Once Upon a Time: New Fairy Tales Paperback(84)

Justus had forgotten to have Rigmora help him out of his corset, but it might be better this way. It was tight, so it wouldn’t snag while he shot, and he could tuck the other two arrows in the front lacing, like a quiver.

It was time.

Justus stepped into the library doorway, his weight bent to accommodate the bow, a bear-killing arrow nocked and ready to fly.

Would an artist render this grand moment some day? If so, Justus knew it would be wrong. The artist would clothe Justus in a hunter’s garb, perhaps even a noble’s. Not a corset and the tattered remnants of a skirt, garters, and stockings. The Justus of the painting would have a beard and no lipstick. And the Monster of the painting, Justus knew, would be the snarling beast he had failed to carve.

The real Monster was already there, crouched on all fours before Justus’s worst sculpture. Justus wasn’t used to working on such a large scale, or with unfamiliar instruments, but Monster was admiring it with a focus that should have been reserved for a master.

“Do you like it?” Justus asked.

“I was wondering when you were going to stop torturing your voice like that,” Monster said, not looking up.

“How long have you known?”

Monster smiled, still studying the lines of the sculpture. “I asked ? 257 ?

? Castle of Masks ?

that Rigmora check your body for further wounds, and she was surprised to find you healthy in places she didn’t even know you had.” Monster laughed, then continued. “I love the carving. If you really were going to kill me, I should want it over my grave.”

“I’ll carry it there myself,” Justus said, his voice breaking. “I wish I didn’t have to do this, Monster. I truly call you friend, and despite this betrayal, I’ll never lie: I loved you.”

“If you call me friend, stay your hand but a moment. I promise I’ll not move from this spot,” Monster said.

“Agreed,” Justus said. He blinked rapidly, shepherding tears away to keep his vision sharp. His arm ached with the need for release, and so did his heart, but he would let Monster have his last words.

Monster reached under his neck and in one fluid movement, he pulled his head off. It fell back like the hood of a cloak, revealing a breath-taking young woman with a face the color of spring petals and eyes like the sky. The laundry girl, Pia.

The rest of Monster was now only a cloak, and she casually tossed it over the statue, clad in a plain shift and woolen stockings with holes at the toes.

Justus fell to his knees on the rug, setting the bow aside and staring. Was she a witch? Enchanted?

“As it happens, Karin,” Pia said, “You’re worse at playing assassin than you are at playing girl. I killed the Greve five years ago.”

“He came to me, in the night,” Pia said, blowing the steam away from her gleg. They sat on the sofa in the library, alone but for the crackling fire.

“I sharpened the curtain rod on the stone under my bed, because after the first time I knew I couldn’t stand it again. I poked a hole in the blankets, and when he came near, I harpooned him just beneath his ribs.” When Justus’s eyebrows rose, she nodded. “Yes, those wounds are from me. Just as these are from him,” she said, rubbing a hand over her left shoulder.

“The Greve howled and tore at me, but I was quick. When I ? 258 ?

? Cory Skerry ?

ducked through the door, he tried to leap after me, but the curtain rod stuck across the frame, and I ran up into the attic while he tried to maneuver through. I knew he could follow the trail of blood, but perhaps if I found a small enough space, one where he couldn’t reach me, I could hide there until he bled to death.”

She spoke matter-of-factly, as if it was something fifty years ago rather than five. She was still too young for lines on her face, but he could see where they would appear: creases at the corners of her mouth, in her dimples, and at the edges of her eyes, which half-mooned when she smiled.

“I waited until nightfall, crammed into a dusty nook in the north tower, before I ventured back to my room. He’d died there, unable to pull the rod free—but I didn’t find the beast. I found a man wearing a cloak.

“I knew better than to put it on, but I had an idea. My grandmother once said you could summon a witch if you hold an item of hers and call to the north. That night, I woke to an owl scratching at my window. When I opened the window, I found the witch in the courtyard. She was a strange and beautiful woman, with white hair longer than she was tall and billowing gray robes.