A Mirror Mended (Fractured Fables #2)(9)
A flat look. “Quite. And if that book is to be believed, the people will get exactly what they want. You understand why I want out.”
And honestly, I do. I’ve spent most of my life trying to dodge the third act of my story, and the rest of it trying to save other sleeping beauties from theirs; I know exactly how it feels to find yourself hurtling toward a horrible ending.
The difference is what Dr. Bastille would call an issue of agency. I steeple my fingers. “Or—and I know this is a big leap for you—you could just stop trying to murder your stepdaughter. It would save everyone a lot of grief.”
The queen’s face flattens further, her mouth a grim red slash.
“Ah, I see. The chickens are already on their way back home to roost, then. How long has Snow White been in her glass coffin?”
The lips peel reluctantly apart. “A long time.”
“Bummer.” I throw the word at her with the same pitiless stare she gave me.
She doesn’t seem to find it as flattering as I did, because she says in a harsh monotone, “And do you know how my story ends?”
I elect not to explain about institutions of higher education and the department of folklore. “Snow White marries the prince who fell in love with a dead child in the woods—I mean, my story is yikes, but that’s double, maybe triple yikes—and they live happily ever after.”
“My story, I said.” Her lips twist in an expression that’s only distantly related to a smile and her voice acquires the stilted rhythm of recitation. “Then they put a pair of iron shoes into burning coals—”
“You don’t have to—”
“They were brought forth with tongs and placed before her. She was forced to step into the red-hot shoes and dance until she fell down dead.” She stares hard at me when she finishes, the lines on either side of her mouth like a pair of bleak parentheses.
I stare back, trying not to look grossed out. “Sure, yeah, the German peasantry liked a good comeuppance.” Or at least, the Grimms did. There were plenty of other stories floating around the European countryside at the time—weirder, darker, stranger, sexier stories—but the Grimms weren’t anthropologists. They were nationalists trying to build an orderly, modern house out of the wild bones of folklore.
“And you think that’s justice? That I should die dancing in red-hot shoes?” The queen’s voice is trembling very slightly, her fingers curling into the wooden arms of her chair.
“No, I mean, I’m not a capital punishment person—my mom’s into the prison abolition movement”—she’s into all kinds of activism these days, as if all the energy she’d been reserving to hate Big Energy on my behalf had been redistributed to every other modern supervillain—“but this feels like a ‘live by the sword, die by the sword’ situation, you know?”
The queen stares at me for a murderous moment, then closes her eyes. “Help me.” I didn’t think a whisper could sound so imperious.
“If I were begging for my life, I might add a question mark and a ‘please.’”
Her eyes remain tightly shut, as if she fears she will throttle me if she sees my face. “Help me, please.” She doesn’t quite manage the question mark.
I lean forward across the table, drawing out a long, vicious pause before I say, “Nah.”
The queen’s eyes fly open. Her face is so bloodless her lips look oversaturated, a little unreal. “Why?”
“Because I’m not setting an evil queen loose in the multiverse! Because somewhere in the woods right now there’s a little girl stuck in an enchanted sleep for no reason except your malice, your vanity.” I’m aware that I’m no longer playing it cool, that my voice is shaking with honest vitriol, but I can’t seem to stop. “She didn’t deserve it, she deserved to grow up, to meet a normal dude and live a normal life, to just live—”
I bite the inside of my cheek hard, but it’s too late. The queen’s eyes are alight, her smile small and red. “Oh, Little Brier-Rose, you feel sorry for her. Poor Snow White, so pretty, so pure.” She shakes her head, mock-pity on her face. “You think this is her story.”
The queen leans closer over the table, her lips peeling away from her teeth. “You know nothing, Zinnia Gray of Ohio.”
The first wobbly notes of mockingbird-song are rising and I’m getting ready to flip the food tray in her lap and make a run for it when there’s a hard knock at the door.
The huntsman’s voice comes clear and cheerful. “My Queen, a messenger has come from across our borders. You are invited to a royal wedding this very evening!”
* * *
THE ROOM GOES very still, except for the shallow sound of the queen’s breathing, the tick of her pulse in her throat. The two of us sit like awkward statuary until the huntsman prompts doubtfully, “My Queen?”
Her throat makes a small, dry rasp as she swallows. “A wedding,” she repeats.
“Yes, Majesty. This very evening!” The huntsman is afflicted with exclamation points too. “Shall I give the messenger your answer to his invitation?”
“Not … yet.” The queen is paling, wilting before my eyes. She looks suddenly much younger, and it occurs to me for the first time that every queen was once a princess.