Evanescent

The Chronicles of Nerissette - 2

by

Andria Buchanan

To Ainsley

For teaching me to be brave

Chapter One

I stood in the middle of the square in front of the Fort of Neris as the sun came up—alone. Which was strange because the square was never empty. There was always someone around, even if it was just a guard standing watch, waiting for the giants and trolls that could attack our home at any moment. That was my first sign that this was a dream.

The sun peeked over the horizon, and I watched the red-gold light fill the sky, heralding the dawn. Something slithered against my ankle and I glanced down. The square was flooded, and blood-tinged water lapped at my ankles.

Definitely a dream.

I lifted the heavy, impractical skirts that Dream Me had apparently decided to wear and sighed. Whatever it took to get out of this dream, I wasn’t going to find it standing here in a crappy dress, getting waterlogged. I turned toward the main gates, prepared to start the long hike uphill to the Crystal Palace. I really didn’t feel like hiking five miles—even if it was a dream—in a floor-length gown, of all things.

“They’re coming.”

I jumped at the sound of Esmeralda’s voice and saw her sitting on top of the water. I stared at the sorceress-turned-black-and-white cat. She had gone missing three months before, during the first days of the war against the Fate Maker for control of my kingdom, and no one had heard from her since. “Es? What are you doing here? Where have you been?”

“I’ve been forgiven,” Esmeralda said. “I have been released, but I still choose to protect you because you are the greatest thing—the only good thing—I have ever done for my people.”

“That’s not—”

“They are coming,” she repeated. “No one is safe. You are not safe.”

“Who’s coming?” I asked.

She looked over her shoulder, and I followed her gaze. On the horizon a huge black dragon circled in front of the sun. Kuolema. The Soul Eater. One of the four guardians of the Bleak, an eater of the dead, a dragon who called the darkness between worlds his home. The dragon who always haunted my nightmares. But this time there were two figures sitting atop his back. There had never been anyone with him in my dreams before.

A man, raven-haired, hunched his long, thin body over the dragon’s shoulders, his black and silver robes flapping around him. The Fate Maker. I tried to stay calm as I moved my attention to the person behind him. All I could tell from this distance was that it was a woman, her crimson skirts draped delicately over the dragon’s flank and her red hair gleaming like fresh blood in the sunlight as she clung to the Fate Maker’s waist. The hair on the back of my neck stood up and all I wanted to do was run. Run as far and as fast as I could away from her. If she was on the back of a dragon with the Fate Maker, no matter who she was or what she wanted here in Nerissette, it was bad. Very, very bad.

“No.” I shook my head and stepped back, lifting my skirts even higher so that I could make a dash for it if need be.

“The world they bring with them is too evil to contemplate.”

“But he’s dead.” I swallowed. “All of you are dead. You. The Fate Maker. Heidi and Jesse. We have their bodies.”

“Are you certain?” Esmeralda asked.

“There were bodies. Skeletons.”

“Are you sure they’re the right bodies?”

“No, but dragon fire is hot and we did our best to identify them. We buried Heidi and Jesse.”

“When you looked at them, what did you think?”

“I didn’t actually see them myself, but we buried bodies. They’re dead. They died that day and nothing I can do will change that. They died, Esmeralda, and we buried them. We buried their bodies.”

“And me? Did you bury me? The Fate Maker—did you bury him?”

“You and the Fate Maker just disappeared into thin air! Like you spontaneously combusted or something. So you’re dead—you have to be. Aren’t you? What are you if you aren’t dead?”

“I am at rest,” Esmeralda said. “Or as much at rest as I can allow myself to be now that you’re in danger.”

“And the Fate Maker?”

“He is coming and bringing an army of monsters with him like this world has never seen. If you are not prepared to stand up in front of the gates of Nerissette and face him, he will drench this world in a river of blood and tears that will wash Nerissette back into the Sea of Nevermore. Then he’ll march into the World That Is and burn every world between here and the stars.”

“So what do we do?” I begged, my eyes fixed on the dragon, drawing ever closer to us. “What do I do?”

“Don’t let him find the rest of the relics that I’ve hidden. Stop him and stop Fate once and for all. Destroy any monsters that they put in your way, and don’t let them find a way to get into the World That Is.”

“But how?” I asked.

“That…” Esmeralda bowed her head and I watched in horror as she began to fade away. “I do not know.”

“Esmeralda!”

She looked up at me again, her eyes glowing constant even as her body started to shimmer like a heat mirage.

“Don’t.” I held out a hand to her. “Don’t go. Stay and help us defeat him. Then we can all be free. All of us.”

“Oh, Your Majesty,” she sighed. “I am always with you.”

The cat disappeared then, and I heard the beat of the dragon’s wings as it flew closer.

“This world, Nerissette, is mine,” the Fate Maker’s voice taunted from inside my mind. “And I’m coming for it.”

Instead of fleeing I stood my ground, waiting, terrified but holding my head high as the dragon swooped lower. He veered toward me as if to tackle me to the ground. No matter what happened, though, I knew I wouldn’t move. I was firm, steady, and this—this—was nothing more than a dream.

“Your Majesty?” A soft voice sounded next to me, and I felt a touch on my shoulder, jerking me out of my nightmare. The small, smiling maid was leaning over me. “Your Majesty, you were screaming in your sleep. Again.”

“Right.” I swallowed and then sat up. “Sorry. It was just a dream. Just a very, very bad dream.”

“Of course it was, Your Majesty,” the maid said absently. “Now come on, up you get. You’ve got your Great Hall after breakfast.”

The Great Hall. That was today. The one day a month where I sat on my throne and allowed my subjects to come to me so that I could pass laws and judge disputes and basically rule them. Otherwise known as the worst day of the month since I’d become the Golden Rose of Nerissette, the rightful queen of the World of Dreams.

“Thank you.” I studied her face, trying to remember her name. There had been a lot of new faces around the castle since my coronation three months ago, and I still couldn’t keep everyone straight.

“Brigitte,” the maid replied. “From Sorcastia. I’ve only been here a week.”

“Oh.” I nodded. “So how is it? Working in the palace? Do you like it?”

“Much better than working on a farm, Your Majesty.” She smiled. “That was what had been in store for me, but once you came, I knew that I could do better and, well…”

“Here you are.” I couldn’t help thinking that if war came again Brigitte, and all the others who’d flocked to Neris, would have been better off if she’d stayed put. They still believed the lie that their lives were controlled by the invisible, nonexistent, goddess Fate.

“Here I am.” She laid out a brilliant sapphire-colored dress with silver vines embroidered on it and placed my sword beside it. “Maid to the Golden Rose herself. Dressing her for her Great Hall.”

“Right.” I rolled my eyes at her. “The Great Hall. Yay. Bring on the Great Hall.”

She giggled lightly. “Master Timbago said that you might say something like that. So he told me to tell you that the cook is making eggs in honor of your big day.”

“Because that’s supposed to make everything better.” I rolled out of bed and started tugging off my nightgown.

“Yes, Your Majesty,” she said and then smiled at me.

“Come on, let’s get me ready to go administer some justice. Deal with some land disputes and maybe argue about a pig or two.”

“I heard about your decision on the pig,” Brigitte said. “It was particularly inspired. Telling them that they had to split the pig exactly in half or they both had to forfeit their land in repayment? That was brilliant.”

“Yeah, who said the Bible didn’t occasionally come up with a good idea or two?” I shrugged.

“The what?” she asked.

I picked up my dress from the bed and slid it on before turning so that she could do up the laces. “Never mind.”

Chapter Two

“Okay, so let me get this straight. Because I’m not really sure I know why you’re both here.” I looked first at the farmer standing in front of my throne wringing his hands. Then I turned to the tall, red-haired man standing beside him.

The first guy was big, but the other one had broad shoulders and arms the size of tree branches, and moved like a mountain settling as he shifted from foot to foot. He’d have been creepy except for the scrawny, freckle-faced boy cowering behind him, his own curls standing out against the dark brown of his father’s shirt.

The red-haired man huffed and a short plume of smoke curled out of his nose. Dragons. They were notoriously impatient, and the red dragon clan was the worst from what I’d seen.

“You”—I pointed at the farmer—“have a farm outside Sorcastia, and since it’s the beginning of summer your fields are full of…”

“Wheat.” The farmer glowered at the other man before turning his wrath on the boy. “Wheat that is turned into fine bread for your gracious Majesty’s table. Not that these barbarians would know anything about fine bread or the hard work it takes to grow the crops we eat.”

“Barbarians?” The redhead’s muscles rippled over his chest. “Who are you calling a barbarian, you dirt lover? I am Lavian, son of the great dragon warrior Cathane. I’m the delegate to the Council of Dragos and war chieftain of the red dragon clan. How dare you—”

“Hey.” I turned to him. “Nobody’s daring anybody to do anything. Now, like I was saying, he had a crop of wheat. You took your son out to fly, and you ended up in Sorcastia near his field. What happened next?”

“My son may have let out a few plumes of smoke as he was flying overhead. But accidents happen.”

“Accidents!” the farmer raged. “You call what that boy did an accident?”

“He is learning to manage his transformation. He’s come of age and it’s time he embrace his fire.” Lavian stomped one of his large, booted feet. “It is time he takes his rightful place in our clan. He is a dragon, not a weak child of men. You wouldn’t understand.”

“Careful. That’s the Golden Rose you’re insulting,” Winston said, his voice a low growl.

I turned to see my crown prince, the new head of the Dragon Nations, war chieftain of the black dragon clan, head of the blah blah blah, otherwise known as my boyfriend-slash-official-consort and possibly ceremonial husband. Did he have to be so protective all the time?

Lavian stepped forward and Winston rose swiftly from his seat beside me. His form started to waver between his usual shape—a sixteen-year-old boy with close-cropped black curls and coffee-colored skin—and his other form: a very big, extremely intimidating, black dragon. He didn’t shift completely into dragon form but his point was clear. If Lavian wasn’t careful, he just might end up a piece of charcoal.

“I would—” Lavian started.

Winston’s form wavered again, his blue-black scales visible this time. “Apologize,” he said, his voice cold. “Now. Or your son may not be the only member of your clan cowering in fear before this throne.”

“My apologies,” Lavian said through clenched teeth.

“Right. Sure. It’s fine.” I turned to Winston, trying to project just the right mixture of appreciation for stepping in and back off already, numbskull. Somehow I had to manage the rest of my Hall without two dragons getting into a fistfight. “Isn’t it?”

“As long as he remembers you’re his queen, and that means he either speaks to you with respect or not at all.”

Lavian hissed under his breath and took a step forward. Winston started toward him and I grabbed his jacket, pulling him back.

“It’s fine. Stop showing off your scales and breathing smoke at each other so we can get this figured out,” I snapped.

“My Queen.” Winston shifted fully back to his human form and glared at Lavian, his upper lip curling like the dragon version of a German shepherd. Winston took his role of protector seriously, and while it shouldn’t have made me go all wibbly, I wasn’t embarrassed to admit that it did. Almost as weak-kneed as the few stolen kisses we’d managed since our defeat of the Fate Maker three months ago when I’d reclaimed my throne.

I shook my head and tried to focus on the two men. Now was really not the time to be thinking about kissing, not even really good kissing. Which made me wonder, how the heck did I end up stuck here listening to other people’s problems instead of kissing the boy by my side under the school bleachers?

