Once Upon a Time: New Fairy Tales Paperback(83)

Hushed giggles threaded into the dark with curls of dead candle smoke and the hissing of drowned lamp wicks. When he was close ? 254 ?

? Cory Skerry ?

enough to see a glow of yellow light, he could also hear gossip about a budding relationship between kitchen scullions. Just before he announced himself, one of the girls turned in profile, tucking a curtain of dark hair behind her ear. Justus’s heart leaped.

It was the cheerful laundry girl.

Justus would have given anything at that moment to look like himself: his hair brushing his brow, his face bare of makeup, at least wearing some trousers. He couldn’t bear to speak to her dressed like this.

The laundry girl reached up, turning the wick on a wall-mounted lamp, and Justus held his breath so he wouldn’t curse. Ragged scars snaked up from her bust and over her shoulder, disappearing down her back. Her ruined skin looked like the wood around the doorknob to Monster’s sitting room.

The other girl had only one arm.

Justus lost himself for a few moments, a cyclone of rage spinning in his chest. His hands tightened on his skirts, and he had to talk himself out of stomping into Monster’s room and stabbing him with the cutlass that very instant.

He could at least accompany the girls to their rooms, even if they didn’t know of it. If Monster showed up and attempted to savage them, Justus could draw the attention to himself. Justus was humiliated by how easily Monster had charmed him into forgetting the very atrocities that brought him here in the first place.

The girls, who called one another Pia and Annike, made their way to the northern wing of the castle. When they opened the door into the northern hall, Justus could see a line of candles, so he knew their work wasn’t done. But when he caught up to them, Justus found the door bolted from the inside. His hairpin was useless.

Defeated, feeling cowardly and alone, Justus returned to his rooms.

He no longer felt torn about the murder he must commit. It wasn’t that there was nothing good about Monster; it was that there was also evil.

Justus would be sure his friend didn’t suffer.

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v

“Will you want another week, mistakenly thinking I will eat you when you finish?” Monster asked at breakfast.

“Ha! I’ve seen the lard you call food,” Justus said. “I’m too lean for you.”

In answer, Monster passed Justus a plate of croissants slathered in butter and sweet frosting.

Justus loathed how easily he fell into their banter, how much he enjoyed it.

“Why don’t you laugh aloud?” Monster asked. “You sit there and quiver like an angry porcupine. The first time, I thought you were dying.”

“I don’t want anyone to know what it sounds like,” Justus said.

“Why not?”

“I don’t want anyone to know that, either.”

“Can Anyone see their sculpture, now that the lazy artist has had so much time?”

Justus shrugged. “If Anyone has a gift for me.”

Monster motioned to Valfrid, who brought forth a long parcel.

They cleared a place on the table, and Justus peeled away the cloth wrapping to reveal what might have been the most marvelous bow ever made. Dark-stained wood in an elegant, swooping curve, smooth and perfect, with a lightly padded grip measured exactly to Justus’s hand. The arrows, fletched in shades of yellow and white, came in a variety of lengths and points, one for any animal Justus stalked.

“Thank you,” he said quietly. Tears burned behind his eyes, and he rolled everything back into the cloth it came in.

“Will you reveal your masterpiece in the library today?” Monster asked.

“First I should show Rigmora,” Justus lied, hoping he didn’t see Rigmora at all.

He needed to prepare himself by walking through the hall with its macabre masks. He must remember Gudrun and the mutilated servant girls.

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v

Justus tore the sleeves from his dress. He didn’t have any men’s clothes, so he was going to have to kill in this. At least he could cut away the parts that might trip him. He’d learned that lesson on the side of a cold mountain. Justus hacked off the skirt with his cutlass, leaving it scandalously high.

The garters holding up his stockings showed, and he allowed himself a grim smile at how foolish he must look.

Next he turned the blade to his hair, sawing painful handfuls off until it no longer trailed down his back, and only a few thin wisps remained in the periphery of his vision.