V

Belle looked – and looked again, but she hadn't imagined it: the door to the Master's study was wide open, but the Master was nowhere in sight. In all her time in the Dark Castle it was a first, and it was only after a moment of hesitation that she finally ventured in carefully.

There room didn't have a single window and by the light of several oil lamps hanging from the ceiling everything was half-cast in shadow, but her first impression was that, although it was a large room, it was shockingly crammed with a wild variety of objects. The shelves on all four sides were weighed down with irregular stacks of books and letters, trays of glass bottles and vials, boxes and chests, spindly instruments and skulls of different animals, small statuettes of figures she didn't recognize, maquettes of strange constructions and hourglasses; in one corner, a large easel held a number of framed landscapes, tipped one against the other, and on the walls over the shelves were displayed an array of artifacts: assorted clocks in all shapes and sizes, all indicating different times; a bow and arrow; a gnarled old walking stick. The most prominent item in the centre of the room was a massive wooden table, its surface so extremely scratched and grooved, scarred and burnt that there was barely a square inch left smooth. The mere sight of it gave her an ominous feeling at the pit of her stomach – the damage called to mind some tortured wild animal that had been chained onto the table, scratching and biting. And this was where the Master had worked at his project; the project which he could not show her even when he gave her free reign over the rest of the Dark Castle and knew there was no-one in the world she could possibly tell his secrets to.

The table was glaringly empty, however. Where was the mysterious project he had been working on all this time? Could he have simply put it on the shelves? Turning around, she started – two monstrous dolls suspended from strings appeared to be looking right at her with manic glass eyes.

"Don't be frightened, dearie, even in life they were absolutely harmless," came his voice behind her, making her start yet again, knocking clumsily into the table when she turned towards the doorway where he had appeared, silent as always.

"The door was open-" she started, but he waved a dismissive hand.

"It seemed my collection could use some dusting. So I unlocked the door."

She gestured at the empty table. "What about the secret project you were working on all this time?"

He smirked. "Clearly it's not here anymore. I traded it."

"Who on earth would want it?"

He laughed. "The only other person in the kingdom who could possibly conceive of using it, dearie." Before she could ask more, he continued: "But talking shop is so tedious, and I actually came to find you to talk to you about something more personal."

"What?" she asked, watching him warily as he sauntered further into the room.

"That little ruckus we had when I let you in on what had happened to your precious town and your late papa – well, I suppose it wasn't the most tactful way I could have broken the news. I lost my temper; it has been known to happen on occasion. Considering that on most of those occasions people died, it actually wasn't that bad."

"It's all right," she said listlessly. An apology – or what passed for it – made no difference to her, and the mere mention of her father brought back the dark, lonely feeling she had been trying to push to the furthest recesses of her mind.

"Look, Belle." As if he had sensed her changed mood, his tone was more serious suddenly. "I'm not going to apologize to you. Not just because it's not my way, but also because I see no need for it. I made true on a deal you agreed to, fair and square. But I can give you an explanation, if only because you and I are going to be in this together a good deal longer."

Belle sighed. "If you wish."

She watched him saunter along the shelves of his collection, gathering his thoughts. "After I gave you that rose and left the Dark Castle, I was out in the world for over a hundred years," he finally started. "I made more deals than I care to remember, saw a lot of people be born, and rather a lot of others die… I looked in on your town every few years… I suppose – I suppose you could say that I was putting off the moment when I had to come back here, and answer all the questions you were bound to have, when there were sure to be tears and grief and all that unpleasantness. One might even say that the idea of coming back was a molehill I let grow into a mountain over time, especially because I felt… well, I suppose just a tad cowardly. So when you dropped that very word, I might have overreacted."

"Why did you come back?" Belle tried to keep her voice neutral.

He shrugged, almost sullenly. "Because you sing that godawful old lullaby about the nightingale every time you scrub floors in a room that echoes, and count out loud when you put the sugar lumps in my tea, and laugh at my witticisms from time to time," he said. "And – well, there was no one out there who does it quite the same." He brightened. "So I decided I could give you a trifle, as a compensation. I may take away with one hand, but let it be known I give with the other." With that, he slid a round leather box from one of the shelves and offered it to her with an elegant flourish. Belle opened it without much enthousiasm.

Nestled on its cushion was a necklace so extravagant that it almost seemed to spill out of the box: a heavy chain of silver leaves and a large pendant, all wreathed in silver and encrusted with large, bright precious stones. It was a piece of jewelry fit for an empress, and quite possibly worth more than her father's entire estate.

"Thank you," she said flatly.

"What?" he said. "Don't tell me you're an earring girl."

She shrugged. "I'm sure it's very precious," she said. "To people who can't spin straw into gold, anyway. But what do I do with it? Wear it while I'm polishing your candelabras? There is no one here to see it but you."

"I see," he said softly. "What do you want, then?"

Belle didn't hesitate. "To make this castle run according to real time again from now on," she said. "A day for a day, a night for a night, and a clock that works."

The Master had been different ever since he'd come back – just a little. They had started taking their meals together, and Belle had the impression that he was making an effort to be pleasant. He can afford to be, he has me exactly where he wants me, she couldn't help but think, even though she had resolved not to be bitter.