Oh wait, that’s right, I fell through a book that was actually a magical portal between worlds, watched my friends get turned into magical creatures of myth and legend, was crowned Golden Rose, started a war, and destroyed our only doorway between here and home. That obviously meant I had to spend one day a month dispensing justice in the kingdom as my punishment. Yeah, now I remembered. I resisted the sigh that wanted to escape. Stupid me, I had thought biology class was the worst thing that could happen in my day when I was back in the real world. If only I had known there were things that were way, way worse.

“Okay, so you…” I nodded to the farmer. “You grow wheat. And you…” I swung my finger over to Lavian. “You have a son who needed to learn how to manage his transformation between human and dragon form. None of that tells me why the two of you are here.”

“The barbarian and his son—”

“The dirt lover insulted my honor and—”

“Enough!” I yelled, and then stood, glaring at both of them with my hands on my hips.

“You.” I motioned to the small red-haired boy, and he cowered farther behind his father’s large form. “Come out and tell me what happened. If we let the grown-ups do it we’re all going to die of old age before they ever tell me what’s wrong.”

“He set fire to my crops!”

“What?” I froze, and then whipped my head around to look at the farmer standing in front of my throne. Suddenly this seemed a lot more serious than a couple of guys yelling at each other for the heck of it. “He set fire to your fields? Why?”

“They were barely singed,” Lavian huffed.

“He burned the entire crop. There are scorch marks on the dirt itself. I won’t be able to plant again in that field for at least another season. A year’s planting gone. Another year’s crops lost as well, and he claims they’re barely singed.”

“Do you have any explanation for this?” I asked Lavian sternly.

“It wasn’t intentional,” Lavian said, his shoulders tensed around his ears. “My—”

“It was an attempt to steal my lands,” the farmer interrupted. “The dragons would destroy the land of Nerissette and place one of their own on your illustrious throne if they could. They can’t be trusted. None of them can be trusted.” He turned toward Winston and narrowed his eyes, in case I hadn’t somehow already gotten his drift.

“Why would we want a dung heap?” Lavian ground out. “It serves no practical purpose for us. Besides, due to the alliance between your Rose and the war chieftain for the black dragons we are joined with your precious throne. We have yoked ourselves to the dirt lovers and their petty squabbles.”

“One more ‘dirt lover’ out of you, one more insult against the race of men, just one more,” I said, “and you’re not going to like the result. Trust me.”

“I highly doubt—”

“Lavian,” Winston said, letting his form waver again. The other dragon immediately dropped his head and stretched out his neck in what I’d learned was the way that dragons kept themselves from getting barbecued and eaten. Not that I thought it was going to do Lavian much good with the mood Winston was in. The man was going to become flambé in about ten seconds if he didn’t get his act together.

“Now, you tell me what happened,” I said, my eyes fixed on Lavian’s son.

He stepped forward, staring hard at the floor, and his shoulders started to shake. “I’m—” He gasped and his entire body began to tremble. “I’m so sorry,” he sobbed.

I had to grab the arms of my chair to keep from wrapping my arms around him. He’d set fire to a field. I couldn’t just tell him that it was okay. I didn’t want to punish him, but he could have killed people.

“Your Majesty—” Lavian said.

I held a hand up to silence him before I stood and made my way to the boy. I may not be very good at being a queen yet, but I knew what it was like to be a scared kid. I’d been just as scared as he was ever since my mother had ended up in a coma and I’d gone into foster care.

I dropped to my knees beside the boy before looking up at the two grown men staring down at us. “You two stay quiet. Otherwise I’m going to send you all to the dungeon to think about your manners.”

Rhys, the head of my army and one of my closest friends, let out a barely muffled snort from his post behind my throne. I reminded myself to make a list of all the things he’d missed in the five years he’d been in Nerissette later and then spoil each and every one of them for him. Didn’t he see I was trying to do my queen thing right now?

“Sorry,” he said, his British accent crisp among the softer, more slurred accents of Nerissette. “Must have been something in my throat. Go on, Your Majesty.”

It wasn’t bad enough that I doubted my ability to rule an entire country. Now I had him undermining me? Just what I needed from a supposed friend.

I paused a moment. “Thank you. As I was saying, one more word and someone’s going to the dungeon.”

Rhys coughed again, and I shot him a disapproving glance as the young dragon leaned toward me and sniffled against my shoulder. Obviously someone didn’t want to keep a lid on the fact that the Crystal Palace of Nerissette was lacking in dungeons. The jerk. Didn’t he realize that occasionally white lies were necessary when you were making completely unsupportable threats to show your authority? As well as not-so-white lies about other things just to keep your people calm? Like the unknown status of certain power-hungry dark wizards with an eye on world domination, for example.

“I was flying with Da,” the boy began. Putting aside thoughts about dungeons, I tried to focus on how the farmer’s field had been set on fire. “He was teaching me how to dive and do loop-de-loops and how to race.”

“Then what happened?” I tried to keep my voice even and nonthreatening so he’d continue talking and I could figure out what the heck to do about all this.

“I was flying really fast, so fast that even Da couldn’t keep up with me, and then I got this smell in my nose and everything started to itch and I couldn’t help myself, Your Majesty. I tried and I tried but it was either sneeze where I was or take the chance of setting the Forest of Ananth on fire. There hasn’t been much rain lately so I was afraid that if I sneezed in the forest—”

“You’d set the trees up in flames, and we’d be fighting a fire in half the villages on that side of Wevlyn Lake?” I turned to look at the two men, stunned. The boy had almost set a forest on fire and they were in here fighting over a field? One field?

“That would have been bad,” the boy said quietly against my shoulder. “Wouldn’t it?”

“Over a thousand people could have died because a dragon fledgling needed to sneeze.” I rubbed my face and tried to ignore the headache forming behind my eyes.

“It’s as I told you,” the farmer said, his face now a brilliant red. “They want to burn us all and take our land.”

“Why didn’t your son follow the training guidelines?” Winston asked Lavian as I held the young fledgling closer to me as his sobs slowed. “Everyone knows that fledgling dragons are only to fly over water until given further approval by the Dragos Council.”

“It’s possible I was shortsighted,” the dragon said, his voice quiet and his face the same color as the farmer’s standing next to him. “He is a red dragon and we are known for our flying abilities, as well as our ability to control our transformation. Even still, I should have been more cautious about his training.”

“Right. So.” I looked back and forth between the two men before settling on Lavian, shaking my head. “You, Lavian of the red dragon clan, member of the Council of Dragos, so on and so forth, will pay for the value of Farmer Salvachio’s wheat.”

“What?” Lavian said, his eyes bugging out of his head for a moment.

“Mr. Salvachio.” I ignored the angry dragon. “I am going to request that the dryads come to your fields and see if they can’t heal it so that you can plant again. If it works, we’re done here. If the dryads tell me that you won’t be able to use the field next year, Lavian will have to buy those crops as well, at the same price as he’s paying for these.”

“I—” the red dragon protested.

“As my mom used to tell me: you did wrong, and now you’ve got to pay for it.” I narrowed my eyes at him as I hugged his son tighter. “Your son burned down a field because you weren’t watching him. That means it’s your responsibility to pay for the damages.”

“Who says he’ll actually pay?” Salvachio asked. “Everyone knows dragons never pay their debts.”

“Enough,” I snapped. “I’m not only sick of the dirt lover comments, but I’m really sick of the constant anti-dragon things I hear as well. We’re all Nerissetteans—”

Rhys coughed behind me—again—and I had to fight the urge to turn around and smack him. Last I checked he hadn’t been around to make a suggestion on the whole naming-the-people topic. He and Winston had both skipped that meeting to go hunting instead, and I really wasn’t in the mood for him to second-guess me now. If he didn’t stop it, I was going to get his girlfriend—my very best friend, Mercedes—to use her super-special dryad powers to turn him into plant food. Or even worse, a fern. I was pretty sure she could manage to turn him into a fern. Then I was going to forget to water him.

“We’re all in this together. So no more interspecies bashing, got it?”

“Of course, Your Majesty.” Salvachio bowed his head before me. “I shall endeavor to be more tolerant, if it pleases you.”

“As will I,” Lavian said, his face still mottled red.

“Good.” I clapped my hands together and nodded at them both before letting go of the fledgling and returning to my throne, squirming to find a comfortable spot as I straightened my overly long skirts. “That settles that. Lavian, you’re paying for the wheat. Salvachio, I’ll set things up with the dryads. If everything’s good, then court is in recess until I get back.”

“My Queen.” John of Leavenwald, head of the woodsmen and my unofficial adviser in all things diplomatic since my coronation, stood next to one of the windows on the far side of the room, his pale hair bright in the sunlight and his gray eyes obscured. “If we could speak for a moment, please?”

I nodded weakly. “Sure. What do you need?”

He came forward and bowed low before stepping onto the dais and leaning down so his lips were next to my ear. “I would not second-guess your ruling, Your Majesty, but what will you do about the boy and his training? People could have died because of his father’s refusal to follow the rules. You cannot let such a thing go.”

The boy. Crap. I’d forgotten about him. Well, okay, not really. I just didn’t want to punish him. Sure, he’d burned down a guy’s field, but he hadn’t done it on purpose, and he’d done the right thing in the situation.

Besides, I didn’t feel like I could punish him. After all, hadn’t I been doing basically the same thing since I’d gotten here? I’d been trying to figure out how to be a leader while fighting a war and guessing what the best possible outcomes could be. The only difference between us was that if I failed, there was a lot more at stake than one forest.

“Do I have to? I mean, he’s a kid,” I whispered. John’s eyes softened for a split second before going back to their normal iron gray. “And I really don’t want to punish him just because his dad’s a jerk. That would make me a tad hypocritical considering who my father is.”

John flinched. The most likely candidate for my father was the evil wizard intent on killing me and taking my throne. Yeah, after having my “dad” try to kill me and take over my kingdom I didn’t feel like I could punish anyone else for having lousy parents.

“Then give him the chance to grow into a good dragon. An honorable dragon. Let him have a worthy fate instead of one that’s marred by the mistakes of youth.” John’s eyes were fixed on mine.

“He needs to be trained properly,” I said, nodding. “So that next time he’s flying he doesn’t accidentally kill someone.” I looked over at the boy, who was still clinging to the back of his father’s shirt. “Lavian, your son—”

“Dravak.” The boy sniffled and then peered up at me with red-rimmed eyes.

His father could have turned him into a murderer, a monster, if the boy hadn’t changed course. And he would have had to live with that. He’d have been forced to spend his life remembering the people who’d died because of his actions. That was a miserable fate, one I didn’t want to share with anyone. Especially a young boy.

“Dravak,” I said, trying to keep my face stiff and all queen-like instead of letting tears well up in my eyes at what I was about to do. “Dravak will stay here, in the care of the tutors at the aerie until he completes his training. Then he can go back to Dramera and take up his duties in the red dragon clan.”

“I will not turn my son over to a bunch of dirt-loving—”

“Really?” Dravak pushed past his father and dropped to his knees in front of the throne. “You’re going to let me join the aerie? Only the best dragon warriors are allowed to live there and protect the Rose and her throne. Fate herself chooses them. The warriors of the aerie are touched as her own.”

“Well.” I swallowed and tried to forget the fact that so many people here believed their lives were ruled by some divine goddess they had never seen, who had laid out the paths of their lives before they were even born.

