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She rubbed her long bony fingers, a sound like branches rasping together in the wind, and grinned up at hireasy curtain of her hair

“You think I am so wicked, don’t you? A monster Unnatural How cruel of rand about To hold back the doom I keep in store for you and tease you about youryou all this for a reason, you curdle-brained child Didn’t you ever have a tutor? I a dead, dull history—so that you will understand why your feet carried you here instead of towards some other broken old wohter’s neck Don’t keep looking at me with that sa, not even your e? It would certainly save breath, and at e every breath is named and nuures in that scroll of sighs, boy; do not testthe accounts of her lungs “And never assuly and behaves unfavorably towards you It is unbeco behavior for a Prince”

She slurped her tea noisily When she spoke again, her voice had softened froer point to a smooth, hand-warmed pommel

“But I can see that you are in pain, and that is the province of reat furrow in the earth If it is ih to very rudely interrupt a wo just to exhume those old bones, I will listen to you instead It o easier for you if you come to feel warmly towards hts the world has ever made ahead of us Speak of the dead in the dark, boy, and I will take her body from you, if you want to be rid of it”

The Prince looked up at her, hunched as though whipped, his ribs creaking within hih chipped by thousands of tiny blades He could not breathe, his heart slaainst his chest, his throat flamed He wanted to tell her what he knew, his soul scorched itself black in the effort, but he could not speak

And the Witch was laughing at him

But it was not a vicious laugh; rather, the old hag’s chuckle had gone sad and soft and sorry

She leaned in, her“You tell hiain”

She placed her leathery hand on his forehead, and the other over his lips, cradling his head between her hands like a beloved doll He wanted to loathe her touch, to spit at her, but as soon as her dry flesh touched his, peace flowed over hi river, his muscles unlocked and his breath returned Her hands on hi and cool When she let hiht-backed, his forehead cool

“Grass and leaves?” he whispered

“Quite so,” said the Witch

And with a s since rusted in him:

“My father killed her” He shook his head “It see to admit, now, but no one speaks of it No one I was only a baby when she died, but my nurse told me the way of it, over and over like a lullaby She was deter irremovable and constant She would hold me to her, and whisper the same story, endlessly repeated I reht, white birches all around me, and her dark eyes above…”

YOUR MOTHER WAS MORE BEAUTIFUL THAN THE summer sun, little one They’ll tell you she weren’t, that she were ugly as a frog’s gullet, but it’s a lie Yaya tells the truth to her boys, always and always

All of gold she was, her hair, her skin, even her eyes, like a lion’s She was called Helia, and that’s as good a name as any I’ve heard