"What?" "There's a beautiful princess sleeping in the heart of the forest," Ironheart repeated obligingly. "I'm going to find her and wake her up." "With what? The kiss of true love?" Ironheart's green eyes grew enormous. "Wait a minute," he said. "How did you know?" I put my head down in my hands. This can't be happening. It just can't be, I thought. Somehow, some version of my story had gotten all mixed up. Turned around. In fact, it had gotten so confused that I was actually in the same room with someone who wanted to come and rescue me from something that hadn't even happened yet. Just breathe deeply, Aurore, I told myself. Calm down. He can't be talking about you. He said the princess was beautiful, or had you forgotten? That would certainly seem to rule you out. Nobody thought that I was beautiful, with the possible exception of Nurse and Papa. Perhaps the other countries bordering la Foret had their own tales to account for its strangeness. "How do you know?" I asked. Confusion flickered across Ironheart s face.