I knew better, of course. Esmeralda had told me Fate was fiction. She’d made up the idea of the goddess and her prophecies to keep one of my ancestors on the throne and prevent a civil war. But the idea had taken root and now, and no matter what I said, the people here were determined to live by a fake goddess’s will.

“Your Majesty?” John asked.

“Indeed, Fate herself told me in my orb,” I said, my voice shaking. “She told me that a brave dragon warrior in need of shaping would come into my throne room today and I was to take him into the aerie. Fate herself told me to look out for you, if your father approves.”

Hatred burned in the blacks of Lavian’s eyes. He knew I was lying. He knew Fate wasn’t taking his son away from him, but me, Alicia Munroe, the not-quite-seventeen-year-old, brand-new Golden Rose of Nerissette.

I kept my eyes on his and let them both pretend that Lavian had a say in whether or not his son trained here. That we were united in making sure that Dravak met his destiny. That this was something to be celebrated.

“It’s a high honor that Fate and her handmaiden, the Golden Rose, have bestowed on you,” Lavian said stiffly, his eyes never leaving mine as he spoke to his son. “Always act in a way that proves you deserve her trust and that Fate has chosen wisely in bringing you here.”

“I will, Da.” Dravak nodded vigorously at his father and his eyes shone with happiness, as if I’d just given him the world’s best gift instead of taking him away from his family. “I’ll be a great dragon warrior. I’ll fight bravely for the Golden Rose and her throne. I’ll—”

“I’m sure you will,” I said, and tried to ignore how much this decision utterly sucked. “Now, by the light of the Pleiades, thank you all for coming. My royal audience is over but there’s food on the tables in the formal gardens for anyone who’s hungry. Please, make yourselves at home.”

“Allie?” Winston asked.

“I need a minute.” I pushed myself out of the throne and headed for the door behind my throne. “Just one minute.”

“Your Majesty.” John opened the heavy wooden door and motioned me through. “You need to meet with the newly appointed ambassador from Bathune. His delegation will be here soon, and they won’t wait for you to have a snack.”

“I know. I know. Meeting with the new ambassador four hours before the ball to welcome him to court with three hundred guests and—”

“Your Majesty,” Timbago said, hurrying after us, his long, hoop-pierced ears trembling. The small green goblin only came up to my knee but he still managed to keep my palace running efficiently, and apparently keep up with our full-length strides. “Are you well?”

“I just…” I squeezed my eyes shut and took a deep breath. I’d just lied to a little boy. I’d taken him from his family and I’d justified it by lying. By telling him that it was the will of Fate. I’d lied to him like I’d been lying to everyone else, and it was finally catching up to me. Everything here seemed to be built on lies.

“Just take a minute.” John took my hands in his and squeezed them.

“Thank you.” I closed my eyes and leaned back against the wall of the darkened servants’ hallway that led from my throne room to the kitchens. “It was all too much. I mean, if that boy wouldn’t have changed course—”

“Don’t think about it,” John said. “It’s a battle you don’t have to fight, so let it alone. The forest was safe, and you’ve punished the dragon responsible. No one else will consider such a foolish action again.”

“But he’s so young… That boy. I took him from his father—and his mother! I didn’t even think about her—”

“He could have massacred everyone on that side of the lake,” John said. “He wouldn’t have meant to but his father’s reaction was rash and he could have turned the boy into a murderer because of his lack of thought and his ego.”

“I know that I had to protect Dravak before something more serious happened, but that doesn’t mean it sucks any less that I had to be the one to take him from his parents.”

Timbago pressed a hand against my knee. “You did the right thing.”

“Well, it still feels lousy. I took a kid from his parents and now he’s going to be trained to fight, whether he wants to or not. Because he thinks that this is what Fate wants.”

“Sometimes it’s better for children to be away from their parents and safe, than with them and in danger,” John said, looking away for a moment.

“Is it? I was apart from my parents and I’ve got to tell you I never felt any better off—at least not after I lost Mom.”

John slowly met my eyes, his gaze direct. “You’re young. Perhaps one day you’ll understand. Until then, just know that sometimes even the right decisions can make you feel bad.”

“John?”

“Yes, Your Majesty?”

“Thanks. For everything, I mean. Watching my back and getting me out of there for a few minutes and…”

“You’re welcome. Now, are you ready to watch the new ambassador of Bathune grovel at your feet?”

“Grovel?”

“The last ambassador from Bathune—Sarai—fled during the Battle of the Hall of the Pleiades,” John explained. My stomach clenched at even the mention of the day I’d been crowned queen and promptly tumbled my kingdom into civil war.

“And he ran away because your aunt, the empress of Bathune, was in league with the Fate Maker,” Timbago added. “Even though she’d like you to believe otherwise. There are even those who say they saw your aunt’s ambassador fighting beside the Fate Maker.”

“But my aunt keeps sending me notes that say she had nothing to do with the war and is simply waiting for us to hammer out a peace agreement before she sends Sarai back here to Nerissette,” I said.

Not that I necessarily believed any of what she wrote. Her former ambassador, Sarai, was a wizard and that group as a whole wasn’t particularly fond of me. Plus, he was my aunt’s ambassador, and from everything I’d heard and read about her since I’d arrived in Nerissette, I wasn’t sure I could trust her. Especially after she’d left me to fight a war on my own and didn’t even bother to ask if I needed any help.

“We have been at peace for a while now,” Timbago pointed out. “Your aunt has sent trade groups across the White Mountains. Why hasn’t Sarai returned with them? Why is she sending a new ambassador in his place? Unless she knows that we don’t trust him?”

“Exactly,” John agreed. “We know it and so does she. She can’t send Sarai back here when we know he’s a spy for the Fate Maker that his allegiance is to the wizards and not to us.”

“Are we sure that he was fighting with the Fate Maker’s army?” I asked. “We’re certain that he fled, but do we know without a doubt that he was fighting for our enemy?”

“Gunter of the Veldt insists that Sarai was hiding in the forests with the wizards, and when the forest caught fire, he ran,” John said.

The fire. I bit my lower lip as my heart thumped painfully in my chest and I tried my hardest not to think about how I’d ordered Winston and the rest of the dragons to set fire to the forest outside my palace during my last battle with the Fate Maker. We’d been trying to flush out the wizards who had been attacking us from the cover of the trees, but instead, two of the other teens who’d fallen through the book with me—Heidi and Jesse—had been trapped there with the wizards. They were caught in a fire that I had started. I was the reason they were dead.

“But if he was with the Fate Maker’s army, he may still be with them,” John added.

Timbago looked wary. “The Empress Bavasama says that he returned to Bathune though.”

“Since when do we believe anything that Bavasama says?” John snapped.

“We don’t.” Timbago glared at the other man. “But unless we have proof, which we don’t, we can’t just accuse the empress of Bathune of waging war against the Golden Rose. Against her own family. Her only remaining family.”

“Even though we all know that she did it,” I said quietly. “My aunt wants my throne, and she’ll do whatever it takes to get it.”

“Yes.” John nodded.

I turned to look at the goblin standing across from me, focusing on his bulging, red-veined eyes. “Timbago?”

“Yes, she has sided with your enemies,” he said softly, “and she will kill you if she gets the chance. But right now we aren’t in a strong enough position to start a war that will stop her. Right now we must bow our heads and make peace with your aunt. Until we’re sure we can win a war against her.”

“I agree,” John said. “I don’t like it, but Timbago is right. Today we have no choice but to maintain the peace.”

“And what about Eriste?” I asked. “The new ambassador? What do either of you know about him?”

“He makes Sarai look like a kitten dressed up in trollskin.” Timbago snorted.

“You’ve dealt with him before?” I asked.

“More than I would care to admit,” Timbago said. “I wasn’t unhappy to see him leave when he went with the empress to Bathune, and I’m not pleased to see him return.”

I raised an eyebrow at Timbago. “So you don’t like him?”

“I never liked him, Queen Allie.”

“Why?” I asked, trying to get a feel for the ambassador I would be meeting before we were actually face-to-face.

“Before your mother became the Golden Rose, when your grandmother ruled, Bathune and Nerissette were one country.” Timbago looked away. “The old queen split the lands at the White Mountains when she died, so that each of her daughters could inherit part of the kingdom, which she’d hoped would prevent a civil war between them.”

I knew this already. When I hadn’t been going over paperwork and trying to rebuild the parts of my castle that had been damaged in the Fate Maker’s last attack, I’d been studying the history of my new home and how my ancestors had ruled it. “And?”

“A lot of the wizards felt that the kingdom shouldn’t have been split, that it should have gone to the oldest daughter—Bavasama—as a whole kingdom. Eriste was one of them,” John said.

“So you think he wants to get rid of me and put Bavasama on the throne?”

“I know he does.” Timbago’s eyes fixed on mine now. “The only question is will he do anything about it?”

“Do you think that’s why my aunt sent him?” I asked. “Do you think Bavasama is going to try to force me from my throne?”

“I think she would not be sad to see you gone,” John sidestepped. “You are the queen of a large kingdom, a kingdom larger than her own, and one she will inherit if you die. She has much to gain. And you didn’t die in battle the first time…”

John had helped Rhys after the war, making sure that the wounded were treated and the dead were taken care of while I was still too weak from my own fight with the Fate Maker to take charge. Since then he’d moved into the palace and his son, Eamon, had joined the Royal Guards with several other woodsmen. Whenever I needed John he’d been there, ready with advice or information to help me make decisions in the day-to-day running of the kingdom. He was never pushy, though. Never demanded that I do things a specific way. He simply gave me the information I needed and helped me keep the country under control while I figured out how I was supposed to manage. He was doing it again now.

“So, long story short, she’s going to try to be my friend while she looks for a way to stab me in the back.” I blew out a long breath. No one had ever told me that running a country was going to be like living inside a high school but it was. Between the squabbling cliques of nobles and the gossip and the general he said-she said crap that floated around the place it was like being at boarding school or something. Except, unlike Harry Potter, I didn’t have a cool professor like McGonagall to keep everyone in line for me.

“That’s politics, Your Majesty,” Timbago said. “Eriste means you nothing but harm and is not to be trusted.”

“Okay.” I nodded. “Don’t trust him. Don’t trust her. That shouldn’t be hard. It seems I can’t trust most people anymore anyway. Just you two, Winston, Rhys, and Mercedes.”

“Can I give you a piece of advice, Your Majesty?” John asked as he led me back into the throne room. “You shouldn’t trust anyone. Not even us.”

I stopped, my hand going for my sword. “Why not?” I eyed him warily.

“We all have an agenda.”

“Even you?”

John lifted an eyebrow. “Even me what?”

“Do you have an agenda?”

“Yes. It involves keeping you on the throne and seeing the Fate Maker dead.” He cleared his throat. “Now come along, there’s an ambassador you need to impress with your queenliness, and it won’t help if you’re late.”

Chapter Three

I ran a shaky hand through my hair and tried to appear calm, cool, and totally confident as John and Timbago ushered me into the throne room to meet the new ambassador from Bathune—an ambassador who was also most likely a spy for my aunt. My potentially crazy aunt who might be in league with the evil wizard to kill me so they could carve up my kingdom between them. There was no way that this meeting was going to go well.

“Her Royal Majesty, by the grace of the Pleiades, ruler of all the light touches, the Golden Rose of Nerissette, Queen Alicia the First,” Timbago said loudly. “Long may she reign!”

