Eight
As the afternoon of the queen’s birthday ball arrives, I stand on my balcony and rehearse my story. Tonight is the night Prince Roarke will announce that he’s chosen a wife. He’ll present me, formerly Princess Aurora’s ‘strange new friend,’ and suddenly everyone will want to know every detail of who I am and where I’m from.
Roarke and his mother tossed around the idea of making up an entirely different past for me—one that didn’t involve the human world—but they figured the truth would get out soon enough. And neither of them seemed to trust that I’d be able to keep the details of a made-up history straight, so most of what I’ve been told to share with people is the truth: I grew up thinking I was human, my magic revealed itself, the Guild got involved so they could imprison me and
