Book 4: Beauty and the Beast

Faye

It’s snowing on my wedding day. Snowing hard, actually, as I watch cars pulling around the castle where valets are waiting to greet the guests. The wedding will take place in an hour.

An hour. I can’t believe it. My stomach pitches as two maids pull curlers from my hair and dab blush on my cheeks. I haven’t moved from this spot in ages. I haven’t moved at all. I’ve been stuck on this stool since I can’t remember when, and now I’m worried my legs won’t work when I’m made to rise.

“The dress? The dress?” Emory says exhaustedly, whirling this way and that way, trying to catch the attention of the maids whizzing around the room. “Where’s the designer? He should have arrived by now?”

A flurry of activity from the doorway to the wide, slightly cavernous sitting room somewhere on the second floor of the castle catches my attention, but I can’t look in that direction while a maid is trying to perfect the blush on my cheeks.

“Oh, thank the