The trek back to Royale, the capital of the Land of Fairytales, wasn't a long one, clocking under two miles. A record distance. Poison slowed the mind and body. Its effects were no different for beasts.
Rose came out of the woods directly onto 42nd Avenue —a street of low-class pubs and sketchy inns —and turned directly toward the back alleys. There was little more visibility than that of the forest and it was late at night. A woman wasn't safe on those streets.
Not that Rose was concerned with lecherous men prowling the crumbling cobblestone roadways. She could very well take care of herself. It was what she carried that worried her most. Thick wool barely masked the smell of poisoned flesh. It was like a beacon to every creature with a nose, shouting, "Come get dinner! I'm here!" and Saints knew there were plenty of lowlifes eager for blood in this area.
Rose quickened her pace and held the makeshift knapsack protectively to her. Two streets over was the old wizard's shop, the place she could rid herself of the stinking heart.
He'd be very pleased to see her again. Now if only she could get there.
Pausing in the shadows of a brick building, Rose waited for signs of movement before dashing across the dark street. A rat scurried away from an overturned trash bin in the opposite alley. Finally she came to a rusted back door and ducked inside, nearly toppling over the short man in the doorway.
"Oof," Rose gasped.
"Miss Quienland. So nice to see you made it back."
"Sorry, Ennid. I didn't want to lose…"
"Ah, yes. Where is it? Show me, show me."
She held out the woolen lump and the old man spread his wan mouth into a delighted grin. He carefully took the heart and hurried away to his worktable. Rose let out a breath she hadn't realized she was holding and walked further into the little room.
She had loved it here even before having magical needs, visiting on weekends when work allowed it. Vibrant red tapestry hung behind the many shelves, all containing various objects, and the ceiling hung low, painted to appear as if the night sky lay inches above. Exotic incense was always burning on the round table at the room's center. But perhaps best of all was the floor to ceiling bookshelves on the left wall, full of thick volumes on every subject. Beside those sat frayed, purple reading chairs, positioned in front of a crackling fire pit built directly through the cracked stone flooring. Random rugs surrounded that, warding off cold in the wintertime. The front door was shut and barred, with the window curtains drawn, and Rose could finally relax.
Ennid had disappeared to the back room with his tools so she walked behind the counter to wash her hands and dagger. The wizard's shop was the only reason she stuck around this Guardian-forsaken city. If it were up to her she would sail across seas to an isolated island with a library and garden, leaving the dying kingdom, her warlock of a father, and every bad memory she had behind. But she couldn't. Not until she kept her mother's last wish and killed the beasts she'd hated so deeply.
She'd died before she could do the job, hunted down herself. When Rose was a little girl, her mother would spin tales of men that changed into monstrous beasts under the light of the moon. Pawns on the broken game board, an ingredient in the recipe for disaster that is this realm. Every day it seemed, she had concocted a new plan to track down the creatures and break the violent cycle. A job for the Royale Military, if they ever pulled their heads out of the ground, she repeated with spite. The one mystery was why her mother felt so strongly about the beasts. There were plenty of sources of corruption in their country. More powerful, more dangerous sources. But when Rose asked her, she got no answer.
Nevertheless her reasons, the hatred she had for the beasts drove her mad, and the villagers in Rose's place of birth tracked down her mother and burned her alive for witchcraft. A tragic accident, they swore. It was no accident.
That was nearly a decade after the The Fall of the Guardians, almost ten years after the High King of Royale declared all magic was forbidden. Rose remembered it so clearly. The people came with pitchforks and lit torches to take her away, as if she were a monster herself. As they pounded on their splintering cottage door, Rose's mother made her promise to carry out her mission. In Fairytale Land, a promise was an oath. Then she pressed the enchanted dagger with its rose pommel into ten year old Rose's hand and fled.
According to the rumours Rose heard the following day, her mother had put up a good fight. In the end they bound and dragged her to the stake, right in the King's courtyard, publicly making an example of any that dared use magic.
Rose knew that what she selfishly asked of Ennid was illegal, not to mention downright foolish with the sheer number of spies and soldiers working for the King. Had the wizard kept his shop in a larger district, it would have been nearly impossible. But he preferred to offer his enchantments deep in the poor area of the city, increasing his chances of uninterrupted practice. For Rose, he was happy to break the law. "What's a magical land without magic?" he claimed. The mission was the only thing she had left of her mother. That and her blade.
She withdrew the dagger from her blue jumper pocket, unsheathed it, and began to clean the blood-crusted steel. It was beautiful, truly, with a fine leather handle melded to wood underneath that was carved to look like thorns twined around, blooming into the tiny, painted rose at the end. Best of all was its magical properties, those of which she could easily be arrested for upon inspection by the Royale Guard, if it actually appeared to be magical at all. The knife was as harmless as any regular dagger when it came into contact with normal, human skin — if one could call anyone in the Land of Fairytales either of those things. Instead, the sharp-pointed steel blade merely caused a brief laughing fit or minor head shrinkage for common folk. A whimsical hex, really.
It was most harmful to the unnatural. To monsters, to beasts, it was anything but silly. Lethal at the smallest nick, poisoning the blood in seconds. Really quite a nasty effect, Rose mused, scrubbing the dried blood off the hilt.
No sooner had she dried her hands did Ennid rush back into the front room.
"It is nearly done," he declared.
Rose watched the pulsating heart in his hands closely. Its leathery tissue emanated a green glow as Ennid ran his hands over the organ, chanting foreign words under his breath.
This was the reason why Rose trusted the wizard with her secret. Lifting jinxes with that type of benign dark magic took time and effort, sometimes sacrifice, but in the time it had taken Rose to wash up, he almost had it. She suspected that he was not from this realm. What he sold, what he kept on his shelves in jars and locked trunks, was ancient magic, not of this world. There was power behind those twinkling blue eyes and thick beard.
All at once, Ennid quieted and backed away, shielding Rose with a robed arm. The last time the jinx lifted, the heart had exploded, and she was grateful for the cover.
The heart quivered, shrunk slightly, then expanded like a balloon. Just as Rose shut her eyes to avoid the splatter, it hissed and deflated, dissolving into nothing as it fell. Ennid leaned in cautiously and picked up the only thing left of the beast's heart: a razor thin piece of metal the size of a large rose petal. Indeed, it was a rose petal. One of three. Rose pulled at the black cord necklace tucked into her tattered white shirt and untied it, connecting the third petal to the chain link pendant. It clinked softly against the others, falling into place with finality.
"I do hope that you live to see the day those petals find their place."
Rose had been thinking the same thing. While trying not to panic at how much further she had to go, she grinned.
"So do I, Ennid."
She looked up at the starry sky, holding the puzzle pieces to her mother's mystery mission, hoping beyond hope that she would fulfill her promise.
"So do I."