John nodded toward Timbago and held an arm out to escort me to my throne. I went with him and took a seat, clearing my throat before I faced…well, no one.

Huh. That was a bit anticlimactic. Wasn’t there supposed to be an ambassador waiting for me? Or subjects? Someone? Anyone?

Timbago clapped his hands again and the doors at the other end of the room creaked slowly open. When they had opened all the way, Timbago stepped in front of the dais and raised his chin. “Her Majesty the Golden Rose.”

His voice echoed through the large, mostly empty chamber.

Another goblin, one I didn’t recognize, marched through the doorway at the other end of room before bowing low to me, his eyes on the floor. He was wearing a brilliant, emerald-green jacket and matching pants, the bells on his curly-toed shoes clinking against the marble floor. My aunt made her goblins dress up like court jesters with bells on their shoes? As if I needed any more proof that she was evil.

“His Grace, the ambassador of Bathune—the wizard Eriste, son of the great wizard Entalbe, grandson of the grand vizier Enselm, former apprentice of the vizian Nedras, member of the Grand Order of Dark Wizards, and knight magical of the Order of the Defenders of Bathune, begs audience with Her Majesty.”

“Wow,” I said quietly. “That’s a mouthful.”

John lips twitched upward into a tight smile before he brought a fist up to cover it, and Timbago’s shoulders shook for just a split second before he went still. “Enter, and may her wisdom shine down upon you.”

“Your Majesty.” A tall man in silver robes, his gray hair cropped close to his skull and his blue eyes piercing me from across the room, stepped forward and bowed, waving his hand in front of his body with a flourish. “I am Eriste, ambassador of the kingdom of Bathune.”

“I am Queen Alicia the First, Golden Rose of Nerissette. Welcome to my palace,” I said, trying to sound formal—more like Amidala from the Star Wars prequels and less like my normal self. I wasn’t exactly sure how I was supposed to deal with having a suspected spy in my court.

“Thank you.” He held his hand out, palm up, and the air over it shimmered for a brief moment. A picnic basket appeared in his hands, wavering into existence by his magic. “I was wondering if you would care to join me outside for a late-afternoon snack?”

“Excuse me?” He wanted to do what? Was a spy intent on helping overthrow your kingdom supposed to invite you to lunch first?

“I remember from my last visit here that your mother was quite fond of picnics. I had hoped you would be as well. Not to mention I know how long royal audiences can be—everyone is always a bit hungry after a long day of dispensing justice.”

Oh forget it, if the guy really was trying to start a civil war to steal my crown he wasn’t going to be able to do it over a plate of sandwiches. Was he? Besides, I hadn’t had lunch yet and I was starving. And he wouldn’t poison me in front of witnesses—I hoped. “That sounds…very nice. Thank you.”

“Wonderful. I seem to remember a lovely spot on a hill that allowed us to see the city of Neris below.”

“That hill is now home to the mermaid embassy,” John said. “Their labyrinth is on that land.”

“A shame.” Eriste shook his head. “You would have loved it, Your Majesty. Your grandmother always held her parties there.”

“You could go to the gardens on the western side of the palace,” Timbago said from beside my throne. “The place we’ve cleared for the memorial. I believe the first dryad plantings are starting to sprout there.”

“Right.” I swallowed as I pictured about the patch of garden we’d set aside for a statue honoring the people who had died to make our kingdom safe. The people like Heidi and Jesse who had been lost because of the Fate Maker’s hate. I’d always thought of it more like a graveyard, but it was pretty in a spooky sort of way. I glanced over at John, hoping he had some sort of advice on the matter.

“You’re building a memorial?” Eriste raised an eyebrow at me.

“Yes,” John cut in, his gray eyes fixed on mine. “The queen insisted on it. A proper tribute to all those in Nerissette who gave their lives to make sure we would no longer live under the rule of a false king or queen. A reminder of the thousands more that would be willing to die to keep this country safe again.”

“Yes.” I nodded, catching on. Picnicking at the memorial would send a very clear message that we were not going to sit back and be bullied. We weren’t going to roll over and let anyone—not wizards or giants or anyone else—come in here and take our country—or our friends—from us again.

“And you think the best way to show that is with a memorial?” Eriste asked.

“We’re putting up a statue to remind people that as long as wizards like the Fate Maker threaten us, we will never truly be safe. That we need to always be ready to fight for our survival,” I said, keeping my eyes fixed on his.

“That’s a rather grim place for a picnic.” Eriste grimaced. “Why not the front gardens instead? Your courtyard is lovely, such beautiful ember fruit trees lining the main drive.”

“The memorial has a nicer view. You’ll be able to see how well we’re rebuilding Neris. Especially the fort. We’ve done quite a bit of work to make it secure in case the giants come back.”

“Very well.” Eriste bowed his head as I stepped off the throne and walked toward him. He offered me his arm and I took it as John fell in behind us.

“I don’t think we need your royal adviser with us.” Eriste glanced behind him at John. “We won’t be discussing trade agreements just yet; this is only a get-to-know-you lunch after all.”

“The queen goes nowhere alone,” John said, his tone firm.

“Really?” Eriste looked at me in surprise.

“We’ve all become a bit jumpy.” I tried to keep my voice light. “Since the regent who ruled during my childhood tried to kill me and all.”

“By necessity we’ve all become cautious about the Golden Rose’s security,” John said.

“They even post guards outside my door when I sleep,” I said. “Plus guards around the perimeter of the castle. No one is getting in here. One of my guards will find them, and let’s just say I wouldn’t want to be the bad guy when they do.”

“Is there still such a great threat to your rule? Now that the Fate Maker’s gone I would assume you could rule in peace. All these precautions shouldn’t be necessary.”

“The Fate Maker may be gone, but there are other wizards out there who took part in the rebellion against me.”

“Not all of the wizards fought against you.”

“None of them fought for me,” I said pointedly.

“But—” He glanced between me and John, his eyes wary.

“Some even ran away and hid in the forests so they wouldn’t get caught in the crossfire.” I raised an eyebrow at him, daring him to challenge me. “They’re a threat.” My free hand lingered on the hilt of the sword hanging from the jeweled belt around my waist. “They’re a threat to me and to my kingdom. Even those who didn’t actively follow the Fate Maker.”

There, let him think about that for a little bit.

“Not all wizards are against your rule, Your Majesty,” Eriste said. “I know that I, for one, am happy to see you on your mother’s throne.”

We made our way out of the throne room and into the wide, marble entrance hall of the castle. Once we reached the back doors, two woodsmen guards stepped forward and opened them for us, their heads bowed as we passed.

“Thank you,” I said as we entered the patio. I smiled at the head of the woodsmen guard, whose blond hair curled around his ears and gray eyes squinted against the glare of the sun.

John had suggested that I learn the names of as many soldiers as possible, and give them a brief, polite hello, or make quick conversation when I saw them. Just something to let them know I recognized them as people, not tools to be used to help me stay on the throne. He claimed it made me look friendlier, especially compared to my aunt, who was known to be distant with her subjects.

“Eamon.” I smiled at John of Leavenwald’s only son and the future head of the woodsmen. “How are you?”

“I’m fine, Your Majesty. How are you?” he replied stiffly, his eyes not meeting mine. Which wasn’t that surprising, really. Eamon was always more rigid around me than I understood.

“Fine, thank you. I’m going on a picnic with the new ambassador for Bathune. Ambassador Eriste, meet Eamon, head of the woodsmen members of my Royal Guard.”

Eriste nodded to Eamon. “It’s a pleasure.”

“Eamon, meet the newest ambassador from Bathune, the wizard Eriste.” I tried not to smirk. The few times I’d met John’s son since his arrival at the palace he’d made sure to make clear his absolute hatred for wizards.

“A wizard?” Eamon’s shoulders tensed as he let his eyes rake over Eriste. “My men and I will accompany you on your picnic with this wizard. Just in case.”

“That would be great, Eamon. Thanks.”

He nodded and then followed behind John.

“Will you be at the ball tonight, Eamon?” I asked over my shoulder as we moved down the wide sloping marble stairs that led from the patio onto the grass.

“I’ll be on guard, Your Majesty, protecting you from any who wish you harm. Even those who should not.”

I smiled. Eamon was just the right sort of gung-ho creepy that even if the war memorial and the soldiers didn’t scare the ambassador into good behavior, he might. “Well, let’s hope we both have an uneventful night. Then maybe we could get a dance in.”

“I don’t think that would be appropriate.” Eamon glanced down at me with gray eyes that matched his father’s, something dark and angry flickering in his eyes for just the slightest moment before it disappeared. But that didn’t make sense. Eamon and I had always gotten along okay. Sure, he was a bit stiff and stuffy, but he’d never been mean.

“I don’t think we need to worry too much about all those old customs, now do we?” I tried to smile at him, even though I knew my lips were barely managing to curl upward. “Besides, what could be more appropriate than a queen dancing with one of her bravest warriors?”

“A queen who knows her place,” he muttered quietly. I flinched as if stricken. Well, so much for being nice. “At least where those who would harm her can see.”

“Right.” I nodded and tried not to take it personally. Some people were still having trouble adjusting to a less formal royal court. Eamon was probably just one of them. I followed Eriste off the patio while everyone else, including the rest of the woodsmen guards, shadowed us.

“It’s lucky that I brought a magic picnic basket,” Eriste said in my ear as we turned toward the west side of the palace. “Otherwise we wouldn’t have enough food.”

“They won’t eat,” I said. “I mean, one of them may taste any food that you hand to me, but other than that they won’t eat. They say it’s disrespectful.”

“It is, but royal poison testers?” Eriste raised an eyebrow again. “You are that worried about threats to your throne?”

“Civil war broke out in the Hall of the Pleiades during my coronation. I think I have every right to be that worried about threats.”

“Threats from a royal ambassador?”

“Threats can come from anywhere,” I said sharply. I clutched at my skirt to keep my hands from shaking “I learned that when my own regent raised an army and started a war against me.”

“I must admit,” Eriste said quietly, “I am curious about what happened that day during the battle. You and the Fate Maker, alone together in a room, battling for control of this world. I have heard that you smashed one of the great relics and then killed not one, but both, of the most powerful wizards who have ever walked in the World of Dreams.”

“Yes.” I tried not to think about what it had been like, the way the room had seemed to explode as the Mirror of Nerissette was destroyed, blocking off my way home to Bethel Park, Pennsylvania, where my foster mother moved on with her life and my mother still lay ill in a hospital bed. I shook off the reminder.

“Rumor is, when the mirror exploded they were trapped inside of it, lost in between the realms of reality,” Eriste fished. “That he and Esmeralda were lost between the World That Is and the World of Dreams.”

“Yes, he was taken by the light. They were taken by the light. Even so, we keep tight control on security here, just in case one of his wizard friends comes looking for revenge.”

“With the army inside your walls? They would be fools to attack a queen so obviously prepared for battle.”

“Who knows what a wizard would do? You and my aunt may trust wizards as a rule, since you have so very many of them in Bathune,” I taunted, letting him know that I knew exactly where the wizards who had fought against me had fled after the battle. “But I don’t trust them.”

“It is true that many wizards have come to Bathune now that you’ve outlawed the practice of magic. We all simply wish to live in peace and practice our craft, and your aunt allows us to do that. But that’s not what I’ve come to discuss. Your aunt doesn’t wish to meddle in what laws you make or don’t—even if she disagrees with them.”

