Annie was relieved when they finally left the swamp behind, but Liam refused to relax. “Something’s not right,” he said as they settled into their saddles. “We’re being watched. I can feel it.”

“Do you think Voracia …”

Liam shook his head. “I don’t think it’s Voracia, or anything magical. I think it’s … Wait! Look over there!”

“I don’t see anything.”

“I don’t either now, but I could have sworn I saw someone peeking at us from behind those trees.”

“Maybe it was a wood nymph or a fairy,” Annie suggested.

“Maybe,” said Liam, although he didn’t sound convinced. “You stay here while I go look around and—”

A twig cracked behind them, startling them both. “Let’s get out of here,” said Annie. “This swamp is creepy and it will be dark in a few hours. I don’t want to be anywhere near Voracia when the sun goes down.”

“There’s an inn only an hour’s ride from here,” Liam said. “It’s not very fancy, but the bedding is clean and the food is good.”

“I couldn’t ask for anything more,” said Annie.

She tried to carry on a conversation with Liam as they rode through the forest, but he was paying more attention to what was going on around them than to what she had to say. Although he kept turning his head to the side as if he heard riders in the woods, Annie neither saw nor heard anything unusual. The road soon took them out of the forest and across farmland where low stone walls divided the fields that covered the rolling hills. Every time they reached the top of a hill, Liam stopped to look back. Annie turned as well, but the way was always clear.

They reached the crossroads where the inn was located without seeing anyone. While the hostler led the horses into the stable, Liam went in search of the innkeeper to arrange for rooms and a bath for the princess. Hearing a crowd in the taproom, Annie peeked through the doorway. Travelers sitting down to an early supper already occupied most of the tables. She smiled at the first curious glances, but when she saw the way people were looking at her swamp-stained clothes and disheveled hair, she stepped outside to wait for Liam.

Two men stood by the entrance to the stables watching the inn. When one of them noticed Annie, he spoke to the other and they both started toward her. Although they were dressed in rough homespun, they looked vaguely familiar.

Annie was still trying to decide where she might have seen them when a third man came out of the inn behind her. “Princess Annabelle?” he said.

“Yes?” replied Annie, turning to face him. In an instant, one of the men approaching from the stable threw a cloth bag over her head while the other grabbed her hands and tried to tie them behind her back. She kicked out at the men and opened her mouth to scream just as the third man knocked her on the head with something hard. With a soft moan, Annie collapsed in a heap at their feet.

When Annie woke, her head was pounding and her mouth tasted like sweaty feet. She sat up and groaned as the throbbing in her head worsened. A light flickered overhead. Annie stared at it for some time before it registered in her mind that it was a guttering torch about to go out. Darkness was creeping closer when she stood and staggered against a wall, her head reeling. It occurred to her that she was in a dungeon and she wondered vaguely how she might have gotten there. Then it all came back—the swamp, Liam’s suspicion that they were being followed, and the men at the inn. She remembered now where she had seen the men before. It was in the woods shortly after she left the secret tunnel leading from her parents’ castle. The men had been talking about her even then.

The torch was getting fainter when Annie took a step and nearly tripped over a basket. Glancing down, she saw that it was filled with new torches, waiting to be lit. Snatching up one of the torches, she held it to the dying light and held her breath until a flame blossomed. Thinking that if her kidnappers had provided her with light, they might have left something else, Annie raised her head to look around.

She was in a circular room with a low ceiling and a set of stairs at the opposite side. The stones of the wall beside her were lighter than the rest and the mortar was still damp, as if someone had recently filled in a hole. Water burbled in a stone basin only a few yards away. Apparently the tower had been built over a spring, providing fresh water for whoever was unfortunate enough to be trapped inside. Barrels and trunks were scattered across the floor, some stacked, others open and partially emptied. Piles of clothes and shoes were strewn across the floor, forcing Annie to pick her way with care as she headed to the stairs.

The stairs had been built against the wall and were open on the side facing into the room. When Annie reached the first step, she paused and raised the torch high. Although the stairs were dark beyond the reach of the light, there was no door to block her way. It was obvious that she was in a tower, but as she climbed, she wondered just how high it might be. Passing the floor of the next level, she looked around long enough to see that it was empty, and continued up the stairs. The third and fourth levels were empty as well. The stairs ended at the fifth level in a room with a high ceiling and open windows framing the night sky.

