Sleeping Beauty by Maureen McGowan Page B

until sixteen.”
    â€œWe appreciate it deeply,” Queen Catia replied, bowing toward the fairy queen. “But our question relates to the other modification you made, the part about true love.”
    Looking somewhat relieved, the fairy queen nodded. “Go on.”
    Lucette’s breaths quickened and her throat pinched at the thought that fairies had been tortured because of her. She’d thought the worst side effect of her cursed life was its impact on her parents’ marriage, but knowing others had been physically hurt in order to help her was devastating. She tried to speak, but nothing came out.

    â€œMy dear”—the fairy queen ran her soft hand down Lucette’s arm, making it tingle and tickle—“don’t fret so. Everything done in the past was done with free will. There is no reason for you to feel guilt.”
    Lucette gasped. “Can you read my mind?”
    She shook her head. “No, your expression spoke for you.”
    â€œOh.” Shocked that she’d revealed so much, Lucette tried to keep her face more neutral.
    â€œWhat is your question?”
    â€œTrue love. Um . . . how do I prove I’ve found it?” She shifted her weight onto her other leg. “I mean, I don’t even have any idea how to find it, or if I ever will. But let’s say I do find it someday when I’m older. How do I prove it?”
    The fairy queen reached up and traced her fingers across Lucette’s forehead, leaving a trail of tingling coolness behind. “So many worries for such a young girl.” She shook her head. “Such a shame.”
    Lucette dug her teeth into her lip. If she was worried, it wasn’t without reason. Realizing she was impatiently tapping her foot, she stilled it.
    â€œMy sweet girl,” the fairy queen said, “finding or proving true love isn’t a lesson one can teach. Keep your heart open and you’ll find it. Then, if your love is pure, the proof will be natural and honest and instinctual. Don’t worry one more minute about how to prove it. When the opportunity comes, you’ll know what to do.”
    â€œI’ll know what to do?” That was it? That was the fairy queen’s advice? “How can you be so sure?”
    The fairy queen cupped Lucette’s face in her hands. “Have faith, Lucette. When the time comes, you’ll know.”

    Standing alone in the dark, cold gymnasium of the Slayer Academy, where her mother had left her and told her to wait, Lucette could barely contain her excitement. She looked around the mysterious room, but it was too dark to make out more than shapes. After the disappointing meeting with the fairy queen, she and her mother had finally agreed: going behind her father’s back was the only way she was going to learn how to defend herself against vampires. Putting all of her faith in finding true love was too risky, as was preventing a finger prick.
    Yet her father remained adamant the curse would never fall, and that he could stop it. He believed that there was no need for her to learn to slay, since no daughter of his would ever put herself in such danger. Her father was in denial, unable to face up to what might happen, unable to even think of a world where his daughter had to face vampires alone.
    So, her mother had secretly hired a Slayer Academy student—a boy from outside the kingdom who didn’t know of the curse—as Lucette’s private tutor. The plan was to train late at night, when her father was in bed, and at other times if they got the chance. To smuggle her out of the palace this evening, Lucette’s mother had relied on a group of servants and guards she’d brought to the palace from her own father’s country estate when she’d married. One of those servants was now waiting outside the gymnasium in a carriage to take Lucette home once she’d finished her training. But standing here alone in the dark, she