4. climbs a winding stair

She'd been in the middle of exchanging cupcake recipes with a man whose hands were bigger than her head when the commotion came from outside. "So, these men want to capture you?" Rapunzel panted.

"Yeah, I dunno why." Flynn was ahead of her. She rounded the next bend at a sprint, boots skidding in the loose stone. Behind them, the secret passage trembled with the ever-nearer roar of pursuit. "Something about impersonating a royal guard and stealing a priceless heirloom intended for the beloved missing princess, but who can keep track of these things."

"You touch that and I will shave you smoother than a baby's—"

"Flynn—"

"Stop it, you stop that right now, you take any more out and I swear I'll—"

"Flynn that horse has a sword."

They survived the initial rush of water by running into a seam in the side of the mountain. Rapunzel had approximately two seconds to feel relief before she realized that boulders had formed a seal over the entrance and the water was rising fast. "So, this was a bad idea," Flynn said.

"I'm sorry," Rapunzel said. "This is all my fault."

Flynn had already dived down several times, each time coming up more bedraggled and less enthusiastic about the situation in general. She hoisted herself up on a small ledge next to Rapunzel by clinging awkwardly to the slippery wall of the cave. "Don't worry about it."

"But…" At least she wasn't crying. She felt strangely numb. "We're going to die, Flynn."

"I guess." Flynn tried to blow her wet hair out of her eyes with no success. "My only regret is not being able to shave you bald like I promised. I told you not to take that hair out."

She'd had to. A fifty foot jump down to the canyon floor, and while Flynn talked a good game, Rapunzel was fairly certain the drop would have won. Rapunzel stared at the dark mass of hair trailing down into the water, and randomly wondered what would happen to it. Would it turn brown too, like the tuft behind her ear? Or would it live on after she'd ended, waiting for someone else to come and claim it?

"Eudora."

It took a moment to realize Flynn had spoken. Distracted, Rapnuzel spared a moment to glance over. "What?"

"My name." Flynn tried to shift herself on the rock and nearly tumbled into the water. She'd cut her hand on one of the jagged rocks lining the cave earlier and could no longer seem to tighten her grip. The water level was rapidly climbing over their hips, which wasn't much of an improvement over being chased down by a gigantic armed warhorse. "It isn't Flynn. It's Eudora. Eudora Fitzherbert. I figured you should know before we died."

"… oh." Now that she was thinking about it, something was whispering in the back of her mind. Something about light and hair, and, but for a moment the world narrowed to Flynn's carefully averted gaze. "Really?"

"It's the only thing my parents ever gave me. Well." Flynn squinted down at the water. "That and a lifetime of abandonment issues."

The water sloshed up to her chest. Rapunzel couldn't tell if she was drowning yet. Death had only come to her in small increments in the tower and had never stayed long enough to leave an impression. Wilted rhododendrons in the vase that Mother soon replaced, desiccated flies crowded on her skylight during the summer. She wondered if death crept through the skin as well as into the lungs, omnipresent like air, or if it were only a slightly deeper, uglier injury, something tangible she could wrap her hair around and sing away when no one was looking.

Flynn's hair was plastered to her head, and the faint suggestion of daylight through the cracks in the cave-in gleamed off a layer of snot on her upper lip, but all in all she seemed rather composed for someone about to die. "Well?" Flynn said.

"I think…" The water batted against her collarbone, grazed her chin. All of a sudden the realization surfaced from the dark, and she remembered with a jolt, light, and hair. "I think Flynn suits you better."

Flynn's bark of laughter echoed off the walls, even as Rapunzel's hair began to glow under the water. "That's the idea."

"You know, it would have been really, really nice if you could have warned me a little ahead of time that you had magic hair that glows when you sing," Flynn said, and spent a lot of the next ten minutes vomiting onto the bank.

Breathing had never felt so good. Sprawled on her back on the soggy earth, alive, Rapunzel wondered if the sky had always looked this blue. "Surprise."

Somewhere in her head, she felt like perhaps things should have been different. Brighter, faster. … broader, was maybe the word? She couldn't imagine the journey any other way, but sometimes, inexplicably, she would look at Flynn's back ahead of her on the road and see the shadow of something else. Or here, in the campsite, where the firelight kept flickering in and out and around everything, and everything familiar seemed to be something new.