As Annie stepped into the room, a large shape rose up, startling her until she heard it hoot. “Shoo!” Annie shouted, waving the torch at the owl. The bird swerved and flew through one of the windows, blocking her view of the twinkling stars for a moment.

Crinkling her nose at the pungent odor of owl, Annie began to explore the room. It was a bedchamber with a bed against one wall and a table and chair against another. With an ornate headboard carved with hummingbirds and flowers, the bed would have been pretty if its rumpled covers hadn’t been so mussed, as if the sleeper had just gotten up. Gowns, tunics, and undergarments were strewn across the floor. Annie found a scarf draped across the foot of the bed. It was the kind that could be worn in a lady’s hair, much like the kind Annie had worn on occasion. This one was dirty, however, and smelled of perfume. Annie picked up a gown by one sleeve. It smelled of unwashed body as well as perfume, and showed stains from food and drink.

“A woman lived here,” Annie murmured to herself. “She must have just left.”

Hoping to find some hint as to who it might have been, she made a quick inspection of the room. The wind was picking up, however, and she began to shiver as the temperature dropped. Annie dragged a blanket from the bed and made herself a cozy nest on the floor, letting the bed block most of the wind. Dousing the torch wasn’t easy, but she’d found a flint on the table and knew she could relight the torch when she needed it again.

As the wind whistled through the tower, Annie huddled on the floor and pulled the blanket close. Eventually, her eyes drifted shut; she never noticed when the wind died down and the owl swooped past the window.

Sunlight was streaming through the windows on the east side of the tower when Annie woke the next morning. She was yawning widely when she saw that there were shutters on either side of each window, something she would have found useful the night before if only she had noticed them. Closing her mouth, she felt a hair on her tongue. She wiped her face to brush the hair aside, but nothing happened. Although her hands were dirty, she stuck her finger and thumb in her mouth, and pulled out the hair … and pulled and pulled. The hair wasn’t all the way in her mouth, just running through it. She finally got it out and examined it with disgust. The hair was blond and so long that she had to stand to measure it against her own height. Annie was about five feet tall, and the hair was nearly ten times longer. The thought that anyone could have hair that long turned her stomach, especially when she thought about it being in her mouth.

Annie walked to the window, thinking she might see a castle or village or at least people she could call to, but there was nothing to see except trees. After checking the view from another window, she made a circuit of the room; the trees seemed to go on forever. She was leaning against the sill of the last window when she noticed a clump of long blond hair snagged on the ledge. Backing away from the sill, she noticed another hair on the floor. When she bent down, she discovered that they were all over the floor … and the bed and the chair and in all the clothes. Grimacing, she was trying to decide what to do with all the hair when she heard a voice calling from outside the tower.

“Rapunzel, Rapunzel, let down your hair!”

Thank goodness! Someone who can help me get out of here! Annie thought, and ran across the room to the window where she’d found the clump of hair. A young man stood at the base of the tower, his horse already tied to the nearest tree. He was squinting and shading his eyes when he looked up, so Annie wasn’t sure he could really see her.

“I’m sorry, but there’s no one here by that name,” called Annie. “Would you mind helping me down though? I seem to be trapped up here, and I need to get out. I have to get back to my kingdom.”

“I don’t understand,” the young man began. “I’m Prince Mortimer and I’ve come to visit my beloved, Rapunzel. Are you sure she isn’t there?”

Annie shook her head. “I’ve looked everywhere. There’s no one here but me.”

The prince muttered to himself before looking up at Annie again. “Say, if she isn’t there, why don’t you let down your hair so I can climb up?”

“You’re joking, right?” Annie’s hair reached to the back of her knees, but she never let it get any longer. She thought it was hard enough to deal with as it was. Besides, just as she had resented it when Prince Andreas had seemed to think that she and her sister were interchangeable, she didn’t like the way Mortimer seemed to think he could swap Rapunzel for her. It wasn’t a topic she wanted to broach with this stranger, however, so instead she said, “My hair isn’t nearly long enough to reach you. Tell me, does Rapunzel have long blond hair?”

“She has the most glorious long blond hair and she lets it down every time I come by. I climb up and we enjoy each other’s company for the entire day. I look forward to Wednesdays every week.”

“I bet you do,” Annie said. “Why didn’t you ever rescue the poor girl?”

Prince Mortimer looked affronted. “Rapunzel wouldn’t let me. She said that a witch had put her there and if I took her out, the witch would come after us and kill us both. She said that she wouldn’t mind dying, but she loved me too much for that. So how about it? Will you let down your hair so I can climb up?”

