharp inhale and stormy expression suddenly reflect his sudden outburst from the other day.

“You will listen, Astrid, and you will listen well -”

“Hey!”

In a manner of seconds, Damian is shoved roughly off me. We stumble away from each other.

“Paws off, bozo,” Isabelle squares up to him despite their jarring difference in height.

“Move, girl.”

Before he can push her aside, another figure steps in between them. I almost barely see him brushing past me. It is as if he has just appeared out of nowhere like a ghost, looming and quiet.

Damian and Kieran face each other off like two opposing forces of nature. Dark and light. Man and beast. Though I do not know, at this moment, who resembles which.

Kieran doesn’t need to say anything. Damian falters by a fraction, as if his innate human nature can sense the predator before him.

Damian curls his lip. “Who are you supposed to be?”

“Someone who knows what personal space is. I should like to have my employee back, if you will.”

Recognition dawns on Damian’s face. It makes me wonder if he has seen Kieran that day in the forest, too – vulnerable and weak. But he steps down anyway and tips his head in a strangely respectful greeting.

“Then I bid you good day, sir. Lady Astrid,” he bows to me. “Until next time.”

I don’t know why I curtsy in return.

Isabelle loops her arm around mine and practically drags me away to the top of the hill. A lump of gratitude wells in my throat at the realization that she stayed behind to wait for me.

When Kieran catches up with us, I glance over my shoulder.

Damian is watching us. A cold look clouds over in his usually-bright eyes. As if, like the bodies that were sent away to the sea, a part of him died in the past few years as well. He is not the boy I once knew.

His glare follows my back until we disappear over the hill. I step closer into Kieran’s warmth and force myself to breathe.