I'll spare you the sob story of poor orphan Eudora, Flynn had said. It seemed to take Flynn forever to braid her hair this time around. They passed the time in silence, too tired to do much talking.

Mother showed up at camp while Flynn had gone to get firewood, satchel in hand, winging wildly between accusations and baby talk.

Rapunzel surrendered to her embrace, certain that this was the end. She'd had her adventure and she'd almost died and killed someone else in the process, and on cue her mother was here as always to discipline her. Her mother's arm was firm around her waist as she turned, beginning to lead Rapunzel out of the camp, away from the warmth.

And then Flynn's face came to mind and, tiredly, Rapunzel had said no. No, Mother. It was, actually, the first time she'd ever said it, but oddly enough all Rapunzel could think about was getting sleep. About Flynn, about her injured hand. About her own feet, scraped and dirty and hurting gloriously.

She only wants one thing, Mother said. I've seen the way she looks at you.

She said, I'm staying, and just for a second, seeing her mother and her barely-restrained anger, Rapunzel realized for the first time in her life that she didn't really know her. Not just because she was out of context. Cloaked in the shadows of the campfire, hair flying around her face, Mother looked completely unrecognizable, like someone from another time and place. I love you, her mother said. And you'll regret it. And Mother knows best.

Rapunzel sat with the satchel after she left, barely feeling it in her hands. She was too dazed to take in the fact that she had stood up to her mother for the first time and had won. It felt strangely inconsequential. Somewhere along the line – the Duckling, the dam, setting up camp – looking at Flynn's back, seeing the strength and the purpose there, all thoughts of failure had been driven from her head.

She stood up, hid the satchel, and sat back down just in time to meet Flynn as she came clomping out of the underbrush. "How do you even pull it out that fast," Flynn was muttering. She dumped her armful of sticks next to the fire, looking exhausted and put-upon. "Takes me two hours to braid it and you two seconds to unfasten it. I couldn't have shot for a tavern not overtaken by broke head-hunters. Couldn't have gone to the nice one with the yellow walls and the strawberry dumplings."

Rapunzel took a stick and fed it to the fire. "I'm talking and you're silent, and that's too much weirdness for one day," Flynn said. "What's the matter?"

Rapunzel folded her arms over her chest, then chanced a glance up. Flynn was looking at her expectantly. Her clothing was still damp, her hair fluffed in some places and flattened in others.

Rapunzel's eyes went to her hand. "Well, whatever it is, it's nothing a good fire can't cure," Flynn said. "Unless you have some magical hut-building powers sealed in your hair. No? Okay. No huts. I'll be back in a few minutes, I'm going to get more firewood."

"Wait," she said.

"Hm?" Flynn half-turned. "Now what?"

The sight of the bandage had restored her voice at last. Now that she had a plan, she felt calm again. "Sit down for a second."

"I will in a bit," Flynn said. "If you want you can—"

"Sit down, Flynn."

Flynn stopped. Rapunzel lifted her chin, leveling a look at her. Looking a little taken aback, Flynn sat on the stump.

Without explaining herself further, Rapunzel pulled the vine fastening the outermost layer of hair to the master braid. Her hair promptly doubled in length.

Flynn was instantly on her feet. "Now wait a damn second—"

Rapunzel pulled her back down. "Hold on. Just trust me, okay?"

Flynn's expression was hard, but she made no other attempt to stand. Rapunzel pulled out the strap, worked her fingers through it until the section hung loose. The weight of her hair was unexpectedly reassuring, and for a second she sat there, watching the firelight catch it as it slid over her knuckles. I love you, she thought, and at the same time, unexpectedly, I hate you. "Hold out your hand, okay?" she said.

Flynn automatically held out her uninjured one. Rapunzel reached out and took the other. The wound was horrible – angry and jagged, peeking out the sides of the bandage, crusted at the corners where dirt had worked its way underneath. It must have hurt her badly when she was fixing Rapunzel's hair, but she hadn't said a word.