“I told you that I can’t. Why don’t you help me come down there instead?”

“I don’t have a ladder,” said the prince.

“It would take an awfully long ladder to reach this window. I don’t suppose you know how to climb up?”

“Pardon me?”

Annie sighed. “Never mind. If you see a young man named Liam, please tell him that Princess Annie is in this tower and give him the directions.”

“I’ll tell him if I happen to run across him,” said Prince Mortimer, “but I’m not going to go looking for some stranger.”

Annie watched as the young man rode away. After spending one night in the tower, she could imagine how bleak Rapunzel’s life must have seemed locked away there for what she thought was forever. She must really have loved Mortimer to refuse to let him rescue her, Annie thought. Closing her eyes, she pictured herself in the poor girl’s place, but the prince she imagined didn’t look anything like Mortimer. Instead it was Liam’s face she saw, looking at her the way he had just before he kissed her outside the ogre’s castle.

Annie’s mood immediately soured. If Liam had shown up at that very minute, she probably would have snapped at him. He wasn’t a prince and they couldn’t be together, but he’d kissed her nonetheless, and then not said a word about it afterward. She felt like a fool, mooning over a young man who didn’t care enough to tell her that he had special feelings for her, if he really did.

She had no doubt that Liam was already looking for her and would find her eventually, although the thought of so much time being wasted when she had none to waste made her anxious. If Liam came soon, all the better, but if he didn’t, she would do what she could to rescue herself.

Annie glanced around the tower room. There was nothing here to help her, not even a mirror to reflect light in the hope that someone would see it. Her stomach rumbled, making it harder to ignore the hunger that was eating at her. Although she didn’t like the thought of returning to the dark room at the bottom of the tower, it seemed to be the only place she could find food. Using the flint she’d found, she relit the torch and started down the stairs.

The air in the bottom room seemed almost unbearably stuffy and close. Annie looked for food first, and after setting aside bread soft with fuzzy mold and dried meat so hard she knew she risked breaking a tooth if she bit it, she was pleased to find a small, as yet unopened crock of pickled vegetables and half a wheel of moldy cheese. Taking the knife she found stuck in the wheel, she cut off the mold and discarded it before savoring the rich, nutty flavor of the cheese.

She was thirsty now, so she knelt beside the stone basin and took a long, cool sip of water. It tasted surprisingly fresh and when she dropped a few crumbs of cheese in the water, she saw that they swirled away down an overflow hole hidden in the side of the basin. Annie wondered where the water went, so she reached under the lip of the basin and felt for the hole; it was too small for her hand to fit in. When she tried to move the basin in the hope that there might be a larger opening underneath, it was far too heavy.

Carrying the torch in one hand, Annie began to inspect the wall. The stones were all firmly set, however, including those that had been used to fill in the newest opening. She thought about using the cheese knife to dig through the mortar, but it would take too much time.

Discouraged, Annie filled a jug with water and took it along with the crock of pickled vegetables and the remains of the cheese wheel up the stairs to the room at the top. She’d really been hoping that she would find some secret latch or hidden door, but if there was any such thing, the builder had hidden it too well.

Not sure how long she’d be stuck in the tower, Annie decided to make herself comfortable. The room was a mess, and Annie couldn’t bear the thought of living in it the way Rapunzel had left it. After nibbling another piece of cheese, she began to clean the room, tossing all the soiled clothes in a pile and stripping the filthy bedding off the bed. Seeing the condition of the bed underneath, she decided that she’d rather sleep on the floor.

Annie was thinking about going back to the first level to look for a broom when she noticed that some strands of Rapunzel’s hair were stuck to her clothes. She pulled off a strand that had draped itself across her shoulder and down her back. She intended to drop it out the window, but on the way there she got an idea; the more she thought about it, the more perfect it seemed.

She moved the chair, placing it in a pool of sunlight, and would have moved the table as well, but it was so heavy that she couldn’t budge it. After collecting a few dozen strands of hair, she took them with her to the chair. The sun was high in the sky when she began to braid them. When she had braided three-quarters of their length, she knotted more strands to the braid and began to braid them in as well. By the time the sun set, the hair rope was long, yet still not long enough for what she needed.

The night was mild and the sky was clear, so she didn’t bother to close the shutters. After a quick meal, she wrapped herself in a blanket and lay down so that she could look out the window at the same stars she saw from her bedroom window at home. The familiar sight made her feel a little less lost and alone.

