Devoted, Snow thought bitterly as she slipped into the garden and tried not to think of it as running away. She only needed a moment to breathe, a moment apart from the miasma surrounding him.
Snow went deep into the foliage, where none might stumble upon her by accident. She paused near her favorite pond, all covered in thick green lily pads with fat frogs perched upon them. Iridescent dragonflies soared back and forth, alighting here and there, and weeping willows hunched over the water, trailing their leaves.
Snow huddled into the secret shadows under the trees, twisting at the ring on her finger though she knew it was fruitless. The metal looked like silver, though it didn’t behave like any ordinary silver she had ever known.
As she twisted it the ring bit harder, its teeth pushing under her skin until blood welled up and Snow cried out.
“It won’t come off that way, though I expect you already know that.”
“Mother!” Snow said.
She ran to her stepmother, who stood still and weeping at the edge of the pond, her hands twisted together in grief.
The Queen folded Snow in her arms and they cried together, for she loved Snow as if the girl were her own daughter, and she had been the only mother Snow had ever known.
After the storm of weeping passed, they went under the tree again and sat together in silence. The Queen put a finger over her lips to show that Snow should ask no questions. With her other hand she pantomimed Snow dipping the hand bound by the terrible ring into the water.
Snow wondered at it but she obeyed, because her stepmother knew many things that Snow did not. The Queen had been born in an enchanted land – some of the enchantment clung to her still – and she could sometimes make little miracles happen.
The moment Snow put her hand into the pond she felt something shift and quiet. She had a strange sense that the eye inside the ruby had been blinded.
The Queen read the expression on Snow’s face, for they were close in heart if not in blood, and nodded.
“Sometimes water can subdue magic, though it is only a temporary reprieve. As soon as you take it from the pond the ruby’s eye will open again.”
“So it is spying on me,” Snow said. “I thought it was, though I nearly forgot after it bit me.”
The Queen nodded. “This Prince has powers even I have never seen. He cast his spell on your father so quickly and completely that I never had the chance to stop it, or even soften it. But I know that if your father were awake, and himself, he would never consent to this marriage.”
“But he is not awake, and not himself. And my three brothers are all away on affairs of the kingdom. There is no one to defend me from this wolf in our midst.”
“We shall have to do what we can, for all that we cannot wield a sword against him,” the Queen said grimly. “I would not have you harmed. And he does mean you harm. There can be no mistake about that.”
Snow nodded. “I can feel it. Though I don’t understand why, or why he came here for me in the first place. Or even why his charms don’t seem to affect you or me.”
“He came for you because of the same reason he cannot affect you,” the Queen said, and stroked Snow’s hair. “Your mother had a little enchantment in her, too, just a drop, and that drop was passed on to you, her lastborn child. It is not enough for you to weave spells, but enough to defend against them. Enough to keep the net that he casts on all others away from your eyes.”
Snow was surprised to hear of the enchantment in her mother, though not as surprised as she ought to be. I must have known, somewhere deep down. I must have felt it. Besides, it doesn’t matter now. The only thing that matters is that the prince wants me for it.
“If my power is so little then why would it interest him? Surely a man with magic like his would want a true enchantress as his wife, one who could pass the gift into his bloodline.”
The Queen tapped her fingers against her knee, as if contemplating if she should tell Snow what was in her mind.
“Whatever it is that troubles you, you should tell me,” Snow said. “I may not be married to him yet, but I am well and truly bound to him now.”
The Queen sighed. “It is only a rumor, nothing more. When I lived in my own land I heard stories of this prince’s father. They said that he had many wives and each one disappeared, never to be seen again. But it cannot be true, for if the princesses of many lands vanished then there would be outcry. Their fathers would march upon the kingdom, demanding to know the fate of their daughters. So this part cannot be true, not really.”
“Not really” means it might be true. It really might.
“And what is the other part of the story?” Snow asked.
“When this Charming arrived I sent out a messenger in secret to the prince’s land. Since he was so unknown to us, I thought it the best thing. The messenger only returned last night, though he rode there and back with all the haste he could manage. He told me that Charming has been married before, and that his first wife died. The prince, of course, has neglected to mention this.”
“Did the messenger say of what the wife died?”
“Childbirth,” the Queen said.
“But you do not believe this,” Snow said.
“There is no child in the prince’s household, though I suppose it might have been stillborn. And no one saw his wife after she went into his castle. Not even once.”
Snow felt a chill run over her skin. “I can’t let him take me.”
“I don’t think we have any choice about that now. He will marry you and you will go with him, because you cannot refuse without causing a war,” the Queen said.
“I wonder if that was what he wanted, really,” Snow said thoughtfully. “He did bring a very large army for a prince who claims he came to court a wife.”
“My messenger said that Charming’s country is not fair, or even close to it, so mayhap you are right. We have many more resources than he. But I don’t think he intended to leave without you, in any case, whether he gained you by fair means or foul. It is the way he looks at you.”
“Yes,” Snow said, and trembled. “I see the way he looks at me.”
“But I will try to do what I can. First, we must remove that spy from your finger. It’s already swallowed some of your blood, so the charm is well-fixed, but we might be able to poison it into releasing you.”
The Queen patted Snow’s knee and said, “Wait here.”
She went away into the garden and returned with an apple, a beautiful round red one, irresistible in its charms. From a fold of her gown Snow’s stepmother took various small vials.
“Did you think you were going to have to free me from an enchantment this evening?” Snow asked, surprised that the Queen had all these items at hand.
“I was hoping to poison the Prince, but I never had the chance. He is very careful with his food, you know.”
“Yes,” Snow said. “That boy who stands at his elbow tastes everything.”
“It was never a very good plan to begin with, I confess, only a desperate one. If he suddenly died of poison in our castle then his troops, who mass outside our gates, would surely have attacked.”
“So you’ll poison me instead?” Snow asked, watching her stepmother drop various liquids on to the apple.