There had been only one exception to his polite good mood, when he had returned to the Dark Castle from his usual unknown business in a furious storm directed not at her, but at every mirror in the Dark Castle. He had stormed around, making swaths of dark cloth materialize and sweep in front of the larger mirrors with grand arm gestures, as little hand mirrors burst and fell out of their frames in a glittering trickle of crushed glass with each staccato move of his hands.

"What are you doing?" Belle had demanded, yanking at the curtain in front of the large standing mirror in the dining room (of course, it wouldn't budge) but he had only snapped: "I guess your vain little self will have to make do without those, dearie. I don't like all those windows to peek into my home." Belle had let it go, as she had decided to let everything go. Even if he were to backslide into raving paranoid insanity, he was all she had. And although he had been unresponsive and brooding during that meal, he had made a visible effort to control himself afterwards.

But the dinner after he had presented her with the necklace, the Master laid down his spoon, reclined in his seat and said ponderously: "I have a feeling it's just about sunset. Would you be a dear and open the curtains?"

It took a few moments for Belle to realize what he had said. "Open…?"

For a few seconds they both sat stock still as Belle waited for him to burst into his characteristic laugh and admit it was a joke. He didn't. Then Belle shot out of her seat and tugged one of the curtains. It was something she had tried, both optimistically and frantically, dozens of times – but for the very first time it slid open smoothly, unfolding the first sunset she had seen since the night the Master had taken her away from her father's castle. She inhaled deeply as if she could breathe in the sight, basking in the deep, warm light of the sun sinking in a haze of pink and orange over the ridge of the mountains. For the Dark Castle, as Belle could now see for the first time, lay in a valley; smooth green fields and thick, dark forests spread out around the castle on the lower slopes of hills which grew steeper and rockier the higher they went, reaching up in snow-covered peaks that were sharply silhouetted against the quickly dimming sky as the last burning edge of the sun disappeared on the horizon.

When she looked over her shoulder, she realized the Master had also left his seat and was leaning back against the table behind her, similarly bathed in the warm light. It was the first time she had ever seen him in natural light. He had always been a nocturnal creature to her and she had assumed that he hated sunlight, but the expression with which he too was looking out the window was hard to read.

"The Dark Castle is no longer frozen in time, then?" she asked.

"A day for a day and a night for a night, you said; so that's my gift to you."

"It's not really a gift," she pointed out. "It's something I asked you for; that makes it a favour, in my book."

He narrowed his eyes. "Pray tell, what is a gift in your book?"

"Something you give someone because you know they want it, without them having to tell you," she said. "You know, on my every birthday, my father would –" She broke off abruptly; she couldn't speak of her father to the Master, of all people. "I suppose you just don't know what it is to give someone a gift," she said brusquely. "Your trade is to make people pay dearly when they're in need, after all." She turned her back towards him; the sky was still peach-coloured where the sun had been, but overhead the sky was rapidly darkening. "Would you like me to close the curtains again?" she asked without looking back.

She had expected him to say yes, and perhaps freeze the curtains back in place for good measure. His answer surprised her. "Ah - there's no need. I'll get used to it."

True to his word, the curtains were wide open the next morning when she served breakfast, which they ate by the light of a newly risen sun, still hanging low over the mountain peaks.

"How is that possible?" Belle asked, puzzled, as she poured out their tea. "We watched the sun set through that same window last night."

"I may have turned the castle a little overnight," he admitted, taking the tea cup she handed him. "It's curious, I never paid attention to upcoming suns much, and I've seen tens of thousands."

Tens of thousands. "You must be ancient," she found herself saying.

He shrugged modestly.

"How old are you?"

He wagged a finger at her. "Old enough to be coy about it."

She tried another track. "What did you do, while you were away?"

"What I always do, dearie. Making people pay dearly when they're in need – wasn't that your charming way of putting it? – and ruining more than a few lives….teaching, most recently."

Belle snorted. "Teaching?"

"Don't be insensitive; I'll have you know I taught two generations."

"Then why stop?"

"I realized I hated my students." He laughed, nyaha. "And mercifully, they were ready for what I needed them to do."

"I don't even want to imagine what that might – oh." Belle had been looking at the Master when she set down the tea pot, knocking her tea cup off the table with her elbow. It hit the floor in a splash of hot tea and rolled over.

"It's just a cup," she heard him say as she kneeled down to pick it up. She was about to respond that no damage was done when she realized that this wasn't completely true: there was a small triangle of china missing from the rim. She thought of the roses she hadn't been able to tear out, the statues she hadn't been able to break, the plate she hadn't been able to shatter. "It's chipped," she said. At the same time she felt herself starting to laugh, unstoppably, until her shoulders shook and she was gasping for breath. But when she reached up she realized her cheeks were wet. She had never thought she'd see the day that she would be reduced to tears and laughter at the same time over a damaged piece of china. Who was this pathetic creature, and what had happened to the Belle she used to be?

Only then did she become aware that the Master was standing over her; she felt his eyes on the back of her head, but she carefully kept her face down. "You can hardly see it-" she started, but he talked over her in a low voice.

"I will make it up to you in the end, Belle," he said.