Tear You Apart (35 page)

“
No
,” she said. “There has to be a way. We still have all of tonight.”

“You can’t be gone all night. Your prince will look for you.”

“Well, I’ll make it so he doesn’t find me.”

“I want you to take my cloak. Get out of here. If this is it for me, then you might as well—” He stopped and looked at his closed hand. “Something’s happening.”

Henley uncurled his fingers. The three twigs had rolled together in his fist, and now they stayed that way, melded. Viv leaned closer and saw that the gold, silver, and diamond twigs were intertwined, and the metal and diamond leaves were reforming into the teeth of a key.

A delicate gold-diamond-and-silver key, so fine it looked like it would snap inside a lock if you tried to use it, the same way the branches had snapped off the trees.

But magic objects—like Cinderella’s glass slippers, and Rapunzel’s braid—were never as fragile as they appeared.

“Damn,” Henley said, still staring at the key in his hand. “Should we try it?”

“Not until the princesses are back in their bedroom. You have to lock them out of the underworld, not into it, and I doubt that key will hold up to multiple uses.”

“No … probably not. So I’ll leave it till the last minute—”

“And see if it works. Yeah.”

They both breathed heavy sighs. Viv felt jittery.

“Put it away,” she said. “Don’t lose it.”

Henley tucked the key into an inside pocket of his tux. “I just want to try it already.”

“I know.”

They stood watching each other, both nervous.

Viv bit her lip. “So … congratulations. This is big for you.”

“If this works, I get to keep my head.”

“That’s not what I meant. But yeah, that, too. Priorities, I guess. Heads before hos.”

Henley sighed. “Viv …”

“When you pick your princess … just don’t pick a stupid one. And don’t call her Viv when you’re making out. Girls hate that.”

“Remember that heart someone drew on my hand? That you hated?” He took her left hand in his. “I hate this more.” She felt a tug on her engagement ring—a small jerk that pulled it over her knuckle, then one more light scrape before he got it off her finger. Her hand felt suddenly naked without the heavy clawlike band.

“Henley—” She reached for it instinctively, but he was
taller, faster—and had a better throwing arm. She was still jumping for it when Henley sent her ring sailing over the treetops, toward the lake. She pictured it hitting the silver water, sinking to the bottom, and coming to rest inside the rib cage of some long-dead suitor.

She held out her ringless hand. “Like that won’t be suspicious.”

“I have something better for you to wear.” He moved to drape the cloak over her shoulders—and she darted out from under it.

“Are you crazy?”

“If that key breaks the curse, I don’t have to worry about showing my face on the surface. I can go back. And I want you to go with me.”

“We don’t know that it’ll work. And anyway—”

She felt like a six-year-old trying to run away from a boy who wanted to drop a frog down her shirt. He wouldn’t let up with the cloak. He was determined to make her wear it. And she was determined not to.

“Stop!” she said. “I’m not taking it!”

“Why? Do you want to stay here? Do you want to be miserable? If this is about punishing yourself—”

“It’s not. Why don’t you think about yourself for once? Even if the key does work, right now you’re still in the underworld—you still have to get out. And if anyone sees you—the guards, Jasper, his brothers … They. Will. Kill. You. So you need to wear that cloak until you’re back in the princesses’ bedroom. I don’t care how much you want to protect me. You don’t get to do that.
I
get to protect
you
.”

“You are so difficult,” he muttered.

“Excuse me if I don’t want you dead. Anyway … there’s still something I need to do here.”

“Swim to the bottom of the lake and get your engagement ring back?”

“No.” She made a face at him. “I need to find Jasper’s father’s name. And destroy him.”

“Uh—
why
?”

“He has a Rumpelstiltskin curse. He rules this place with an iron fist. No one will stand up to him. He steals babies and raises them to be his slaves—”

“What kind of place is this?”

“Exactly. I need to find his name and put an end to it all. I think maybe I can do it. He’s afraid of me. He wouldn’t threaten me if he wasn’t afraid.”

“He’s threatening you? You are
not
staying here.”

There was no compromise in her expression. She needed him to know she was serious. “We can’t both get out of here tonight. The difference is: If the guards see
me
in the underworld, they’ll go about their business. If they see
you
, they’ll cut off your head. It’s not that hard to decide which one of us should use your cloak.”

He sighed, brow furrowing in that frustrated way that made her think he was giving in. “How much time do you need to find this guy’s name?”

“I don’t know. I guess … I’ll be able to let you know … when I get it right.”

She watched him fight with himself: his hands in fists, head bowed, feet rooted to the ground. He didn’t want to die, and what she’d said made sense. But it didn’t change the fact that he didn’t like it.

When he finally looked at her, his dark eyes were full of
loss. “I don’t know how to walk away from this. I don’t know how to walk away and leave you here.”

“Henley—”

“I came here to make sure you were safe. But you’re
not
safe. So how can I leave you?”

She didn’t know what to tell him. Nothing she could say would make it hurt less, or make him doubt himself less. She put her arms around his waist and hugged him with all her strength. A hug so tight it said,
I’m with you. I’m here. Nothing can tear us apart
.

“I love you,” she said, he said—laced together. They held each other, and they were one person against the world for a little while longer.

She could hear the rhythm of his heart, his breathing, the wind-chime whisper of the trees, and then—the crunch of shoes on sand.

“Cloak,” she whispered. “Someone’s coming.”

They broke apart, Henley donning his invisibility cloak as Viv turned to see who’d crept up on them. She narrowed her eyes; the lanterns that lit the forest were sparse this far from the lake, and shadows filled the spaces between the trees. She didn’t see anyone. Maybe her eyes passed right over them. It was hard to say.

“Hello?” she said. “Is someone there?”

