Page 97 of The Pumpkin Bride

“It’s partially my fault,” he said.

She blinked at him. “Explain that part.”

“I was a knight, Mare. There are virtues we’re supposed to uphold, like humility. If I had, I wouldn’t have cozened to Crispin so much and made myself vulnerable. I should’ve known better than to try to win a negotiation with a sprite.”

Her eyes grew shiny in the firelight. “Bram, Crispin did this to you. The shame is his to bear, whether he owns it or not.”

“But I—”

“No.” She laid her hand on his heart. “You trusted him, and he violated that trust. This is not your fault, and he should be held to account.”

Bram sat with that. Whenever misery befell someone, most often the conversation centered on what the poor soul had done wrong, how they’d put themselves in a position to be harmed. The default assumption was a villain sought opportunity and everyone else must defend. A lack of defense was the victim’s fault.

But Marigold reframed it—he was a survivor, not a victim.

“Why put ourselves through that?” Bram asked. “I’ve already won. You’ve left him, found me, and fell back in love with me. This is, in fact, the best way this could have unfolded.”

“And he . . .” She circled her hand in the air above them. “What? Gets away with it?”

“It’ll stain his soul, along with any other injustices he’s enacted.”

“But people should know.”

“You do.” He cupped her cheek. “And for me, that is enough.”

“So how do we break the curse?”

“I . . .” Bram pursed his lips. “I don’t know. During the transformation, I was ill. I’m not sure I paid close enough attention, but he said true love would fix it.”

She frowned. “But you’ve always had true love.”

“For which I’m grateful,” he said. “But I took it to mean that my true love has a key role in ending the curse.”

Marigold’s eyes flared why. “Ooh, I have an idea!”

She pushed from him and scurried up the stairs. Much as he enjoyed the sight of her behind, he’d rather she stayed by his side.

“Where are you going?”

“To look for instructions!”

“For curses?” he called.

“No, not curses.” She hurried back down the stairs and, with a flourish, presented her book of fairy tales.

“Mare, those are fictional.”

“Are they, though?” She lay beside him and flipped through the leather-bound tome’s pages. “They’re morality plays in some cases, cautionary tales in others. They may not contain hard facts, but they offer learning through imagination.”

“But it won’t tell us anything about breaking this specific curse.”

“Yes, it will—look.” She pointed to a picture of a woman sleeping. “This one is reversed by true love’s kiss. Hmph. Your curse would’ve been broken a thousand times by now if that were the solution.”

She flipped the page, this one featuring a frog. “In this, she throws the frog against a wall and it kind of stun-starts his transformation. Want to try that? I could shrink you.”

“I think not.”

On the next page, a woman puckered up to another hairy beast. Marigold frowned. “I’m realizing these tales may be propaganda crafted by unattractive men.”