Fairytale Leak Case File #7

Associated story: THE ALPHA'S LAST STATION

In the FAIRYTALE LEAKS bundle

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— Forwarded email —

Dear Rosalind,

I was reluctant to write this, as it involves social media, and I am aware of your strong opinions on the subject. But this is urgent.

It started with TikTok. Or a Reel. One of those. I no longer attempt to tell them apart; it only encourages them.

I was in the Cotswolds when I saw it. The hedge near the bakery — the one with the listening enchantment we agreed never to discuss — picked up a mortal reading her own social media post aloud. I watched it twice. I am writing to you from a sunbeam. I am furious.

It is one sentence and a follow-up. I have transcribed it below. I would not normally trouble you with a single mortal posting nonsense on the internet, except this particular nonsense has 1.4 million views in eleven hours, and the woman who posted it has no idea what she has done.

She never will. That, perhaps, is the mercy.

@brittanydoesntsleep guys… what if the prince's kiss didn't actually wake Sleeping Beauty up. what if something ELSE did it and they just said it was the kiss because the kiss was right there 🤔 follow-up: don't @ me I'm just asking questions

I have, naturally, located her. She lives in a flat above a dry cleaner in Croydon. She is thirty-four. She is not magical. She is not affiliated with any institution that has the faintest business knowing what she has guessed. She arrived at the correct conclusion through vibes, Rosalind. She used that word. Aloud. I heard it with my own ears and I have not been the same since.

She does not know she is right.

She does not know why the question surfaced in her mind, either — which is that her flat sits on the very site where, centuries ago, the incident happened. You remember the incident. I remember the room. I remember the smell of the apprentice's panic.

The princess was to prick her finger on a spindle, fall asleep, and wake to the prince's kiss. Standard. Clean. That is the fairytale, and the fairytale is the promise.

The apprentice fairy had one task: place the spindle. She did not place the spindle. She instead left the sleeping potion — brewed for the woman operating the spindle — sitting on the table, and the princess drank it by accident.

I told you to let her sleep it off. You did not take my advice. You insisted the fairytale must remain intact at any cost, princess must wake when the prince kisses her.

So we cast the waking spell and called it fate.

You knew it wasn't fate. And ever since, our couples in similar arrangements — the ones with a single unconscious partner — have shown an alarming tendency to wake up bonded to the wrong person. This has kept our agents extraordinarily busy untangling them. Most cases resolve. This one will not, unless you move quickly, because it is about to go wrong at a train station.

The soulmate is meant to arrive on time. He will not. He is lost.

He could not find the car park.

He is American. The car park is in Australia. They drive on the other side of the road, which doesn’t help him. I leave you to imagine the rest.

We do have an agent on the ground — but he was never briefed on the changes. He is a wallaby. He is a scout leader. And dear Rosalind, he will take your every word at face value, with the earnest literalism of a creature who has earned eleven merit badges and trusts the system completely. So you must send him the correct message, and you must send it in time.

I am stuck in the Cotswolds.

Email is fast — if you check it. And if you check your email, this will sort itself. So I am, against every instinct I possess, asking you to check your email.

Might we try Zoom next time?

What I am truly asking is this. Brittany will not dig further. She will post about something else by Thursday, the count will plateau, the post will sink. Brittany is not the danger. The danger is that Brittany was the first mortal to notice in four hundred and seventy-nine years — and the next one to notice may be more thorough.

I will be in your office Tuesday at three.

Yours, as ever and against my better judgement, — Cashmere

P.S. The hedge near the bakery is overdue for re-enchantment; the listening spell is fraying badly. I caught three separate conversations about a dog named Trevor. I do not know who Trevor is. I do not wish to. Please send someone.