Rell

She hit the gas so hard my head slammed back into the seat. Then we swerved out of the parking lot, speeding down the road towards Bastien's house. I clutched the side door as Cat drove like a banshee set on fire. The food turned over in my stomach as we flew past businesses and houses and then onto the forested road that led to Bastien's house. Desperately, I tried to remember the rest of the fairy-tale.

Two princesses. One who wanted power. One who wanted love. Both cursed by the rose to become the Beast under the full moon.

She swerved up to the massive entrance, and I lurched back into the seat.

"Care to share what's going on?" she tapped the steering wheel with pink fingernails.

I swallowed, staring up at the house. "Cat... what was Bastien's mom like?"

Cat shrugged. "Kind of a cold bitch, always sooooo superior. Never really liked me and I returned the feeling."

"And did she and Bastien ever, sort of... disappear?"

Now she looked from the house back to me, surprise in her eyes. "Yah. She and Bastien always went on camping trips or hikes once a month. I could never spend the night then." Her eyes narrowed. "How did you know that?"

"Come with me."

Together we made our way upstairs, to the library room. I glanced outside as I did, at the sun now higher in the sky. The days were shorter here, with the coming winter. Bastien would become the Beast again in just a matter of hours, and when he did, the Realms would be fully opened. If we couldn't find him before then, and find the rose...

The book had been left on the table before the fire and I opened it now.

"The fairytale you read?" she asked, looking down at it in confusion. "What does that have to do with Bastien?"

I opened the book and stared down at the words, reading them with a sort of growing dread, picturing all the while that Bastien's mother was the younger princess. But as I read it, I realized something else I hadn't before. Something about the sailor...

... and James, the man from whom I had bartered for passage to the Human Realm.

"Cat," I said, tracing my hands over the words and then turning to her. "I bargained to come to the Dark Realm, with a single petal from the Blood Rose. From a man with periwinkle eyes, and one hand."

Cat shook her hand. "I don't understand."

I pointed to the page."The sailor in the story had one hand. And periwinkle eyes. And he was forever trapped between realms... until someone brought him a single petal."

"Let me get this straight," Cat said, taking a step back from me, voice incredulous. "You think Bastien's mom is a princess, who loved a sailor, the very same sailor you met and bargained with to come here."

It sounded crazy when she said it that way. I bit my lip and then turned back to the book, running a hand over the page. "It makes sense... She made a deal with the Blood Rose to come to a land without magic, a land where her sister could never find her. But too late she realized the curse of the Beast was real here. So she found a house deep in the forest..."

"And what about Bastien's dad?" Cat suddenly said.

I stopped, thinking, then slowly. "Does Bastien look anything like him?"

Cat paused, "No."

"And do you know when they were married? Was she already pregnant?"

Cat slowly shook her head. "I guess I never asked... I've never even seen a wedding picture of the two of them."

And suddenly I remembered something I'd seen in the library. "There was a love potion tabbed in one of the books. Maybe she came here, found a man and made him love her, married him for this house and his money... and then... and then..."

The trail stopped there though.

Even if Bastien's mother was the younger princess who'd fallen in love with the sailor with one arm, and she'd come here, then who had stolen the rose?

There was something I was missing. I started to pace, speaking slowly to Cat as I did. "Bastien said his mother was searching for the Blood Rose, but she's in some sort of enchanted sleep—"

"They call that a coma here."

"Right, a coma, so then it couldn't have been her who stole The Blood Rose."

"What about the other princess?" Cat said, the first hint of belief in her voice now.

I took a deep breath. "I have a theory about that... What if the other princess was Lorcan's mother, The Dark Queen. She was also trapped in an enchanted sleep." I paused. "And that would mean..."

" — that Lorcan and Bastien's are cousins," Cat finished for me. Then she rolled her eyes, "They're both thick enough sometimes. And they're both tall, dark hair, bad at communicating. It could make sense... I guess." She still sounded skeptical. I didn't blame her.

"One thing doesn't make sense," I said, thinking as I stared out the library window. "Both princesses were sent into enchanted sleeps. And someone stole the Blood Rose. But if it wasn't Bastien, and it wasn't the princesses, and it wasn't the sailor, then there's no one left in the story."

"Young always seem to overlook the old."

Cat and I both turned to the deep voice. The voice I'd heard before, and finally, finally, I put the last piece together. There was one other person in the story, one other royal. The Dark King.

