I looked down at the teddy bear in my arms and let out a slow breath.
I felt my stomach turn but there’s one thing i can’t restrict her from, which is making her own decision and being happy…
“Well,” I whispered, “as long as she’s happy.”
That was all that mattered in the end.
It favored me too a little, now I wouldn’t have to go anywhere near House Vale.
I had no interest in seeing my father, and even less interest in seeing my stepmother, not after everything they had done to me.
The palace was the better option.
I would find Josephine, give her the gift, tell her I was sorry, and leave before anyone knew I had ever come back.
Especially my father.
The only trouble was getting inside the palace without being stopped.
I had no identity card, no papers, nothing that would let me walk through the front gate without questions.
“How am I supposed to get in there?” I muttered to myself, looking around for some kind of transport.
Luckily just as I said that as if the moon goddess was listening to me I heard the sound of a horse and cart coming up the road, loaded with sacks of grain and other supplies.
The two men riding it were deep in conversation, paying no attention to anything around them.
I looked at the palace in the distance, then back at the cart, and a small smile crept onto my face.
“Thank you,” I whispered, and slipped up behind it, climbing onto the back and hiding myself between the sacks before either man noticed.
They kept talking the whole way, never once glancing behind them.
When the cart finally reached the palace gates, I waited until the men were distracted unloading, then slipped down and ran low toward the back wall.
Nobody stopped me.
I kept moving until I found the one thing I remembered clearly from my childhood the cherry tree.
It was still standing, just where I left it.
I couldn’t help but smile.
Josephine and I used to climb that tree for hours, sitting on the branches eating cherries until our stomachs hurt.
I set my bag down, climbed up carefully, and pulled myself over the wall, dropping down quietly on the other side.
I crouched low.
Voices drifted toward me men laughing, someone shouting something I couldn’t quite catch, the smell of roasted meat hanging in the air.
I lifted my head just enough to look around.
They were celebrating.
The palace had changed just as much as the rest of the town bigger, newer, nothing like the place I remembered from when I was a girl.
I stayed low, moving carefully along the wall.
Josephine was somewhere inside this palace.
My twin sister was close now.
I tightened my grip on the teddy bear.
“I’m coming for you, Jo,” I whispered.