Chapter
12
Where Stephan’s ghost had been temporarily banished, now it lurked in every shadow again. I expected that, at any moment, the castle doors would swing open to admit him, and when I turned, I would see his gleaming eyes.
Even music could not calm me because my fingers clenched the notes and the bow held all the weight of my anxiety.
“Beauty, what’s wrong?” Beast asked. He had his own armchair now, next to mine, but with distance enough that he couldn’t reach me.
I did not uncurl from my violin. Instead, I mumbled into its side, “Read me a story?”
He turned to our favorite book of folklore, and as he read the story of the three undefeated princes and the wily plough boy who tricked them in their own arena, I tuned out the details, listening only to the rumbling growl of his voice. It was music enough.
“Royalty is always foolish in these stories,” he observed.
“Because these are stories for the common man.” I sighed, unable to lift my head. “And we are envious.”
Had he been envious when he made his wish? Had he traveled the world to find a fairy only to have it trick him into becoming prince of an empty castle?
I did not even know where he called home.
“Before Andre Wolf was a pirate and a cabin boy ...” I swallowed. “Who was he?”
Beast gathered his thoughts in silence, and I felt no urge to rush him. He would speak when ready; he always did.
“He was born by a river,” he said at last, “that led to the sea.”
I asked no questions, just listened. Andre was the son of a fisherman, his father a good man who provided for his family until an ambitious voyage and a late-season storm ended his life. I thought of my own father’s lost fortune and the men who had drowned along with it. Ours was not the only family to have been ruined. Andre’s mother, a strong woman by the name of Henriette, provided for the family in whatever way she could.
With every word, my chest ached. We were shoulder-deep in truth, and I felt the thorns.
Andre’s only sibling was his older brother, Bastien, who should have been the rock of the family. Instead, he was as unsatisfied as the tides, imagining there was a fortune to be had in this venture or that. Each foundation his mother worked so hard to secure, he overturned in a gamble until she could bear it no longer, and after an exchange of harsh words, her eldest left home for good. If he ever found his desired fortune, he never sent word or brought it home.
In Bastien’s shadow, I saw Astra.
Beast fell silent until I asked, “How old were ... was Andre?”
“Twelve when Bastien left. Close to sixteen when he followed.”
“How old when he faced Orla the pirate queen?”
“Nineteen.”
I raised my head. Judging by maturity alone, I would have guessed him Stephan’s senior. But Stephan was Callista’s equal in age. Andre was only a year advanced from me.
I smiled.
“I’m eighteen.”
“Ah”—his nose twitched—“the age at which you seek the fountain of youth. It’s a big year for you.”
It was indeed.
“Did my cabin boy seek a fountain of youth when he left home?”
Beast looked away. “Of a sort.”
I almost spoke again but caught my tongue, pressed it against my front teeth. Silence was as important as speech during our conversations. Beast would not compete with me to speak. If he had more to say, it would remain unsaid if I spoke first, and I never wanted a single one of his rare, fascinating words to go unheard.