The sight of it made something in her chest tighten. Ignoring Flynn's questioning noise, Rapunzel took the bandage off gently, then wrapped the nearest section of her hair around it instead.

Flynn's eyes had gone wide and unblinking, pupils shrinking, the way they had when Rapunzel's hair had begun to glow in the cavern.

Rapunzel paused, searching her face, then blurted, "Don't freak out."

"Uh huh," Flynn said.

"Because you're about to freak out now," she said. "I can see it on your face."

"I'm fine. Really."

"Don't scream."

"Why would I—" And Flynn shut up when the hair began to glow.

There was no reward for doing it slowly. The magic had the same effect either way. Mother had demanded it of her every day, and it'd eventually become just another chore. Sweep the tower, polish the silver, dust the mantle, make Mother young again.

This time, for the first time in years, she didn't hurry the melody. She closed her eyes and let herself feel the full extent of the magic. She brushed the roof of her mouth with her tongue and tasted the grass and the river and the stone and felt the sunlight on her skin, bright and strong, even though it was the middle of the night.

The light began coursing through her hair, scrambling over itself in the circuitous path from root to tip. She healed whatever injury she could find, from Flynn's sore head to her turned ankle to the dozens of tiny abrasions from skidding across the canyon floor.

When it was over and Flynn was done screaming what are you and where did you come from and why is your dragon smiling at me, Rapunzel sat there on the log, feeling breathless and strangely excited. She was back on the edge of the tower, poised to leap into something potentially tremendous and potentially disastrous. "I'm not freaking out," Flynn said. "This is my not freaking out face."

"Flynn."

Flynn glanced at her. She looked freaked out. "I'd really like to hear it," Rapunzel said.

"Hear what?"

"The story of poor orphan Eudora."

"And bring down the tone of the party?" Flynn laughed. It sounded a little hysterical. "No thanks."

"Tell me a different story, then." She fastened her hair back up by herself, then scooted closer, propping her chin on her fists. "About one of your adventures as a thief."

Flynn stared at her for a long time. Then she said, "Fine. But only if I get to hear something about you."

"That sounds fair," she agreed, and thought, that sounds like a conversation.

"It's not a conversation," Flynn said. "I'm just trying to get it out of you whether you ever run naked around the tower."

… she probably should have seen that coming.

.

"Wait a second," Flynn said. "Your dragon knows how to play chess?"

"Yup. Right now the score is four hundred thirty to four hundred eleven."

"In your favor?"

Pascal made a derisive sound from near Rapunzel's foot. "You're kidding," Flynn said.

"Nope. He also knows how to dance, make candles, polish the floor, and play hide and seek."

"You don't find this weird?"

"Well, he has to do something," Rapunzel said. "He's too small for guitar and he's scared of the oven."

Flynn had a pained look on her face. "What?" Rapunzel said.

"You really don't see anything strange about that at all?"

"Pascal likes to learn new things. He'd be bored if all he ever did was change colors."

Pascal obligingly turned a pleasing shade of blue and then sighed as if to demonstrate how boring it had been to do so.

"There's something wrong with you," Flynn said.

"Why?"

"Your dragon plays chess."

"You think the fact I play chess with him is weirder than the fact I have magical hair?"

"… no?"

Rapunzel's chin settled further down into her hands.

.

"And then I stuck my knife under his buttcheek and said, "If you don't hand it over in five seconds, that won't be the only thing coming out of there."

"Oh," Rapunzel said. She smiled tentatively. "Your life sounds so exciting, Flynn."

"I tell you, that particular caper fed me for a month."

"The…" Rapunzel tried to keep the information straight. "The things you got… from his… um..."

"No, from his purse. See, he'd just hidden the stuff up his butt." Flynn popped a berry into her mouth and immediately grimaced. "People will do anythingto hide their valuables. You just have to know where to poke the stick."

"Oh. So you… poked the stick, and his… his valuables came out?"

"No. He took them out himself. The stick is just a metaphor."

"Oh. For thieving?"

"For accuracy."

"What?"

They looked at each other. "Never mind," Rapunzel said, and busied herself with the suddenly very important task of peeling bark off a twig.