Even before Annie ate anything the next morning, she returned to braiding the hair. She worked with a frenzy that made her clumsy at times, so she had to slow down and undo some of the plaiting more than once. Intent on her work, she didn’t hear her visitor at first.

“Rapunzel, Rapunzel,” he called again. “Let down your hair!”

Annie dropped the braid and jumped to her feet. Whoever this was, perhaps he would help her get out of the tower. She ran to the window and leaned over the ledge to see a young man standing down below with his cap in one hand and a bouquet in the other.

“I’m beginning to get a picture of this girl Rapunzel,” Annie muttered to herself. “Rapunzel isn’t here,” she shouted to the young man. “Tell me, is she a princess from a local kingdom?”

“Is this a trick question?” the young man called back. “My darling Rapunzel isn’t a princess. She’s the beautiful daughter of two peasants and was brought up by an evil witch in this very tower. Now how about letting down your hair so I can come up and spend the day with my beloved. Tell her that Prince Ludlow has arrived.”

“I already told you, she isn’t here.”

“What do you mean she isn’t here? It’s Thursday. I’m sure she’s expecting me.”

“She’s gone. I’ve looked everywhere and I can tell you with absolute certainty that I am the only one here.”

Even from a distance, the young man looked disappointed. He held the flowers as if he was about to throw them away, but then he paused and glanced up at Annie again. “I don’t suppose that you could let your hair down and—”

“No! My hair isn’t long enough. Let me guess, you don’t have a ladder.”

“Why no, I’ve never needed one.”

Annie sighed. “And you don’t have any other way to get up or down, do you?”

The young man shook his head.

“Listen, Your Highness,” said Annie. “I’m stuck in this tower and I need to get out. Do you think you could come back tomorrow with a ladder or whatever you need to get me down from here?”

“Actually, I have plans with my wife tomorrow. Thursday is my day to visit Rapunzel. We’ve had a standing appointment for years.”

Annie laughed to herself. “This just gets better and better. Did Rapunzel know that you’re married?” she called down to the young man.

“The subject never came up,” he said, sounding stiff and angry. “It’s obvious that I’m wasting my time here,” he added, and turned to walk away.

“Wait!” called Annie. “If you happen to see a young man named Liam, please tell him that Princess Annie is in this tower and needs to be rescued!”

“Rescue yourself!” Prince Ludlow shouted back. Dashing the flowers to the ground, he stalked back to where he’d tied up his horse.

“That’s exactly what I’m trying to do,” Annie murmured as she returned to the chair and picked up the hair rope again.

Annie worked on the braid for the rest of the day, and went to sleep that night with only a little more to do. Excited and nervous, she didn’t sleep well and got up as the first rays of the sun peeped over the ledge of the easternmost window. It didn’t take long for her to finish the braid, knotting the end in a circle just big enough for her foot.

The braid was as thick as two of her fingers and held up well when she tested it, so she tied her own hair back, hitched up her skirts, and carried the rope to the table. Running the rope around a table leg, she stuck her foot in the circle she’d made and wrapped the braid around her waist, just as Liam had taught her to do outside the ogre’s castle. Then, perched on the windowsill, she dangled her legs over the edge and dropped the other end of the braid. It fell in a golden coil, unfurling down the side of the tower until the end lay draped across the ground.

Annie swallowed hard. The ground looked far away now. If she were to slip or make a wrong move … Resolving not to look down again, she grasped the dangling rope with both hands and lowered herself down the wall. The first few yards went well, but her arms soon began to shake and she had to force herself to keep going.

Annie was nearly halfway down when she heard a horse and rider below her, but she didn’t dare look. With her breath rasping in her throat and her heart racing, all she could do was focus on working her way hand under hand down the rope. She had nearly reached the ground when a pair of strong arms wrapped around her waist and lowered her the rest of the way.

“I thought I’d lost you for good,” said a familiar voice, and Annie looked up into Liam’s eyes. “Was it too terrible?” he asked, glancing up at the tower.

“You have no idea,” she replied, letting her head rest against him. “So who told you where to find me—Mortimer or Ludlow?”

“Neither,” he said, sounding confused. “Actually, I found the men who kidnapped you. They were happy enough to tell me where you were once I’d tied them up and offered to shorten their miserable lives.”

Annie smiled, even though he couldn’t see it. “You do have a way with words.”