Violet Amethyst's Arc

Chapter 2 of 9

Violet stopped one step from the corner table. The shadow prince did not look up. His black hood hid everything but the pale line of his jaw. She wanted to charm him, but she knew nothing about the curse folded around him. One wrong word, and he might vanish like the last fairy who tried. So she did not flirt. She sat down across from him and said nothing. The silence stretched. She reached into her bag and set a small vial on the table. Royal purple dust swirled inside the glass, glowing soft in the dim room. "It's mine," she said. "Fairy dust. I'm not hiding what I am." She pushed it toward him. "I heard a fairy came to you once and disappeared. I don't want to be a mistake you make twice. So tell me what I'm walking into." His hand froze above the vial. For a long moment he studied the glowing purple light. Then he spoke, low and rough. "You should take that and leave Dawnfrost tonight." But he did not get up. That was the first sign she read right. He was warning her, not fleeing her. "I've spent three weeks finding you," Violet said. "I'm not leaving over a warning I don't understand." A chair scraped behind her. Kai dropped into the seat at her side, jacket creaking, blue eyes locked on the prince. Her childhood friend had followed her north because he never let her face danger alone. "If she stays, I stay," Kai said. His voice was calm, but his hand rested near his belt. "So make it worth her time. What happened to the last fairy?" The prince's jaw tightened. He looked from Kai back to Violet. Something in her steady green eyes seemed to break his resolve. "Not here," he said. "Too many ears." He rose and pulled his cloak close. "There's a place I go to be alone. Come at dawn. Come only if you truly mean to know." He gave them directions to an old glass conservatory outside the town, its frame swallowed by climbing roses. Then he was gone through the door, and the cold rolled out behind him. Violet grabbed the vial and held it to her chest, heart pounding. She had done it. She had not made him vanish. She had made him agree to talk. Kai stared at the empty doorway. "You realize he's leading us somewhere private, alone, to explain why fairies die around him." "He's letting me in," Violet said. She could not stop smiling. "That's more than anyone gave me in three weeks." "That's what worries me." Kai stood. "We go together, or we don't go." Violet nodded and slipped the glowing vial back into her bag. The prince had not run. He had opened a door instead. At dawn she would walk through it, straight into the truth of the curse she needed to survive.