“I didn’t outlaw magic,” I said. “I outlawed the wizards’ attempts to control Nerissette and its people. The dryads are at peace here, practicing their magic—as are the Naiads and the Aurae. The Firas practice their fire worship in peace, too. Everyone is welcome in Nerissette as long as they follow the laws. But you’re right. How I decide to rule Nerissette doesn’t involve my aunt. This isn’t her country, and it never will be.”

“I see.” Eriste set down his basket on the grass and waved his fingers. A blue-and-white-checked blanket appeared, curling out of the side of the basket and slithering onto the ground, laying itself out for us. Plates and goblets followed after, spinning in the air as Eriste twitched his fingers, and then set down in front of us. He waved his fingers again and platters filled with sandwiches and fruit shimmered into existence, a glass pitcher of water with ember fruit sliced in it beside the platters.

“Would you care for a sandwich, Your Majesty? Then perhaps we could begin to discuss increasing the number of caravans that travel the trade routes in the White Mountains and lowering the taxes that you charge merchants coming into Nerissette from Bathune.”

John cleared his throat. “I thought this meeting was simply a picnic? Not a trade negotiation, Ambassador.”

Eriste shrugged and held out the platter of sandwiches toward me. “I didn’t think trade was a topic that was off-limits. Surely we’re all better off if trade continues between Nerissette and Bathune?”

“Let me.” Eamon took it and tore a small hunk off the end of one of the sandwiches. The woodsman took a bite, chewing carefully, and then wrinkled his nose before winking at me—obviously trying to make amends for his comments a few minutes earlier.

“Roast beef. Could use a touch more horseradish, but other than that it seems fine.” Eamon placed the sandwich on the plate in front of me and I picked it up. I took a small bite of the sandwich and tried to hold back my groan of pleasure at the taste. I had no idea what Eamon was talking about—this might possibly have been the best sandwich I’d ever tasted, and it had the perfect amount of horseradish.

“More horseradish. I’ll keep that in mind,” Eriste said drily.

“It all looks delicious,” I said. “If Eamon doesn’t drop dead I’m sure it’ll be wonderful.”

Eamon poured the water into one of the goblets and then took a small sip of the water. Then he popped two grapes into his mouth. Once he’d tasted them he took out a small knife and carved a small sliver off an apple, biting into it carefully. “The food is not poisoned,” Eamon said, his voice flat and emotionless.

Eriste glanced at the guard still hovering over us. “May the Pleiades be praised that the Golden Rose is safe.”

“May they keep us all safe,” I said, my eyes narrowed at him.

“This,” Eriste said as he picked up a grape, ignoring the tension between us, “is a rather lovely spot, I must say. It’s a shame we couldn’t use the hillside where your mother held her picnics, but this is a surprisingly nice second option. Although the flowers are unusual. Are they dryad plants?”

I looked over at the rose vines that had been set up along the perimeter of what was going to be the memorial walk and admired the dark-green bulbs that had yet to sprout flowers. “Yes, Darinda has taken charge of growing them herself. She says it’s her personal duty to those she lost.”

“Do you know what they are? The flowers?” Eriste asked.

“They’re war roses,” John answered.

Eriste stiffened beside me. “I see. An interesting choice for a memorial.”

“Fitting,” John said.

War roses? “What are—”

Eamon caught my attention, shaking his head slightly.

“Your Majesty?” Eriste asked.

“What are…your plans for your time here in Nerissette?” I asked, trying to switch topics gracefully. Hopefully later, someone would explain to me the importance of the flowers that had yet to bloom around us. “You said you wanted to discuss trade?”

“Yes,” Eriste said. “I had hoped to initiate talks between you and Her Majesty, the Empress Bavasama. About trade routes, of course, but your aunt is also quite interested in meeting you and helping you to become accustomed to your new role. She’d like to get to know her niece.”

“Right. My long-lost aunt who I didn’t know existed until I arrived here and got myself sucked into a war. The aunt who didn’t help when I had an army of monsters at my front gate.”

“From what I’ve heard, there are a lot of things that were kept secret from you,” Eriste said, ignoring my last comment, and then glanced over at John, who shifted his weight from one foot to the other.

“My mother did what she thought was right.” I struggled to keep my voice even. “I’m sure she was waiting to tell me until I was older. She thought we’d have more time.”

“We always do, Your Majesty.” Eriste reached for my hand and held a sandwich in his other. “We always think we have forever with those we love, but somehow we always manage to leave things unsaid.”

“Right.” I felt myself choking up at the thought of my mother before I managed to swallow it down again. I wasn’t about to lose my cool in front of my aunt’s spy. “She would have had more time if it hadn’t been for the Fate Maker trying to kill her and all.”

“That is unfortunate, yes.” Eriste let go of my hand and took a big bite of his sandwich, munching down on half of it in one go. He swallowed, and then glanced over at me. “But since your mother is lost to us, your aunt would very much like to help you. To teach you the things your mother didn’t get a chance to. She cares a great deal for you.”

“She doesn’t know me,” I said as he took another bite, finishing the rest of his sandwich. And with everything I knew, I didn’t want to get to know her. After all, my aunt was such bad news that my grandmother had skipped over her and given the crown to my mother. Auntie Bav wasn’t really high on my getting-to-know-you list.

“You’re family. She doesn’t have to know you to love you with all her heart. Perhaps in the spring we can arrange for a visit? It’s too late in the year for you to leave for Bathune now—too much of a risk of you being caught in an early autumn snowstorm in the White Mountains on your return to Nerissette—but after the snows have melted a bit we can arrange it. Yes?” He took an apple from the plate and bit into it.

“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” I said. “I’ve got a lot going on here, rebuilding Nerissette. I can’t just take a vacation.”

“I’m sure Her Majesty would love a visit from her aunt, though,” John said quickly. “If the Empress Bavasama is willing to cross the border. Perhaps a meeting at Her Majesty’s stronghold in the White Mountains would be best? Then neither of them would have to worry about being away too long.”

My stronghold? What stronghold? The only castle I knew about in the White Mountains was the one that Rhys oversaw, and it was nothing more than a stone tower surrounded by a fort that housed soldiers. And, according to Rhys, it wasn’t even much of a fort. In fact, he’d called the place a dump.

“Her Majesty, the Empress Bavasama was hoping that Queen Alicia would join her at the Palace of Night,” Eriste said, and wiped his mouth with his hand.

“I don’t think that’s going to be possible.” I shook my head and handed him a white cloth napkin from the picnic basket. “And you’ve got roast beef in your mustache.”

“Thank you.” He took the napkin and dabbed at his mouth. “Surely a short visit wouldn’t be too much trouble? You could finalize some trade treaties while you’re there. Or sign an act of alliance, so that our armies can join to battle the trolls and giants that plague both our lands.”

“I don’t want to leave the throne empty if I can help it,” I said. “But like John said, my aunt is more than welcome here. We can discuss trade, and her lord general and Rhys could work out a plan so that our armies can assist each other.”

Eriste gritted his teeth. “Perhaps we can come to some arrangement at a later date? After I’ve heard from your aunt.”

“Of course.” I nodded, trying not to gloat.

“Your aunt just wants to get to know you. You are family, after all.”

“The people of Nerissette are my family,” I said, looking him directly in the eye. “And if anyone thinks they’re pushing my family around ever again, I will crush them.”

Eriste’s eyes widened. “I see.”

“Good.” I smiled at him, fighting back my anger. “Then it’s probably time we get back. We wouldn’t want to be late to the ball we’re hosting in your honor tonight, would we?”

“Of course not, Your Majesty.” Eriste’s lips were set in a thin line, the skin around them a pale, bloodless white. Obviously he hadn’t expected me to be quite so willing to stand up to him or my aunt’s suggestions. But if she wanted me to not suspect her of trying to take my throne, she was going to have to come to me.

“Let me escort you back, my queen.” John stepped forward and held out his hand, helping me to my feet. Strength flowed from him to me, keeping me upright.

“I think perhaps I’ll enjoy the gardens a bit more.” Eriste waved his hands again, twitching his fingers toward the now-empty platters, and the various bits of our picnic packed themselves back into his basket. “Your Majesty.”

“As you like,” John said. “We’ll leave the woodsmen guard with you, for your protection.”

“Thank you,” Eriste said, his voice tight and eyes blazing. So much for him using magic to send a message to my aunt now. Not with Eamon and the rest of his wizard-hating guardsmen standing watch. “But I don’t think that will be necessary.”

“Oh.” I smiled at him. “I insist. After all, there are giants out there. And trolls. And all sorts of creatures that have a bone to pick with wizards. I want to make sure that you’re safe.”

“Thank you, Your Majesty,” Eriste said through clenched teeth as he gave me a quick nod.

“It’s my pleasure.” I wrapped my hand around John’s forearm and gave my new ambassador the tiniest possible nod before turning on my heel and letting John escort me back toward the castle. The guardsmen around us stood at attention, their backs stiff and chins raised, as we passed.

“You know he plans on sending a message to Bavasama the minute he’s alone, don’t you?” John asked as soon as we were far enough away that Eriste couldn’t hear us.

“Yep,” I said, “and I’m pretty sure my aunt’s not going to be too pleased that he didn’t persuade me to come and stay with her.”

“I think you’re right.” John tightened his grip on my arm. “So, I take it that Timbago and I are not alone in our distrust of your aunt and her new ambassador?”

“Nope. I don’t like them, either. Any ideas she had about us being one big happy family should have disappeared the minute she left us here to die at the Fate Maker’s whim. I may not know a lot about families, but even I know that’s one of those big no-no’s.”

Chapter Four

“So how was it?” Winston asked about my meeting. It was later that afternoon, and we’d managed to sneak away for a bit. Winston had found a bench in a secluded spot of the formal gardens where we could sit, watching the sun set over the trees. Just like any other normal couple out for a walk, a couple whose biggest worry was school and prom and who was throwing a party this weekend.

“Crappy.” I leaned against his chest, and he brought his hands up and started massaging my shoulders. “It would have been better if you and Rhys had been there instead of taking off on me.”

“John thought it best that you meet the ambassador from Bathune without ‘your guard dogs.’ You know that’s what he calls us, right? Your guard dogs.”

I huffed and tugged at my braid. “That’s funny. He was there for the meeting. Him and the woodsmen guards.”

“Yeah.” Winston’s fingers kneaded deeper as he found a knot in the muscles along the top of my spine. “We talked about that, too. He thought you might need an adviser to keep the ambassador from bullying you, but he didn’t want too big a presence because he was afraid it would make you look weak.”

“The three of you shouldn’t be talking about me when I’m not there.” I pulled away and turned to glare at him. “I am the Golden Rose after all. I should be the one making the decisions.”

“We just didn’t want—”

“Don’t say you didn’t want to bother me with it. I’m supposed to be bothered. It’s my job,” I said, my fingers clenching in my skirt as I tried to swallow back my annoyance. They all seemed to go around me, making decisions in my best interest. Like I was just some kid and not a queen.

“But—”

“It’s my job.”

“Fine, you’re right. I’m sorry,” Winston said. “We were worried, though. The ambassador is dangerous.”

“I know he is, and I know it was better if I faced him without you and Rhys breathing down his neck, but you should have talked to me about it. This should have been a decision we made together. As a team.”

He leaned forward, his eyes glinting, a teasing smile playing on his lips. “Yes, Your Majesty. Is there anything else you want to tell me off about, Your Majesty?”

