Don’t look at me like that.His gaze was painfully heavy, even more painfully tender.
“Even if you gave him a room,” he said, “it gave him no right to the castle.”
Please.
It had the melody of logic, but the dark corners of my mind did not want to hear music. I curled in my chair again, wrapped around my silent violin. Beast said nothing else, but he stayed with me in the dark.
I sought out the fairy. She danced to the fence, stood before my chest, her eyes level with mine. She had emotionless, solid blue eyes, but she smiled like a human.
“Are you ready to make a wish?” She cocked her head, blue hair floating around her as if suspended in water.
“I’m considering. Tell me first—can you make me forget?”
“Make a wish, and you will see what is possible.”
It was no wonder even a wise Wolf could fall victim when there was no way to test the ground.
Suppose I forgot only to meet him at some future day. He would have every advantage. And without knowing why I stayed, I would leave the safety of the castle. It was foolish to even consider.
But suppose I wished to go back in time. Would that claim my memories as well? Suppose I’d already wished it, and without knowledge of what was to come, every mistake and every pit of spikes had ensnared me just the same. Perhaps this was the fifth time I’d stood before the fairy and wished to turn the sun back to a day before Stephan.
“Why did you turn Andre into a beast? What was his wish?”
She only smiled. “Do you wish to know?”
“Do you enjoy toying with people?”
“I only grant wishes. What you wish for is yours.”
“I’m sure he didn’t wish to be a beast.”
“Did he not?” She reached out to touch the fence post, and the gold gleamed brighter at her hand. “Beauty, of all people, knows the weight in a word. Be ever so careful of the words in a wish.”
“Can I free him?” I swallowed. “Can I free him with a wish?”
I thought she would tell me to wish and see.
But it was worse.
“No wish may be undone by another. Only by—”
“Completion. I remember.”
Completion of what? Of the wish? Of regret? Beast had some kind of out through a marriage agreement, a cruel corner.
“Something other than marriage,” I said. “Please. Anything.”
“To each wish is its completion, and no other may do.”
I smacked my palm into the fence post, shaking the fairy loose. She stepped back.
“It isn’t fair!” I shouted. “He made a wish, but it takes someone else to get him out? It isn’t fair to him.”
If no one said yes, he would live in that lonely castle forever. The kindest heart in humanity would be lost.
“No one lives isolated,” the fairy said, unmoved. “Existence is a chord, every life a note. Wishers and granters and all between. Will you now wish?”
If I couldn’t help Beast with a wish, I could at least help my family. Reverse their fortunes.