.

"I don't know," she said. "I think it has to be the time I tried to use my hair as a tightrope."

"What?"

"It's true," she said, and found herself smiling despite herself when Flynn grinned. "Don't laugh! I'd done other things like it when I was painting my ceiling. I thought I'd be able to do it if I stretched my hair out tight enough."

"Yeah, but hair—"

"It was long enough. I just, I think I didn't tie it well enough? I'm not really sure what happened exactly. I just suddenly lost my footing and the end came out of the hoop on the other side, and I went straight to the floor."

"You're lucky you're not dead."

"It hurt a lot. I broke my arm, I think. I knew Mother would be furious, so I healed it with my hair and didn't tell her about it. It was the first time I hid something from her. I felt guilty about it for a long time."

Flynn shook her head. "How about you?" Rapunzel asked. "What's the silliest thing you've ever done?"

Flynn didn't say anything. "Sorry," Rapunzel said. "I know you don't do back-stories."

Flynn shrugged, bare toes curling, bringing the arch of her feet marginally closer to the fire. The heat had brought a flush out on her cheeks; under the glow, her hair looked red.

Looking at her, Rapunzel was startled to realize that Flynn was pretty. Not like Mother. She was… sharper, somehow. Busier. Like prisms inside shards of glass, hair changing with every movement of the wind. Like fire. Like leaves? Rapunzel lacked the vocabulary to describe it. She wanted to run her fingers through it, to see if the razor-fineness of it cut the skin or was just an illusion – if it would give instead, soft like the feathers of the sparrows that had come to her windowsill in the tower.

Flynn spoke, sudden enough to make Rapunzel start. "Probably the time I stole a pendant from that cart during the cinnamon festival. It was this cheap little thing – it looked like an emerald, but the stone was glass. The vendor boarded his cart up at night and kept a dog by it. I don't know what I was thinking. I could've gotten it during the day with a lot less fuss, but I got cocky."

"Why did you steal it if it wasn't worth anything?"

"One of the girls at the orphanage had lost one like it the week before. The only thing she had left from her parents. I thought it'd make her happy. The dog ended up waking up halfway through. I still have the bite mark on my calf."

"Did she like it?"

"Once she found out I stole it, she threw a potato at me and called me a thief, then burst into tears." Flynn shrugged. "I don't know if she kept it. I never asked. It was just a stupid little thing. The metal was already tarnished when I took it."

Rapunzel didn't say anything. "I told you it was stupid," Flynn said.

"No," Rapunzel said, and something loosened in her chest. The effect of the stars, maybe, or the warmth of the fire. "I don't think it's stupid at all."

"I had a bruise the size of a potato on my face," Flynn said. "I told everyone I got hit by the butcher's wife."

"That's less embarrassing?"

"It is if you've seen the butcher's wife."

.

"A gift like that… it needs to be protected. That's why Mother never let me… That's why I never left the tower."

Pascal settled into the curve of her ankle. Rapunzel tried to feel out the nature of Flynn's silence, but Flynn's expression wasn't telling. She wondered what she even expected Flynn to say. 'That makes sense'? Or 'I think so too'?

Flynn said, "Well, when you outline it in those terms, it's not really a gift."

Rapunzel blinked. "What do you mean?"

"Gifts are things you give to other people, right? You squirrel yourself away in the tower, never using it for anybody except your mother… that's a curse, not a gift."

She wasn't sure what to say. "I mean, look at it this way," Flynn said. "You step out… yeah, sure. Someone might eventually cut it. But who do you help in the meantime? Dozens? Hundreds? I don't know. The only time I gave a gift, I got a potato thrown into my face. I'm not exactly the voice of experience."

Rapunzel spoke a little unsteadily. "You've given me gifts."

"You're going back anyway? Despite all this?"

She could feel Pascal stir at her feet, regarding her with his chameleon gaze. She couldn't look at back him.

"Seems like a waste," Flynn said.

.

"You know," Flynn said a couple hours later, somewhere on the other side of the fire, "if you kept that splinter from earlier, we could always use that to spear some fish for dinner."

"Stop talking," Rapunzel said, and closed her eyes to sleep.