A Tale of Beauty and Beast: A Retelling of Beauty and the Beast (Beyond the Four Kingdoms #2)(10)

The contrast indicated that someone had clearly prepared for my arrival. I remembered the line of lights that had led me to my room. What sort of strange curse was this? Was the castle itself responsible for its own care? I shook my head at the fanciful thought. How could a magic building have fed and groomed my horse?

But the gloomy, shadowy castle, combined with the whispers all around me, fed the mad imaginings. Perhaps it had not been the curse that had warped the Beast’s mind; perhaps living here for so long alone had done it.

I shook my head. No. The Beast wasn’t mad—he had written coherent letters, after all—he was evil. He must be evil to have brought down such a curse upon himself. And I had seen the evidence myself in the cruelty of the events of the Princess Tourney. The Tourney he had called and that had, therefore, been magically shaped to fit him.

The darkness he had brought to these lands had nearly overtaken Marin—and all the other kingdoms still stood in danger. And yet here he sat, holed up in his strange castle, carelessly destroying the lives of innocent girls he had never even met.

If the castle was dark and terrifying, it had been he who had made it that way, and not the other way around.

What did the Beast do to curse himself and his kingdom? I wondered for the thousandth time. I shook off the thought. Filling my head with horrifying theories wouldn’t help me fix my projections or find the truth. I needed proof, and I had a whole castle in which to search for it.

After a while of aimless wandering, I remembered again that the lights had led me to my room. Perhaps a friendlier power dwelt here alongside the Beast. He had certainly shown no effort to see to my comfort.

“I’m looking for the tallest tower. Could you show me the way?” It felt foolish to speak the words aloud to the empty air, but it could hardly hurt.

I had no immediate response, and no candles sprang to life to lead me. But I soon noticed a strange phenomenon. When I moved toward the whispers rather than away from them, I seemed to find more open doors and staircases. I began to listen for them, and soon I found myself in an enclosed staircase that spiraled upwards.

As I climbed stair after stair, I caught glimpses through a series of small windows of what appeared to be a second staircase, somehow twisted around mine. And every time I passed the openings, I heard the whispers.

I tried to calm my breathing which kept speeding up despite my best efforts. The whispers appeared to be friendly, but the sound created the inescapable impression that I was ascending upwards in tandem with an unseen group of people. I shivered. I needed this to work. The familiar sound of Lily in my mind would drive away the eeriness of this empty castle.

But it took only a moment to discover that height made no difference to the wall that blocked my thoughts. I threw them out anyway, again and again. At first, I did it out of frustration, but then I began trying to pinpoint the exact feeling of the obstruction. I had never experimented like this before, and it was unexpectedly interesting.

I had always assumed that we had a direct connection and placed our thoughts straight into each other’s minds. But it now seemed more complicated than that. Clearly our thoughts traveled to each other. I focused on the sensation of my thoughts flying out from my mind. I felt the way they stayed connected to me, but at the same time I couldn’t shake an underlying unease.

I sat on the floor of the top tower room, put my chin in my hands and chewed on a strand of hair. After extended thought, I decided the discomfort came from the sense of being unanchored. My thoughts had always stayed attached to me, yes, but usually they also attached immediately to someone else. My sister. A tether on the other end. I now felt loose, floating in the world without foundation.

The whispers swirled around me, reaching a crescendo. For a moment, I thought I could make out individual words, but meaning eluded me. I shivered, unnerved, but then reminded myself that the sounds had helped me find my way. They had been friendlier than my betrothed, in fact.

A chuckle escaped me. I hadn’t even been gone from Marin a week, and I was already counting disembodied, inaudible whispers as my only friends.

“Not that I’m not grateful,” I said aloud. “In fact, I’d greatly appreciate it if you could show me the way back to my room.”

A low murmur surrounded me and then moved toward the door. I clambered to my feet and followed the sound. Sure enough, it led me down several flights of stairs and through a series of corridors and delivered me to my room. I smiled as I opened the door—I might not have broken through to Lily, but I had learned a small something of the secrets of the castle. And a particularly helpful something, too, given the size of the building, and its confusing layout.

As soon as my eyes fell on my bed, the smile dropped from my lips. The bed had been made and my possessions tidied, but it was the piece of parchment resting against my pillow that filled my heart with dread. I walked slowly over and picked it up.

You will join me for the evening meal.





The note hadn’t been signed, but the handwriting was easily recognizable from his earlier missives. The curt command made me tremble with rage. At every turn, the Beast was determined to strip away my freedom. I immediately determined not to go.



Several hours later, as I once again paced up and down my room, I doubted my decision. I wished I could consult Lily. My stomach had started reminding me that I hadn’t eaten since the morning. And when I had hopefully asked the room if a meal might be forthcoming, nothing had happened except a brief swirl of whispered noise. The murmuring sounded more distressed than usual, but no assistance appeared.