"So someone managed to claim an unclaimed heart before? How did that happen?"

"Some prince was out hunting and almost shot her, then she turned human and he was smitten on the spot, apparently. He was very sweet to her. When the Baron sent me to him it was the best a man has ever treated me."

"- Then what happened?"

"He found out I wasn't really Odette and panicked and went to her and they threw themselves in the lake. When they died it loosed the flock and the Baron had to run and get another one to get his immortality back. I wish I'd killed him when I had the chance."

"He specified that I couldn't drown myself."

She snorts.

"I haven't tested it," Etty adds.

"Are you going to?"

"Things would have to be worse than they have been so far. Or I'd have to be able to accomplish a lot by dying that I couldn't do any other way."

She shrugs.

"You really don't know what he's going to do with me?"

"I hear him shouting at them sometimes," she offers. "He does that a lot. To me, too."

"Why? What about?"

"He tells me I'm a baron's daughter and I need to act like it," she says. "You, he named after my mother, so maybe he'll scream at you for leaving him."

"He named me after your mother?". Etty does not have words for how twisted that is.

"I don't know if he'll want to fuck you, but it wouldn't surprise me," she adds.

"I - I - thank you for warning me," whispers Etty.

"Perhaps, but - it would not be a pleasant surprise."

"True enough."

"Do you know - any details about how the curse works? If I am the first to do something so obvious as walk through an unlocked door there might be hope."

"Less than you do, I think. Except - when the Baron sent me to seduce that prince, I was supposed to make him say he loved me."

"Something about the unclaimed heart. Probably. If he said he loved you then his heart wouldn't be properly unclaimed for his Odette?"

"I guess. He didn't give me reasons."