Stray (6 page)

“I have no doubt that if Aislynn is not Redirected, she will follow Maris to a devastating end.” Adviser Hull took Aislynn's hands from her mother. She tried not to flinch as he leaned closer. “I hope you understand that this is for your own good. It is safer for everyone to prune you of your dangerous desires.”

It took all of Aislynn's strength to stay in her seat when she wanted to run from the room, from the castle, from the academy. But she would not be like Maris. She would not. She would not abandon the Path, even as her journey along it had changed.

“It is best for all of us if Aislynn leaves for a new academy in the morning,” Adviser Hull said, straightening and returning to the desk.

“In the morning?” the queen cried. She and the king exchanged a frantic glance.

Adviser Hull pressed his lips together, annoyed. “Her outrageous actions this evening should be enough to illustrate how quickly we must act.”

Aislynn's cheeks burned with shame.

“I assume you trust me.” Adviser Hull frowned.

“Of course, Adviser,” Aislynn's father said quickly.

“May we say good-bye to our daughter?” asked the queen. Her eyes were brimming with tears.

The adviser seemed to consider the request. “I'll permit it,” he finally said, and stepped to the headmistress's side. They stood there as if they were observing a staged play.

“Alone, if you don't mind,” said the king.

The adviser gave him a cold smile. “Of course,” he said, taking the headmistress's elbow. “Come along, madame.” The heavy door closed behind them.

A thousand apologies filled Aislynn, but she kept her lips pressed together, knowing that if she spoke, she would begin to cry.

“Oh, my darling.” The queen gently pulled Aislynn into her arms.

Aislynn rested her cheek on her mother's shoulder, breathing in the scent of her perfume. Orange and spices. Just as she remembered from when she was a little girl.

“I will accept the Path I am taking. I will not stray. I will not yearn for what I cannot have. I will heed the words of my adviser and guard my loving heart against cursed magic. Ever after.” Her mother's words were like a lullaby in her ear.

Aislynn's locket pressed into her breastbone, hard and unyielding. Her hands ached and her leg burned, but she welcomed the pain. None of it compared to the injury she had done to her parents by failing to control her wicked magic.

She knew this might be the last time she would see her mother or father. Fairy godmothers did not have parents. They belonged to the family they served until their death.

“We have to go.” Her father's voice was quiet as he embraced her, and then he too pulled away. Aislynn filled with panic—it hadn't been enough time. There were still so many things about her parents' faces that she had not yet memorized, so many things she had not yet said. But they were already leaving, her mother's head bowed, her father's hand resting on her shoulder. Before he left the room, the king glanced back.

“I'm sorry,” he said and shut the door.

A
islynn left a smear of blood on the doorknob. She could not remember leaving the headmistress's study or walking up the stairs to her room. A single candle burned on her bedside table, and a nightgown was spread across the bed. Tahlia had already been there. Did her fairy godmother know what had happened? Aislynn collapsed into a chair, her stiff gown crunching beneath her.

She looked in the mirror, and it took everything she had to keep from screaming at the reflection. The girl staring back at her was a disgrace. She was not a princess at all. If only she had tried harder, if only she had been better, if only . . .

With a trembling hand Aislynn began to uncoil her hair. Section by heavy section it fell. When it was all undone and curling across her shoulders, she took her handkerchief and smeared away the powder on her face. Then she reached for the many slippery buttons running down her spine. Unable to undo them, she gripped her dress in frustration and pulled. It took a few tugs, each more vicious than the last, but finally the buttons burst from their threads and scattered across the room.

“Who could ever love you?” Aislynn snarled at her reflection. The girl there was familiar again, cheeks ruddy and hair wild. Everything else had been pretend. She was a girl who wasn't meant for ever after. But even though her head knew this, her heart refused to accept it. Her foolish, loving heart. A heart that would soon be gone.

Suddenly unable to breath, Aislynn scrambled to undo the slippery laces of her corset, but the knots were too tight. She yanked open the drawers of her vanity, ignoring the pain in her fingers and the lines of blood she left behind. Underneath a pile of ribbons she found it—a small pair of scissors that Tahlia used to snip unruly threads. The scissors were barely longer than her pinkie.

Gritting her teeth, Aislynn began to drag the tiny blade across the silk laces, sawing at them viciously until they finally snapped. She pulled the stiff corset away from her body and threw it across the room. Kicking off the rest of her undergarments, she pulled on her nightgown, her ruined legs bare beneath it.

She slipped out of her room. The castle was silent. The ball had ended, and all the other girls were now tucked into their beds asleep, their heads no doubt filled with dreams of dancing and romance. Aislynn knotted her robe tightly and quietly made her way downstairs.

At the bottom of the staircase was a series of portraits depicting the tale of the four sisters. Aislynn kept her eyes down as she passed them, though she knew their story by heart. According to
The Path
, they had mistakenly believed their magic to be a gift, not the punishment it truly was. Each portrait represented one of the four brambles that could grow within a maiden and overpower her loving heart: selfishness, pride, arrogance, and vanity.

The sister who cared only for her own needs wore a ring and sat despondently in an empty room. Once proud of her masculine strength and power, another could barely hold a jeweled dagger in her crippled hand. Arrogant in her cleverness, one sister's lips stretched in a mad smile beneath a sparkling crown, while the fourth was painted facing away. Her vanity had transformed her into a wolflike creature, and her stove-black eyes were reflected in the mirror she held in her hands.