She took a step in the direction of the club—in pursuit of the witness, at first—and then another, and another, until she was firm in her decision not to turn back—not to run and throw herself into Henley’s arms one last time. Neither one of them wanted to leave the other; that had been their strength and their weakness, always.

But she couldn’t risk exposing him. Couldn’t keep arguing, giving him a chance to convince her, making it more likely that he would be caught.

She had to let him go. Had to
make
him go.

Even though walking away, keeping him safe, seemed crueler than anything she’d done to him before. Because they hadn’t really said good-bye. They were supposed to see each other again. But that hinged on the hope that the key would work, that Henley would still be in love with her, and not his princess, a month from now, a year from now—if that was how long it took her to find the troll’s name.

And if not, then it had ended when she walked away. Without warning, or last words.

Everything depended on the key.

CHAPTER FORTY-THREE

VIV HAD GONE TO THE KITCHEN in the hours between partying and dawn, and made herself coffee with the intention of staying awake until the following night—when the princesses’ door either opened, or proved itself sealed forever.

Until then, she couldn’t sleep, wouldn’t sleep, didn’t want to sleep. She sat surrounded by books, hunting names on every page, coffee carafe listing on her bedspread as she wrote. Caffeine rattled in her veins like turbulence. The pen was jumpy in her hand, and gave every word wings and jutting peaks.

She wasn’t sure what time it was when she heard the key turning in her lock. But she knew she didn’t want to see anyone. She definitely didn’t want to see Jasper.

He sauntered in with his hands behind his back. “Did you enjoy yourself tonight?”

“That was locked,” she said, going back to her books. “Don’t open the door when I lock it.”

“I asked if you enjoyed yourself.”

“I’m asking you to leave.”

“Not yet. I brought you a present.”

His hands had been clasped behind his back. Now he threw something in her face: a jagged rectangle of gray cloth, slippery to the touch, stained with blood.

One half of an invisibility cloak.

“Don’t try to use it,” Jasper said. “We cut it up so it doesn’t work anymore.”

Viv pushed it aside, to keep her hands from holding it too tenderly, fearfully.…

“I don’t know what this is,” she said.

“You told me he was dead. And I believed you.”

The footsteps she’d heard. Whoever it had been … they’d told Jasper.

Or it had been Jasper standing there. Watching them through the I-love-yous and the long embrace.

“Surprised?” he said. “I know I was.”

He got away
, she told herself.

They got his cloak, but he ran
.

“I thought we were both trying to make this work. I thought, at least, that I didn’t have to compete with your Huntsman anymore. So to find out your dead lover’s alive and you’re only staying here because you want to destroy my father, well—
that
was eye-opening. I guess you fancy yourself a hero, and not just a spoiled bitch.”

She flung the coffee carafe. It hit the wardrobe instead of Jasper, bounced, and barely splashed him. He wiped the drops away with the back of his hand.

“Throw your tantrum,” he said. “I don’t care if you’re pissed at me.”

“Get out!”

“Would you say it means I loved you if I gave him a head start? Not that it mattered in the end. The guards are good at catching intruders. They enjoy meting out punishment. It’s probably the only release they get.”

Viv held the cloak to her face and inhaled—afraid she’d catch a hint of cigarette smoke, or Henley’s skin. Something that would tell her it was his. But there was only the smell of the underworld. Wet stone. Blood and silver.

“You’re lying,” she said. “This could be anyone’s.”

It could be Henley’s—but it wasn’t. She wouldn’t let it be.

“And I’m
not
staying. You can’t keep me here.”

“Can’t I? Where are you going to go? The bottom of the lake for one last kiss?”

She pushed past Jasper out of the room and he didn’t try to stop her. He shouted: “You, kissing a dead boy—how ironic! But you can’t revive him. You can’t do anything!”

His taunts followed her as she ran from the palace, and as she stumbled through the forest she kept hearing him—
you … can’t … do anything
.… All the way around the lake, until she was panting so hard her breaths drowned out that inner voice. Her throat felt like it had been scraped with a dull knife and there was a pain in her side like someone had stabbed her.

She’d known, when she ran, that there would be no escape. The doors to the surface were closed at this hour. But she’d let a desperate hope drive her. As if her defiance and anger could create a way out, the way Rapunzel’s tears could heal her prince’s blindness. But Viv wasn’t pure of heart like that, and the tears that poured down her cheeks didn’t have magical powers.

“I hate this place!” she screamed. “Let me out!”

… out …

… out …

She felt like the underworld was mocking her with each echo.

You … can’t … do … anything
.

The shadows didn’t shift to reveal a secret door. No kindly fairy appeared to dry her tears and make her dreams come true. But she wasn’t alone.

“Why are you crying?”

Viv turned to see who had spoken, and found a woman sitting in the forest, facing away from her. She was dressed in a blue-and-yellow Snow White costume—the Disney-inspired dress found in countless costume shops, complete with curled black hair and a red headband. The woman was dressed for the
Fairy Tale
theme night, but the club had closed hours ago.

“Are you lost?” Viv asked. It wasn’t the kind of thing you said to an adult, but something about the woman struck her as childish. Maybe it was the props scattered around her: a stuffed fawn, a hand mirror and comb, a fake apple covered with red glitter.

“Lost? Always.” The voice seemed darker, tragic somehow, and Viv took a second look. She remembered those glittery apples. As light as puff pastry. Dusting her hand with red sparkles when she held them. Her stepmother had used them as Christmas ornaments once.

“Regina?” she whispered.

The girlish Snow White turned around, and Regina’s face smiled back at her. Berry-red lipstick. Porcelain foundation.
Her pupils as wide as if she’d dripped poison into them.