Stray by Elissa Sussman Read Free Book Online Page A

to snip unruly threads. The scissors were barely longer than her pinkie.
    Gritting her teeth, Aislynn began to drag the tiny blade across the silk laces, sawing at them viciously until they finally snapped. She pulled the stiff corset away from her body and threw it across the room. Kicking off the rest of her undergarments, she pulled on her nightgown, her ruined legs bare beneath it.
    She slipped out of her room. The castle was silent. The ball had ended, and all the other girls were now tucked into their beds asleep, their heads no doubt filled with dreams of dancing and romance. Aislynn knotted her robe tightly and quietly made her way downstairs.
    At the bottom of the staircase was a series of portraits depicting the tale of the four sisters. Aislynn kept her eyes down as she passed them, though she knew their story by heart. According to The Path , they had mistakenly believed their magic to be a gift, not the punishment it truly was. Each portrait represented one of the four brambles that could grow within a maiden and overpower her loving heart: selfishness, pride, arrogance, and vanity.
    The sister who cared only for her own needs wore a ring and sat despondently in an empty room. Once proud of her masculine strength and power, another could barely hold a jeweled dagger in her crippled hand. Arrogant in her cleverness, one sister’s lips stretched in a mad smile beneath a sparkling crown, while the fourth was painted facing away. Her vanity had transformed her into a wolflike creature, and her stove-black eyes were reflected in the mirror she held in her hands.
    Aislynn knew this part of the story best. Using magic to make herself beautiful, the vain sister could have had any man she wanted. Instead, she used her power to steal suitors away from their true loves. But as soon as her beauty began to decay, revealing the monster underneath, her admirers abandoned her, and she was forced to flee to the woods with her ruined sisters.
    Aislynn hurried through the dark hallway toward the kitchen. Somehow she knew her fairy godmother would be waiting for her. The lamp on the table was lit, and Tahlia was pulling ingredients from shelves, humming to herself. She didn’t look up as Aislynn entered, but there was a sad little smile on her lips as she finished collecting the necessary items: bowls of varying sizes, a whisk, measuring cups, and a wooden spoon. A jar of cinnamon. A pinch of yeast.
    There was a wonderful predictability to baking. Adding warm water and yeast to flour would make it rise. Dough was sticky and porous. Cinnamon always mixed well with the sugar, and no matter how careful she was, Aislynn would always get flour in her hair.
    Before tonight’s disaster, before Nerine Academy and before magic, Aislynn had learned how to bake.
    And it was because of her fairy godmother. Tahlia was unusual, as fairy godmothers were assigned when a maiden entered school, not passed down from generation to generation. But Aislynn’s magic had been too much for anyone else to manage.
    Tahlia, as clever as she was unusual, always found ways to sneak Aislynn into the kitchen, even though it was against the rules. Each recipe Aislynn learned, she copied into a small, hand-bound book. Her favorite was the first recipe Tahlia had taught her: cinnamon bookbinder’s bread.
    Slowly the oven’s heat began to warm the kitchen, and the bitterness that had filled Aislynn began to fade away. She lost herself in the careful measuring of ingredients, the smell of cinnamon, and the glorious blooming of yeast in warm water. She didn’t even realize that her fingers had started bleeding again until a drop of red fell into the bowl, staining the white flour.
    â€œThorns,” she swore under her breath.
    â€œLet me see that,” said Tahlia gently, pulling Aislynn’s injured fingers toward her. She placed them between her palms and closed her eyes. Slowly Aislynn’s fingertips grew hot, and there was a