His measured silence between responses was a little less measured now.
“Then perhaps,” he said, “my queen will grant a reward.”
“Treasure?”
“A place in her crew.”
At first, I stiffened, but his voice was light, and he didn’t propose. We were once more in whimsy.
So I said, “Very well, Andre. I could use a cabin boy.”
He snorted. “Very gracious, Your Majesty.”
“Indeed. Now swab the deck.”
I’d pushed my first few inches through the thorns, and though my arms bled, the pain of truth was not the burning agony of trauma. This fire was a cleansing one, the cauterizing of a wound rather than the extending of it, and although I breathed the ache, for the first time, I did not breathe the smoke.
Chapter
11
Where Beast had once been near impossible to find around the castle, now he seemed to be everywhere I looked. If I was not in my bedroom, Beast was nearby. I found I not only didn’t mind but looked forward to the company.
The only time he did not accompany me was when I rode Honey, since he could not ride a horse himself. I rode Honey less and less often as the days went by.
On the rare occasions he was absent, I sought an audience in the throne room, and the doors opened to admit me. Together, we constructed the epic conflict of the peasants and the potatoes, which was eventually decided by cavalry attack, since peasants are notoriously weak against cavalry and potatoes are famously steady riders.
In the library, I played the violin for him, and we took turns reading. Now that he would let me see him, we could sit together at a desk, and I could correct his letters and pronunciation properly. He was not embarrassed by my coaching, and with gentle instruction, his reading skill increased quickly. He had a dedicated mind and did not abandon a task because it was difficult.
“If I am Whimsy,” I told him once, “you are Fortitude.”
He said, “Before long, we’ll have too many names to keep straight.”
“I can’t imagine what you mean, Andre. Now where is Beast?”
I called him Andre sometimes, cherishing the reminder of that afternoon when I’d rediscovered hope. I had gathered the wooden play swords, afraid they would disappear if I didn’t. His I kept in the chest at the end of my bed, but mine I wore belted around my waist. What a ridiculous image I would have made for society—a woman of age wearing a man’s belt and a child’s toy. But society could not reach its meddling fingers here. Not to our enchanted castle. And when I wore the sword, at times, Beast called me Orla, as if he cherished that afternoon the way I did.
Beast never pressured me for more truth, and he carefully kept his distance even when we shared a writing desk. It was a kind gesture, and I should have been relieved, but I found myself confused, because at times, I wished he would offer me his arm or sit closer at the desk rather than keeping a world of space between us. But I was also afraid if I told him as much, he would offer his arm and I would discover I couldn’t take it without panic. If I was a mess of confusion, better to keep it to myself.
But there was one thing I could not remain silent about.
Whatever enchantment was on Beast was a cruel one. It obviously pushed him to ask his question whether he wanted to or not. Now that I could see his struggle, my heart softened. He did not want to marry me, just as I did not want to marry him. If I couldn’t set him free, there was at least one thing I could give him.
“Whenever it pulls at you,” I said, “ask.”
For a while, he resisted, but eventually, he seemed to trust I was sincere. Besides, if it began to pull at him in earnest, the only way to resist was to avoid me entirely, and neither of us wanted that.
So he began to ask every evening: “Beauty, will you marry me?”
It was strange at first, an abrupt outburst in conversation, to which I would say, “I can’t,” and we would haltingly resume whatever we had been discussing before. But with each asking and each refusal, my anxiety eased by degrees until the question no longer brought me panic or unwelcome reminders. It became as normal as a remark on the weather:
“Is it always spring here?”
“Yes. The seasons exist only beyond the gate.”
“Better to see the flowers bloom, I suppose.”
“Will you marry me, Beauty?”
