The Castle Behind Thorns by Merrie Haskell Page B

cry disturbed the falcon on the mantel; the bird shot up with a flurry of wings and perched in the rafters, shooting Perrotte a baleful look for the disturbance. She wanted to yell at Merlin, but she bit her tongue. The anger inside her felt endless, and she didn’t know how she would stop yelling if she ever started. And the falcon hadn’t done anything. Perrotte was the careless one who broke things in a place that could take no more breaking.
    She stooped to pick up the pieces of the bowl, fighting back hot tears. A few slipped free nonetheless. How was she going to tell Sand that she had broken something that had been nearly whole?
    She took a deep breath. Sand wouldn’t be angry. Or disappointed. Or anything bad. He was kind, understanding. Her tears receded as suddenly as they’d come on—not because she remembered Sand’s kindness, but because she remembered how Sand had been so upset when she mentioned his strange abilities. It was obvious, wasn’t it? He was gifted in ways that a normal boy would not be. She didn’t understand why the magic was so hard for him to talk about. It wasn’t like he’d been dead or anything. That was hard to talk about.
    She heard a comforting sound in the distance: clang, clang, clang, ring . Perrotte set aside the pieces of the broken bowl and headed for the door.
    Clouds obscured the stars above, to Perrotte’s dismay. She worried that her nap on the kitchen’s hearth meant she wouldn’t sleep at all that night—and now there were no stars to watch. She hurried on, cursing the clouds and trying to believe she would fall asleep and stay asleep through the whole of the night like a normal person. Like a girl who had never died.
    Inside the smithy, Sand stood at his anvil, shaping metal effortlessly. Before she had a chance to see what he was making, he plunged the metal into the ashes piled beneath his forge.
    When he saw her standing at the door, he banked the fire, put down his tools, and went up to the keep.
    They barely spoke, but nonetheless he climbed the stairs to the Count’s bedchamber with her. He didn’t argue about where to lay his head that night, to her relief.
    After she blew out the candle and rolled onto her side, she did not have to reach far into the dark for his hand; this time it was there, on the corner of his mattress, waiting for her. He said nothing and she said nothing, as his warm fingers twined with hers. She gave a relieved sigh, and quite easily fell asleep.
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    B UT SLEEP DID NOT last for long. A dream woke her, or a memory: an anguished voice that cried, This wasn’t gentle .
    She didn’t want that memory. She pushed it behind the door in her mind.
    Perrotte wondered how close dawn was. Without stars or moon, she couldn’t be sure, but she didn’t think she had slept more than an hour. She was wide awake, no longer tired—and yet, she had been exhausted when she climbed into bed.
    Maybe—just maybe—she couldn’t sleep because she had slept for twenty-five years or so, while her friends grew up and had children and—in some cases—passed away. Twenty-five years of death might function like twenty-five years of sleep.
    A sleepless night and a starless night were an ill-matched pair, as far as Perrotte was concerned. If there were stars out, she might dare the tower just to be closer to them, even if it meant braving the memories of her death. As it was—remembering how she died was almost as hard as remembering what it was like to be dead, though for different reasons. The memories of being dead were there, though sort of shrouded in darkness, but remembering what it was like to die . . . that would hurt.
    But hurt how? Would it be hard to remember the physical pain, or was there something more?
    It was odd, to be able to ask these questions of herself, and yet not conjure up a single memory to answer them. Perrotte imagined the door in her