“Don’t start that Your Majesty stuff with me.” I gave him a quick kiss on the tip of his nose, thawing a little at the sight of the dimples that creased his cheeks. “Otherwise, the next time you’re in dragon form, I’ll have one of the soldiers use their pikes to shove your dirty socks up your own snout. And you know how helpless you are at picking things up once you no longer have thumbs.”

“You will not.”

“Right in the snout.” I tapped him on the nose and we both smiled.

“Oh yeah?” He wrapped his fingers around mine. “Then I guess I’ll have to become the big, bad dragon from all those fairy tales and burn down your castle.”

“You think you’re tough enough to manage that?” I stuck my tongue out at him, teasing.

He let go of my hands and started tickling my sides. “I’ll huff and I’ll puff and I’ll burn the entire world down until I find you.”

“Really?” I laughed. “I bet the other dragons would be pretty ticked off if you tried. Since you and Ardere have put the rest of the aerie at work hauling stuff up to the roof for the guys to rebuild.”

“True.” Winston tapped his chin, trying not to smile and failing. “I’ll just have to come up with something else to do to you.”

“Like what?”

“Whoopee cushion on the throne during your next Great Hall thingy?”

“Oh, shut up and kiss me.” I latched my finger into the collar of his black, cotton tunic and pulled him forward.

“Is that a command, Your Majesty?” He pressed his lips against mine for a quick kiss and my toes curled. Somehow I was pretty sure kissing the handsome dragon who used to live across the street from me in the real world was something I would never get used to. Not that I would mind trying.

“Stop it with the Your Majesty stuff,” I muttered as he nuzzled along my chin with his nose. “I spent all day being Queen Alicia Munroe, Golden Rose of Nerissette. Right now I just want to be Allie.”

“Okay, then.” He wrapped his arms around me, pulling me closer. “So, Just Allie, will you go to the dance with me tonight?”

“I don’t know.” I leaned my head against his shoulder. “I might want to go with someone else.”

“Who?” Winston asked as he ran his fingers down my back. “The only other guy you could take is Rhys, and I don’t think Mercedes is going to be okay with that.”

“I could take Gunter of the Veldt. He’s out of the infirmary and his mother, the Lady Arianne, told me that he’s coming back to court tonight. It’s his first public outing since the battle. I told her I’d dance with him.”

“Hmm.” Winston kissed the top of my head. “I’ll have to talk to him then. See how he’s feeling.”

“Oh, stop.” I pulled back and smiled at him. “It’s one dance.”

“No, seriously.” He quit smiling then and tightened his hold on me for a second. “I want to make sure that he’s okay. That he’s over his injuries.”

“You want to go check on Gunter?” I asked. Winston and Rhys couldn’t stand Gunter. Or his mother.

Not that I could blame them. Ever since we’d first arrived in Nerissette, the Lady Arianne of the Veldt had been nothing but a pain in my neck, always trying to steal land from other nobles and doing her best to convince me that her son should have Rhys’s job. Or at least she had pushed for him to become lord general of the army—until the day we had fought the Fate Maker outside my palace and Gunter had lost his left hand in the battle.

“He’s an idiot, but he’s our idiot,” Winston said. “And, according to Rhys, he was brave that day.”

“I know. That’s why I promised his mother I would dance with him tonight. She says he’s sort of worried about what people will think of him, now that he’s missing a hand.”

“They’ll think he fought bravely for his country, and his people, and for your throne,” Winston said. “And anyone who says otherwise will have to face me and Rhys and everyone else Gunter stood beside that day. Like I said, he’s an idiot, but he’s ours. And we protect our own.”

“So you don’t mind me dancing with him?”

Winston pulled back from me and shrugged. “Not really. While you’re dancing with Gunter, I’ll just dance with his sister.”

I felt my hackles rise at the idea of Winston anywhere near Gunter’s younger sister, Carolina of the Veldt—otherwise known as the biggest flirt in Nerissette. She’d done her best to throw herself at Winston during the Welcome Back, Princess Allie ball that had been thrown when I’d first arrived in Nerissette. I’d heard rumors that she’d flirted with him before the battle, too. But while the rest of us were fighting for our kingdom she’d run back to the Veldt, taking some of her mother’s best troops along to guard her inside their family fortress until the Fate Maker had been defeated.

“I really need to work on getting dungeons built in this place,” I grumbled.

Winston laughed. “Speaking of dungeons, tell me about your meeting with the new ambassador.”

“He’s a pain.”

“Duh, he’s a wizard. They’re all pains.”

The sun dipped behind the horizon and the chirp of night crickets began as the sky dimmed. I could smell the flowers of night as they bloomed, their dark-blue petals unfurling to release the night pixies that lived inside my gardens. The first of the tiny creatures woke, her feet blinking softly as she flitted from flower to flower, touching their petals and putting them to sleep for the night.

“He wants me to leave Nerissette, go visit my aunt in Bathune at the Palace of Night, and have some sort of family reunion with her.”

“Oh yeah, like that’s going to happen.” Winston wrapped an arm around my shoulders. “You’re just going to go to Bathune and trust your aunt to let you come home when it’s all over.”

“Yeah.” I snorted. “But just because she’s got a castle full of wizards doesn’t mean she’s bad. Does it?”

“No.” Winston smirked at me. “It doesn’t make her bad at all. Neither does the fact that she was willing to let you die in a civil war while she sat on her throne, munching on popcorn as she watched everything going to crap here.”

“You weren’t supposed to catch onto that.”

“So how are you going to brush her off?”

“I’m not.” I shrugged. “We invited her to come here. A nice, happy family reunion right here in Nerissette. With my guards surrounding us. Just in case she decides to try to kill me herself.”

“You think she would?” Winston asked. “Try to kill you, I mean.”

“No.” I shook my head. “Everything I’ve read about my aunt is that she doesn’t do her own dirty work. She won’t even send an army to attack me, she’ll use the wizards to trick me. Like Eriste.”

“Hmm…”

“What?” I asked.

“I’m just thinking that we may need to double our patrols over the White Mountains.”

“Why?”

“If the wizards are going to attack us, they’ll do it when we least expect. And that’s right now—when you have an ambassador in your court, trying to hammer out an alliance between you and your aunt.”

“You have a point.”

“So do you think we should?” he asked.

“Do I think we should what?”

“Increase the number of patrols that the dragon warriors are flying over the White Mountains? You just told me that you were sick of me and Rhys and John making decisions without asking your input, so I’m asking. Are we increasing the patrols?”

“Yes. You’re right. If the wizards are going to try something they’ll do it when they think we’re distracted.”

“I’ll go talk to Rhys. We can get the first patrols in the air before the ball starts.”

“Yeah, and since we’re talking about the ball, I should go. I’ve got to get ready.”

“Right.” He leaned in to kiss me quickly and I smiled against his lips. “So I’ll see you in a few hours then?”

“Yep.” I kissed him again, slightly longer this time. “I’ll be the one in the big, uncomfortable dress and the crown, standing in the doorway while a goblin announces me and everyone bows.”

“I’ll keep an eye out,” he said. “But just in case I miss you, just look for the guy all in black standing next to the throne waiting for his date.”

My heart fluttered at the idea that he was going to be waiting for me. He was my date. I was the girl with the most handsome dragon in the kingdom as a date. Even with all the crap I had to put up with there were definite advantages to being a queen. “I’ll try not to keep you waiting too long.”

“You better not.” He stood and helped me to my feet. “Otherwise I might have to dance with Carolina of the Veldt instead.”

“You wouldn’t dare.” I swatted his arm and we started toward the palace.

“What would you do if I did?”

“I might have to bring back beheadings.” I grinned at him. “Then I’d have to find something really nasty to do to you.”

Chapter Five

I entered the main foyer two hours later, ready to do the whole ball thing. But then I reached for the reassuring weight of my sword and my hand froze halfway to my hip. I wasn’t wearing my sword. Apparently it wasn’t considered polite to go to a ball armed inside my own castle. I brought my hand up to touch my crown’s delicately worked golden leaves, making sure that it was in place, and then glanced down to make sure that my full, white-and-gold satin skirt wasn’t creased before I made my way into the ballroom.

“Allie?” My best friend, Mercedes, stepped forward from her place near the door with Darinda, head of the Dryad Order, at her side. She was fidgeting, twisting her fingers in her skirt, and wouldn’t meet my eyes.

“Mercedes?” I admired her long, bark-colored dress, with silver leaves embroidered into the skirt. “What’s wrong?”

“I needed to talk to you.”

My stomach churned. I’d watched enough romantic comedies to know that nothing good could come from that sentence, even when it was coming from your best friend. “Sure, what’s up? Did something bad happen?”

“Yes. Well, no. Something’s happened, but it’s not bad.”

“Okay… So what happened? ”

“Oh.” She smiled and started to twist her fingers together. “I’ve, um, well I’ve found my tree.”

“Your what?” I looked at her confused.

“My tree,” she said, stressing the last word. “I’m a dryad. I have a tree. We’re two halves of the same whole. Me and my tree. Like Siamese twins but not. I protect it and nurture it and in return the tree acts as a sort living magical wand that lets me control my powers. Except I don’t have to touch it since me and the tree will have a psychic link.”

“You’ve got a psychic link with a tree?”

“Yes, I know it sounds weird, but it’s a dryad thing. We each have a tree. That’s why I’m here—well, besides the fact that there’s a ball and I had to get dressed up for that so I could dance with Rhys and stuff.” She shook her head.

“And you’ve found your tree magic wand thingy?” I asked slowly.

“Yes, and I need your official blessing before me and my tree bond. It’s just a temporary thing until we find a way back home, but it is my tree. So is it all right if I claim it?”

“Of course, you should bond if you want to bond. So, is finding your tree like a major thing?”

“It’s a bit major,” she agreed. “Temporary but major.”

Darinda coughed, and when I looked up her eyes were on mine. She shook her head once, quickly, and I knew that we were both going to ignore the fact that my best friend was still in denial about our lives here.

It wouldn’t do any good to fight with her about the fact that we weren’t going home. We just weren’t. I’d accepted it. Win had accepted it. Rhys had accepted it before any of the rest of us had even come through the mirror. Mercedes, though? Not so much.

“Okay. So what am I supposed to do? No one has explained to me what to do with dryad tree findings? Should I congratulate you? Throw a party? Give you a birdhouse? ’Cause I don’t have a birdhouse, but if you want one I’ll find you one. A really nice one. A pretty one. The best birdhouse in all of Nerissette.”

“Well, congratulations would be nice.” Mercedes twisted her fingers together inside the folds of her skirt, and I knew she was still nervous about something.

“Then congratulations! This is really cool. My best friend, the dryad, has her tree. Let’s go inside and tell everyone. Then we’ll celebrate.” I tried to focus on her good news instead of her persistent denial. I threw my arms around her and gave her a tight hug.

“Don’t you want to know where it’s at?”

“Isn’t it in the forest with all the other trees?” I asked, confused.

“There are many trees in our forest, Your Majesty,” Darinda said quietly. “But the Sapling’s home is not with us anymore.”

What? Could her tree be in some other forest? Oh man, she wasn’t going to have to move, was she? I didn’t know if I could handle it if her tree wasn’t nearby. Besides, what if it wasn’t in a safe neighborhood, or whatever they had in forests? A bad stand of trees? What if the other dryads in the area were creeps? Was I going to have to send the army to deal with a bunch of bully dryads?

