“You can turn,” he whispered.
I would find more truth if I did, truth I couldn’t sweep out.
Nevertheless.
I turned so slowly it felt unnatural, the deliberate creep used to avoid startling a frightened child. I kept my eyes on the path first, for both our sakes, so I saw first that he did not wear boots. They would not have fit his feet, bent as they were like an animal’s, built for powerful leaps to take down large prey.
With that same slowness, I raised my eyes.
He must have worn his purple velvet suit as I wore my plain dress, with stubborn devotion, and that was enough to almost make me smile. It wasn’t so bad—he wore a suit because his shape was mostly human, with the expected torso and limbs, even if they had unexpected claws and joints. Without boots, his pant legs hung loose below his knees. There was white lace trim on the hem and cuffs of his jacket.
In the direct sunlight, his fur was a rich hickory brown, not black, and it covered any skin that would have otherwise been visible—his feet and hands, his neck and chest where his suit hung open without an undershirt.
And his face.
He tensed as my eyes met his, drew back a full step.
For a moment, I thought he would bolt, so I whispered, “Don’t go.”
I remembered his voice saying the same to me when I’d first come to the castle.
I’d heard a legend of werewolves once. It was not a tradition in our country, but nevertheless, it was what came to mind. There was certainly wolf in his pointed ears and muzzle, in his large round eyes and black nose. His fangs were visible in the tiniest spot of white beneath his slightly parted, tensed lips. It must have been hard to read aloud, hard to speak. Yet he did it for me.
“Alright,” I said. I didn’t know what else to say.
Then he disappeared. One moment there, the next only empty path and flowers nodding gently in the afternoon breeze. I supposed he’d shouldered my gaze as long as he could bear.
And just as I’d expected—
It was impossible to go back.
Beast did not come to the library the next afternoon. I waited to hear his voice, pausing more and more often until I couldn’t even finish a full paragraph before I was checking for his presence. I finally reached up, but all I felt was the smooth wood of the chairback. When I peeked, the space behind me was empty, not even his stool.
For a few moments, I just stared.
Then I set my book aside and climbed the stairs to those massive double doors that wouldn’t open for me.
I knocked. Pitiful. Barely a sound against the wood, absorbed in the density of two massive doors that could have admitted giants, yet it left my knuckles red. I knocked harder.
“Beast,” I called out. “Can I ... come in?”
The sconces along the hallway trembled. I’d thought everything in the castle had finally adjusted to me, but this was only my second visit to this particular landing.
He’d told me he had the duties of a prince to attend to, and I’d brushed him off. My cheeks reddened now to think of it. How many times had I been brushed off the same way? Whimsical Beauty. Who was I to judge a strange prince?
Royal responsibilities in an empty castle seemed ridiculous, but so did a gold rose, so did a blue fairy.
With purpose, I cleared my throat and stepped back. Squaring my shoulders as evenly as I could, I curtsied to the guarding doors.
“I seek an audience with the prince,” I declared.
Just like that, the doors split, impossibly silent despite their size, like everything in the castle. As they swung inward, the air snaked between them and caught my legs with reaching fingers, pulling me forward.
I stepped into an immense, cold room, lined on either side by white pillars and vaulted arches with braided stonework. The gray ceiling was higher than any other in the palace, chandeliers dangling above every second arch.
But the true light in the room came from the windows, and I gasped. Instead of the golden sunlight that usually spilled through the tall glass, it came in every color, as varied as the flowers in the gardens—diamonds of blue and green, squares of yellow and purple, angled petals of red, all jumbled together and stretched across the white floor like a tumbled basket of fruit.
I walked through the center of the room, extending my arms to see the color paint my skin. The windows themselves created pictures from the color, vibrant images of royalty and what must have been angels, all lining the path that pointed to a throne on a raised dais.