Aislynn knew this part of the story best. Using magic to make herself beautiful, the vain sister could have had any man she wanted. Instead, she used her power to steal suitors away from their true loves. But as soon as her beauty began to decay, revealing the monster underneath, her admirers abandoned her, and she was forced to flee to the woods with her ruined sisters.

Aislynn hurried through the dark hallway toward the kitchen. Somehow she knew her fairy godmother would be waiting for her. The lamp on the table was lit, and Tahlia was pulling ingredients from shelves, humming to herself. She didn't look up as Aislynn entered, but there was a sad little smile on her lips as she finished collecting the necessary items: bowls of varying sizes, a whisk, measuring cups, and a wooden spoon. A jar of cinnamon. A pinch of yeast.

There was a wonderful predictability to baking. Adding warm water and yeast to flour would make it rise. Dough was sticky and porous. Cinnamon always mixed well with the sugar, and no matter how careful she was, Aislynn would always get flour in her hair.

Before tonight's disaster, before Nerine Academy and before magic, Aislynn had learned how to bake.

And it was because of her fairy godmother. Tahlia was unusual, as fairy godmothers were assigned when a maiden entered school, not passed down from generation to generation. But Aislynn's magic had been too much for anyone else to manage.

Tahlia, as clever as she was unusual, always found ways to sneak Aislynn into the kitchen, even though it was against the rules. Each recipe Aislynn learned, she copied into a small, hand-bound book. Her favorite was the first recipe Tahlia had taught her: cinnamon bookbinder's bread.

Slowly the oven's heat began to warm the kitchen, and the bitterness that had filled Aislynn began to fade away. She lost herself in the careful measuring of ingredients, the smell of cinnamon, and the glorious blooming of yeast in warm water. She didn't even realize that her fingers had started bleeding again until a drop of red fell into the bowl, staining the white flour.

“Thorns,” she swore under her breath.

“Let me see that,” said Tahlia gently, pulling Aislynn's injured fingers toward her. She placed them between her palms and closed her eyes. Slowly Aislynn's fingertips grew hot, and there was a strange tickling sensation that fluttered over her. It was like magic, but it wasn't inside her. It was around her.

Tahlia released her hand. The cuts, the blood, and the pain were all gone. Aislynn stared at her fairy godmother, who just smiled serenely and turned back to the bowl.

There were very strict rules regarding how fairy godmothers could use magic. No one was unguarded. Not students, not teachers, and especially not fairy godmothers. Magic, no matter how controlled, was never to be trusted. But Aislynn said nothing.

Instead, she watched her fairy godmother bake. A swatch of red hair, lined with gray, had escaped Tahlia's wimple and was curling toward her temple. Against the purple of her uniform, the color contrasted pleasantly, reminding Aislynn of carrots and lilac.

She swallowed hard. Tahlia had always taken care of her. Now Aislynn would become someone else's fairy godmother. But she would never be like Tahlia. No, Tahlia was warm and safe, not cold and distant like the others. Like fairy godmothers were expected to be.

Tahlia glanced up, and Aislynn realized that she had been staring.

Her fairy godmother smiled. “It's quite comfortable,” she said. At Aislynn's puzzled look, Tahlia gestured to her uniform. “And it's long enough so you won't need to worry about hiding your legs,” she added gently.

Aislynn flushed at her own foolishness. She had done her best to hide her scars, but her fairy godmother was smart and observant. Of course Tahlia knew.

“Sometimes we need to keep secrets,” said Tahlia, and Aislynn thought of the other secret she was keeping. The dreams that haunted her sleep, of the forest and the moon. And the wolf.

A tear dropped into the dough she was kneading. “And if those secrets are dangerous?”

Immediately her fairy godmother was at her side.

“In my dreams, I'm in the forest and it's dark.” Aislynn's confession was a whisper. “And there's a wolf.” She watched Tahlia carefully. If she hadn't, she might have missed how her fairy godmother's eyes widened, if just for a moment.

“A wolf?” Tahlia asked, turning back to the bowl.

“It follows me. It has yellow eyes.” Aislynn twisted her hands together. “I know what it means. That my thoughts are wicked and impure. That I'm dangerous.”

“You shouldn't believe everything they tell you,” Tahlia said quietly, deftly shaping the dough into a smooth ball. She placed it in a bowl on the stove top and covered it. “Do you know why I leave the bread there?” Tahlia asked, and Aislynn shook her head, even though she did. “Because it needs heat to rise. Nothing matters more. You could have all the right ingredients, have measured them carefully and mixed them perfectly, but without warmth, you'll end up with a loaf of bread flatter than a plate. And while you might be able to eat it, it won't feed you.”

Aislynn was not sure that she understood. Tahlia's face, which was usually as open and clear as the sky in the summer, had clouded over.

“Tahlia?” Aislynn asked hesitantly.

Without a word, her fairy godmother swept aside the bowl sitting on the stove. It hit the floor with a muffled smash, their evening's work destroyed in a gust of flour, cracked porcelain, and sticky dough.

Startled by Tahlia's actions, Aislynn bent down and began to carefully pick up the pieces. Tahlia knelt next to her, face now sunny.

“Let me take care of it,” she said, and Aislynn understood this to mean that she was going to use magic once more. There was no doubt in Aislynn's mind that this was against the rules.

For a moment, the air was full of nothing but flour and silence. Then, like before, came the hum of magic. The bowl, now repaired and full of rising dough, was thrust into Aislynn's hands.

“Just remember,” Tahlia said fiercely, her grip firm on Aislynn's wrists, her gaze unwavering. “Never let them take what you're not willing to give.”