“Our sapling is quite blessed in her selection,” Darinda said, cutting my brain off mid-rant. “She has been chosen to protect the Silver Leaf Tree.”

“The what?” I asked.

“The silver maple in the back garden. The one next to the mermaids’ labyrinth,” Rhys said as he emerged from the shadows that led to the back of the palace.

“The tree in the backyard next to the maze? The one with the funny-looking silver leaves?” I looked at Darinda for confirmation.

Darinda nodded. “That would be the royal Silver Leaf Tree. Given to the first Golden Rose by Dentras, the original head of the Dryad Order. The tree that binds the people of Nerissette to the dryads. The symbol of our everlasting friendship.”

“So it’s an important tree?” I asked.

“A very important tree,” Darinda confirmed. “We were all very surprised when the sapling’s instincts pulled her toward the Silver Leaf and then, when the tree began to sing to her, we knew that it was fated.”

“The tree sang to you? Like actually sang?” I ignored the whole bit about Fate to focus on my best friend and her apparently awesome life change instead.

“It was really cool.” Mercedes’s nose scrunched up. “The tree, my tree, started to hum and then to sort of vibrate and then music started pouring out of the leaves.”

“The ceremony was an exceptionally interesting display,” Darinda admitted. “But that isn’t what we’re here to discuss.”

“So what do we need to talk about?” I asked. “Besides the fact that you can make trees sing?”

“Our sapling needs to stay near her tree,” Darinda said. “Inside the palace grounds. If that pleases you, Your Majesty.”

“Really?” I turned to look at Mercedes, excited at the prospect of having my best friend close by again instead of living in the forest. “You’re going to camp out in my backyard to be with your tree?”

“Well, I need to persuade the tree to let me make my home with it.” She shrugged and smiled at me. “But yeah, I’m going to be living in your backyard. Is that okay?”

“You’re going to be living here. That’s great! Wait. Hold up. Where are you going to stay until the tree decides to get with the program and let you move in? You can’t sleep outside. You hate camping. Or at least you did, you know, before.”

“Weeeelllll.” Mercedes drew the word out. “It’s not really so bad, camping, but I was sort of thinking I could stay with you.”

“You want to sleep over? Really? And that’s cool with the rest of the dryads?” I asked, sort of stunned because most of the time the tree nymphs kept to themselves, shunning those of us they called iron lovers.

“I really need to bond with my tree. Otherwise it might not bloom properly again in the spring and, since it’s supposed to be the symbol of the eternal bond between the throne of Nerissette and the dryads, that could be bad.”

“Bad how?” I asked.

“If the Silver Leaf Tree, which the prophesies say is the Tree of Perpetual Life, were to not bloom again in the spring it would be very bad indeed,” Darinda said.

“The Tree of Perpetual Life?” I asked. “Like the Tree of Life itself? You’re saying that the Tree of Life is in my back garden? My best friend is now the guardian of the Tree of Life? The actual Tree of Life?”

“That would be the tree we’re talking about, yes,” Darinda said.

“Yeah, okay. I can see why we’d want that particular tree to stay alive.”

“So does that mean I can stay over?” Mercedes asked and we both turned to look at Darinda.

“It’s okay with me as long as it’s okay with the Golden Rose,” Darinda said.

“Do I have to sleep in the killer bed?” Mercedes asked and we both laughed, remembering how my bed—my magical bed—had trapped poor Heidi in a mattress sandwich our first day in Nerissette.

“Shut up.” I nudged her. “Of course you don’t get to sleep in my bed. You have to sleep on the floor.”

“Least I’ll make it through the night without becoming a midnight mattress snack.”

I snorted on a giggle and I could see her shoulders shaking. “My poor bed. It tries to eat one cheerleader, and everyone’s afraid of her.”

“No, we just all believe in staying alive.”

I smacked her arm lightly. “I promise not to let the bed eat you. So do you want to sleep in my tower or are you camping out in the cold and the dark, sleeping in the dirt, all by yourself?”

“Me and the Golden Rose of Nerissette, ruler of all the light touches?” Mercedes asked. “It depends. Is anyone going to stop us from raiding the fridge at 2:00 a.m.?”

“Nope.” I pointed to myself. “Queen.”

“Then consider me in.”

“Yay!” I threw my arms around her and squeezed, ecstatic about the idea of having my best friend around again. Sure, she’d only been in the forest less than a half an hour’s hike away, but we’d both been busy figuring out our new lives and hadn’t spent as much time together as we could have.

“As great as this is,” Rhys said to me, “do you think we should go inside now? An entire ballroom of people is waiting on you.”

“Yeah, probably,” I said, letting go of Mercedes.

Rhys smiled and shifted his attention to my friend. “Sapling, you are the loveliest thing I’ve ever seen.” Rhys bowed low in front of her and held out a hand. “May I escort you inside, please?”

“Oh.” Mercedes looked between Rhys and Darinda. “Is that…”

“Go,” Darinda said, and waved a hand at them. “But if I catch the two of you kissing again, I will thump you both with my stick.”

Once Rhys had taken Mercedes’s hand and led her away, Darinda turned to me and shook her head. “Every time our sapling and the iron lover are together they seem to be attached at the lips.”

“They’re cute.” I smirked. “I’m just glad that she’s found a way to be happy here. With Rhys and the kissing and the whole guarding the Tree of Life thing. I was afraid she was going to hate me, you know.”

“Why would the sapling hate you?” Darinda asked.

I felt my stomach knot. “I destroyed our only way of getting home.”

“You saved Nerissette from an evil wizard and prevented him from killing us all before marching into your world and killing your families.”

“It sounds more heroic than it actually was when you put it that way.”

“It was heroic.”

“No, it wasn’t,” I said. My mind instantly went back to that day in the Fate Maker’s tower when I had been searching for anything I could find to stop him and stay alive.

“We will have to agree to disagree then, Your Majesty,” Darinda said quietly.

“I wanted to ask you something, though,” I said, desperate to change the subject away from the Fate Maker and all the horrible things that had happened at my coronation. “Could you send a few dryads to the village of Sorcastia, near Lake Wevlyn? A farmer there lost his wheat when a dragon fledgling sneezed and set fire to his fields.”

“I’ll arrange something in the morning,” Darinda said with a faint smile. “Is that all?”

“No, just one other thing before we go in. It’s nothing big. I’ve just got something I’m curious about.”

“What is it, Your Majesty?”

“The flowers you planted at the memorial. John of Leavenwald told me and the new ambassador that they were war roses, and the ambassador looked at him all weird. Why?”

“There is a superstition about war roses, Queen Alicia. It is said they only truly bloom when they are planted in soil that’s been drenched in blood.”

“That’s—” I swallowed.

“Nothing more than a story,” Darinda said. “In the end, they are nothing more than a red rose that takes longer to wilt than most other breeds. No blood required.”

“Oh. Okay, good. So we aren’t going to have to go kill someone to make them bloom each year. That’s good.”

“They’ll be fine without.” Darinda smiled at me. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ll go in, and then you can make your grand entrance. I’m sure the nobles are anxiously awaiting your arrival.”

“Yeah, mainly so they can all come up with an excuse to nag me for something, most likely each other’s land.”

“Then I recommend you keep your crown prince dancing as much as you can, so you won’t have to talk with any land-grabbing nobles.”

Before I could answer she slipped into the shadows and walked away. Knowing Darinda, she’d go in through a side door and skirt through the crowd until she found the rest of the members of the Nymphiad—the nymph ruling council—and they’d spend the night ignoring the rest of us as they talked about nature. Not that I blamed her. If I had my choice I wouldn’t hang out with most of these people, either.

I took a deep breath and ran my hands over my skirt one more time to make sure it wasn’t wrinkled. “Here goes nothing.”

“You’re a vision,” Timbago said from his position by the ballroom’s main doors. “Are you ready, Your Majesty?”

“Nope.”

“As I told you before your first ball here in Nerissette: back straight, chin up, smile. You are the queen here and anyone who acts like you are not will have their food poisoned by me. That includes Her Majesty, the Empress Bavasama’s ambassador.”

“Right. I’ll be happy if I manage to not to step on someone’s foot and start a war.” I quirked my brow at him. “What do you say?”

“You’ll be grand.” Timbago waved both of his hands in front of the doors, and they began to move with a loud, rumbling groan.

“Do you really believe that?” I asked. “About me being beautiful and grand and all of that?”

“With all my heart,” Timbago said. “Now, come on, it’s time to go dazzle some nobles.”

The music inside the throne room died out and everyone fell silent as the doors parted. I found myself once again standing at the threshold, staring at a room packed to the brim with people in fancy clothes.

“Her grace and glory, queen of all the light touches, the Golden Rose of Nerissette, Queen Alicia the First,” Timbago said loudly, his voice echoing around the room. “Long may she reign.”

I held back a sigh as everyone bowed. I’d tried to pass a law against bowing, I really had, but it hadn’t taken, and now every time I entered a room all I got was a view of the top of everyone else’s head. Which was incredibly boring to say the least. Instead of fighting it, though, I lifted the front of my skirts enough that I could walk and started toward my throne. When I reached the dais, Winston stood and offered me his hand.

“You look amazing in that dress,” he said, looking me over as I stepped onto the platform.

“Really?” I asked. “Because I can’t breathe in it. There’s a poky bit stabbing me in the side.”

“The injustice of being a queen,” he said with a smile.

“Tell me about it,” I said before turning around to face the room full of still-bowing people.

There was a loud crash outside the room and everyone jerked upright, turning toward the door, every soldier reaching for his sword. The doors at the far end of the throne room were pushed open and a young soldier, the gold buttons on his bright-red coat gleaming in the candlelight, raced into the room, his sword drawn.

“Madrave,” Rhys yelled, standing up and drawing his own sword. “What are you doing here? How dare you draw your sword in the presence of the Golden Rose?”

“The Fate Maker.” The soldier dropped his sword arm to his side and turned to me, not even bothering to bow.

My heart sank into my stomach. If something had spooked one of Rhys’s royal guards so bad that he forgot all those stupid court manners everyone insisted on, then it couldn’t be good.

“What?” I asked, standing up to face him. “What is it? What’s happened?”

“He’s back,” Madrave said, his eyes wide. “The Fate Maker has returned to Nerissette.”

Chapter Six

A woman somewhere in the ballroom let out a loud wail, and then there was a crash that sounded like someone’s glass of punch hitting the floor. A second later the place exploded into chaos. Some of the nobles turned and began clawing their way toward the doors but were blocked by the line of armed soldiers, their hands on their swords. The woodsmen fanned out to the sides of the room.

“Everyone!” I stood and tried to get the crowd’s attention before someone got crushed in the panicked mob. “Everyone calm down.”

No one answered. No one even stopped. They kept pressing toward the door, shoving at one another to get out.

There was a sharp, piercing whistle, like the ones on television shows when people tried to hail a cab, and everyone froze. “Knock it off,” Eamon yelled.

“But the Fate Maker—” Gunter said. His normally pink cheeks were pale with fear, and he gripped the pinned-up sleeve of his jacket with his remaining hand. If he hadn’t lost the other one he’d have been wringing them together.

“Has been seen.” I sat heavily on my throne. “Now, before everyone freaks out we need to find out as much as we can. Then we can figure out what to do.”

