Rosalind's Arc

Chapter 1 of 4

Rosalind counted seven suitors on the lawn before breakfast, and she could not tell which of them had a soul. That was the trouble with faerie season. The court sent charming men through the rose gate every spring, and one wrong yes at the altar would hand her spirit to the fae for keeps. Her mother had warned her before the snow came: choose the wrong mouth to kiss, and you belong to them forever. She wanted true love. She wanted it enough to keep testing for it, even now, with iron pins hidden in her sleeves and cold tea going colder on the garden table. The first suitor lifted her hand and smiled too evenly. She pressed an iron pin against his knuckle. His skin did not flinch, but his shadow did — it pulled back half a step from hers. Glamour. She sent him away with a curtsy and a lie about a headache. The sixth was worse. He spoke of her eyes in a voice like honey warming. When she offered him tea, he took the cup without touching the iron spoon. Rosalind smiled and marked him in her head as one more thing wearing a face. By the seventh, she was tired. He was plain. He stepped on the hem of his own coat. He drank the tea, spoon and all, and burned his tongue. He apologized twice. "Sit," Rosalind said. "Please." She was about to ask his name when the hedge shivered and a small blonde girl fell out of it onto the gravel. The girl stood, brushed her apron, and looked at Rosalind as if she had been expecting the lawn to be somewhere else. "This isn't the garden," Alice said. "I opened a door and it put me here. Your suitor is lying about his shoes." Rosalind blinked. "His shoes." "They don't touch the ground," Alice said. "Look." Rosalind looked. A finger's width of air sat between the suitor's polished boots and the grass. His plain face did not change, but the tea in his cup began to steam again on its own. Behind him, from the rose arch, a second girl stepped through — barefoot, pale hair full of small flowers, one hand pressed flat to her chest as if holding something in place. Rapunzel. Rosalind knew her only by rumor: the tower girl, born of light and singing flowers. "The flowers went quiet three days ago," Rapunzel said. "They are quiet around him too." Rosalind stood. She drew the longest iron pin from her sleeve and set it on the table between herself and the suitor. His smile stayed. His shadow did not. "Leave my garden," she said. He left without a sound. So did the other six, one by one, peeling off the lawn like paint. Rosalind sat down hard. Two strange girls stood in her roses, and every honest suitor she had ever tested was gone. She would have to look for love somewhere the fae could not follow her.