"Dasan," I breathed out, as he stepped out from the other side of the hallway and into the library. Dasan, Bastien's grandfather, and the father of both the princess... which made him...

And then I sank to one knee. "The Dark King."

The only one I didn't consider in the story. The King who was driven out of the Dark Realm, and to the Human Realm.

He gave me a sad, tired smile. "Stand, Rell. I haven't been the Dark King for some time. 17 years to be exact."

Cat didn't have the same respect. She cocked a brow. "Dasan? King? I mean, no offence Dasan, but you ate pizza and watched Twilight with me last year."

"A strange and delightfully inaccurate film."

"Was it you?" I stood, staring at him in disbelief. "You took the Blood Rose?"

"I did."

The words rocked me back on my feet. This time my voice was laced with betrayal. "You put the existence of your realm at risk? Why?"

For the first time, I saw a hint of the King Dasan must have been. Foreboding. Powerful. I felt the power in his dark eyes, like a sudden drop in the temperature, or a sudden creeping chill against my neck. Then it disapeared, replaced by the tired smile of an older man. He turned to look out the window, staring out at the forest beyond, voice pained and slow. "When my youngest daughter came to me, carrying a child, we both feared for his safety. We were able to create a potion to let him sleep through the Beast, but without access to the Dark Realm, my magic slowly faded, and we ran out of the potion. I've watched my grandson tormented by the Beast, year after year. It grows within him, consumes him. It nearly killed my daughter, his mother. There is no predicting the forest, or the magic. Yet one night as I was walking in the forest, I found myself on a dark path I'd never seen before, The Blood Rose before me."

He paused, taking a deep, slow breath. "For the first time in years, the magic coursed through me. I took the rose, and placed both my daughters beneath an enchanted sleep that would keep them from becoming the Beast, so long as they slept." He blinked, and turned to me, his eyes kind again.. "And then, I arranged for a young Beast-Slayer— who was said to be the best in the realm, yet also merciful— to find passage to the Human Realm. I had hoped that together, we would finally find a way to break the curse." He lifted a brow, "But I had no idea the Beast-Slayer would end up figuring out who I was. I suppose you can't always account for cleverness"

I dropped my head in shame, unable to stand the pride in his eyes. "Not cleverness. Luck, and an old book. But it didn't matter. I failed you all. Bastien took hold of the Blood Rose. It turned him into a Beast."

"The sun would have ripped the Beast away from him." Dasan looked out the window. "At least until tonight. There is still time to find him and the Rose. Still time to close the Realms."

My eyes rose back to his, hope surging inside me. "Do you know where he is?"

Dasan nodded. "There is a place he goes, where we keep supplies for times like this. An old bunker deep in the forest." He hesitated. "It is where I sent Lorcan earlier today."

Cat spluttered. "You what?!"

Well, at least we know why Lorcan was acting so strange this morning.

Dasan shrugged. "Lorcan is the Prince of Darkness. He has lived in the Dark Realm all his life, protected the Blood Rose for many years. If any know how to break the curse, it is him."

Cat was saying something, berating Dasan for not sharing this with us all earlier, but all I could hear and think was his words: Break the curse. Dasan believes there is a way to break the curse.

"Can you take me there?" I cut through their conversation, speaking to Cat. She bit her lip, looking guillity at Dasan, and then nodded, face pale.

"Bastien took me there once."

"Can you get back?

"Yes... I think so."

Then I turned back to Dasan.

"Do you know where the Blood Rose is now? Or how it got under the school?"

Dasan shook his head, looking sad, and maybe for once, his age. "The Blood Rose is a living entity, and contains the soul of the first dark queen. I cannot control it." He paused, then swallowed again. "But it is vitally important it is found."

"And the curse?" I said to him. "How do we break that?"

He pursed his lips, looking out the sun sinking lower towards the trees. "If I knew, wouldn't I have done so already?"

"Come with us?" I said.

And once again, I saw it, that flash of darkness and power, gone as quickly as it came. He smiled at me. "This is an young mans game. Go. I will only slow you down."

Cat didn't need any more invitation: she grabbed my arm and pulled me after her. But it was only after we were in the car, speeding deeper into the forest, that I realized Dasan's final answer hadn't sounded wholly... complete. There was something he wasn't telling us.