“Do?” Mercedes asked from across the room where she was standing with the rest of the Nymphiad, staring at me from near the buffet table. “What do you mean what we’re going to do? A wizard has come back from the dead. What do you think we’re going to do?”

“Sapling,” Darinda said, her voice a low growl as she gripped her staff tightly. “Contain yourself.”

“Where was the Fate Maker seen?” Winston asked, his attention focused on Madrave.

“Bekal, Your Highness,” Madrave said, his voice unsteady. “He was seen in the wizarding stronghold at Bekal, near the White Mountains.”

“A two-day ride from here if he’s on horseback and not dragon,” Rhys added. “In the Borderlands. On the Bathune side.”

“Near Bavasama’s palace?” I asked, glaring at my new ambassador.

“Less than a day from the Palace of Night,” Eriste said, “but you can’t think that your aunt would—”

“I don’t think anything yet,” I said, turning back to the ballroom full of people. If my aunt was conspiring with the Fate Maker I really didn’t want to talk about it in front of everyone—we’d have a riot on our hands. “But since you’re here now, as my ambassador, you can explain to me why my aunt is allowing my enemy to remain in Bekal.”

“I’m sure she had no idea he was hiding there,” Eriste said, not meeting my eyes. “We thought he was gone, and I can assure you, we have no wizard in Bathune with the power to bring him back from the dead.”

“Sure.” I turned away from him and back to my advisers and the rest of the guests. “So what we know is that the Fate Maker isn’t dead. Not only is he still alive, he’s two days from here. That gives us time to get ready. We can send dragon messengers out to the villages and start raising an army.”

“I don’t understand,” Mercedes said, her voice high and panicky. “How did he get here? I thought you killed him when you smashed the mirror. He’s supposed to be dead. He can’t be dead and here at the same time. It doesn’t work like that.”

“Obviously, smashing the mirror didn’t kill him.” I shoved my hands underneath my armpits to get them to stop shaking.

“You told us you’d killed him,” Gunter’s mother, Lady Arianne, current steward of the Veldt, said, her eyes wide.

“I thought I had.” My eyes darted quickly to Winston, trying to figure out how to admit that I had never known for sure. “The Fate Maker was swallowed by the light from the mirror. I had thought it had killed him. He disappeared. Nothing left. Just totally gone. Poof.”

“If he’s alive, then what would stop him from coming here? From attacking us now? What would stop him from bringing an army with him?” another woman yelled. Everyone stared at me, like they were waiting for me to save them, to save us, because somehow I was supposed to be telling the adults what to do. Me, sixteen-year-old Allie Munroe. Yeah, that was just a fabulous idea.

My stomach rolled as I remembered the sounds of battle from that day. The cries of men dying around me, the screams of combatants as they tried to destroy each other. I could hear the ear-splitting shriek of the Mirror of Nerissette as it splintered, tearing apart the link between this reality and my own. I tried to ignore the sweat trickling down my back at the memory of Esmeralda—the mirror’s guardian—howling in pain as she and the magical portal she was bound to disappeared.

“Queen Alicia?” Winston reached over to touch my hand. “Allie?”

I nodded and tried to swallow, my throat dry. “I’m fine. I’m okay.”

“Are you sure?” he asked, his voice gentle.

“I’m okay,” I said, my voice steadier this time. “We’re all going to be okay.”

“I hardly think that’s likely,” a man from near the back shouted.

“We’re going to be fine.” I stood and tried to project calm over all the people. “The Fate Maker of Nerissette has forgotten one thing.”

“Oh, I don’t think I have,” a loud, familiar voice boomed above our heads. “I think I have everyone exactly where I want them.”

“It’s him,” Carolina of the Veldt screeched. People turned and began pushing toward the door again.

“It’s simply a spell. A trick he’s doing to scare you.” I tried to reason with my nobles as they all ran around in a panic, getting nowhere.

“Yes, I’m very good at spells, aren’t I?” the voice said, closer this time.

He stood in front of me now, his black and silver robes sweeping the floor, and his dark hair curling around his pale face as he shimmered into existence. He was glaring at me, his eyes a vibrant, glittering obsidian.

“You,” I snarled as I found myself face-to-face with the wizard who’d haunted my nightmares with Kuolema.

“Since you mentioned spells.” He brought one hand up and snapped his fingers. Instantly everyone froze, locked into place by dark magic.

“How dare you come here and use magic on my people? You have three seconds to release them and get out before I send my army to—”

“My darling girl, do shut up.” The light around the Fate Maker receded, and he stood in the middle of the room glowering at me with his hands on his hips. “We both know that no one can hear you pretending to be brave.”

“Who said I was pretending?” I lied.

The Fate Maker pointed his bony finger at me. “Oh, be quiet. If there is one thing I cannot tolerate it’s a sassy, know-it-all queen. I had enough of that with your idiot of a mother.”

There was a flash of light as dark magic forced my lips shut, sealing them together, while a sudden pressure formed around my voice box like it was being held inside an oversized toddler’s fist and squeezed like a grape.

“That’s better.” He brought his hands together in front of his chest like he was praying and then tapped his fingers together.

I felt a slight push and my body toppled backward onto my throne. I scrambled upright, but before I could stand again the pressure on my mouth spread across my entire body, pushing me firmly back into my seat, pinning my arms and legs so that I couldn’t move. Trapping me.

He gave me a wicked smile and stepped closer. “Now you can do what I’ve needed from you since the beginning. Stay silent, sit still, and listen to what I have to say. Exactly like the good little girl I would have raised you to be without your silly mother’s interference.”

I tried to scream, but the rush of air through my throat felt like flames. I made nothing more than a muffled grunt as I squirmed on my throne, trapped. I took a deep breath through my nose and tried to scream again.

“That’s not going to help you.” He shook his head at me indulgently. “No one can hear you, and even if they could there’s nothing they can do about it. They’re frozen.”

I let out a strangled yelp and he responded with a self-satisfied grin.

“I could kill you right now, and no one would stop me. Lop off your head and leave you here for them to find. I won’t, but you should remember that I could have. One of these days I might just”—he pinched his fingers again, and I felt my throat tighten—“change my mind.”

I tried to shriek, terror flooding through my system, desperate to get a sound out or get free or do something. If the Fate Maker wanted me dead, right now there wasn’t much anyone could do about it. My people were frozen, I was trapped, and he had all the power. Just like when I’d first come here.

“Oh, isn’t this fun?” The Fate Maker clapped his hands together and came toward me. “You on the throne, like I always imagined you’d be. A perfectly wooden princess, brought out to do my bidding. Do you know that the day you were born I slipped into the hospital and saw you?”

I tried to shake my head, and tears built behind my eyes as I struggled harder, fighting with all my might against the bonds holding me.

“Your mother was asleep, and I just held you. I sang and sang, and all you’d do was laugh and blow spit bubbles at me. You were completely helpless then. I have to say it was probably the time I liked you most, all things considered. Helpless but essentially silent.

“With one look I knew that if I could keep you exactly as you were you would be a glorious queen. A ruler who would make wizard-kind strong again. We could have conquered the dragons, the trolls, put the mermaids in their place, and imprisoned the ridiculous Nymphiad. We could have been gods.”

He stepped onto the dais and leaned forward so that we were nose to nose, and I fought the sob that threatened to burst out of my chest. Tears filled my eyes and he smirked at me, his eyes flaming cruelly.

“But you had to go and screw it up.” The Fate Maker shook his head. “You had to meddle and try to fix things. You just had to…”

He wrinkled his nose as if I smelled like three-day-old garbage left out in the sun. “Grow a conscience. Of all the practical skills that you could have brought to this realm, instead you bring me a bleeding heart and a sense of right and wrong. Do you think those are in any way useful for ruling an empire?

“You’re scared of me, aren’t you? Terrified. A pathetic, scared little girl. A child. I would wager if I removed your gag all you would do is whimper like a whipped animal. Let’s see, shall we? Are you going to whimper for me? Cower away like a kicked dog? Like your mother used to?”

There was another brief flash of light, and the pain in my throat loosened as my lips unsealed with a sharp rip. I took a deep, shuddering gulp of air and tried not to let him see how much I was shaking.

“You will never rule this country through me.” I kept my eyes fixed on his and tried not to let my voice waver, even as I fought back another terrified sob. “Not even over my dead body.”

“Oh, my darling, that can certainly be arranged.”

“If you kill me there’s an army full of men and dragons who’ll come after you,” I managed to get out through gritted teeth. “There’s nowhere you can hide from them. They’ll hunt you down and kill you, and I’m pretty sure at least a few of them will enjoy it.”

The Fate Maker tapped my nose with his finger. “Then it’s a good thing that killing you serves no purpose right now. Then again, not killing you doesn’t mean I can’t hurt you. Think about it. I can always get from Nerissette to the World That Is, and your mother is still there—unattended, unloved, with nothing but nurses and doctors to care for her while she lies trapped in that coma. All alone.”

I tried to lunge at him but couldn’t move, no matter how much I wanted to struggle against the bonds tying me to the throne. “If you touch her then you can forget about the army of men that will come after you. I’ll kill you myself.”

“No, you won’t. You don’t have it in you. So be warned, little girl: if you don’t want me to bring her back here to die at your feet you’ll do exactly what I say—and you’ll do it with a smile on your face.”

“Stay away from my mother.”

“Why? Wouldn’t it be a mercy to end her pitiful life?” He squinted and wrinkled his nose before touching my cheek, then gripping my chin with his thumb. “I could put her out of her misery. Don’t you want her to be at peace?”

“You don’t know what mercy is.” I tried to bite his thumb since my mouth was the only part of my body that I could actually move, but he jerked his hand away too quickly. “You’re not capable of having an emotion that complex.”

“True.” He shrugged and stepped away from me. “Then again, I made you queen. Once the cat brought you through, I was the one who made you a queen. Remember who cast the spells that let your silly friends stay here in the World of Dreams, too. If you don’t do what I say, then I’ll simply have to pop back through to your world and find another girl who’s better at following directions. I’ll replace you.”

It hit me then. In all my fear, I had forgotten one very important detail. “Oh wait,” I started with a smirk. “There is no way back to my world.” I paused while his brow furrowed, letting it sink in. “The mirror is no more. Not even a fragment. When it shattered we collected all of the pieces and ground them into dust. Then the dust was scattered to the winds. Your link with my world is gone.”

His eyes narrowed at me. “You wouldn’t have destroyed your only connection to your mother. There must be a piece remaining somewhere, something you kept for sentimental value. Besides, you can’t destroy magic that easily. It’s not something that you can just throw away.”

“No, I destroyed it. All of it. And now you’re trapped here just like the rest of us. There’s no way back into my world. For any of us.” I tried not to blink as the lie slipped off my tongue. How could he have known? No one knew that I’d smuggled a shard of the mirror out in my pocket that day. That I’d saved a final link to my mother. That one last shard of the mirror remained, hidden in the toe of a pair of shoes inside my closet.

“You think that stupid mirror was the only link I had to your worthless version of reality?” The Fate Maker laughed and leaned forward to slap his thighs. He snorted out a few more chuckles and then shook his head. “I forgot how funny you can be, how endearing, how ridiculous.”

He straightened and let a smirk curl his lip. “There are always other means of moving between worlds. Dark magic you can’t even imagine. So remember, do things my way or you just might find yourself an orphan. Or even better still—replaced. You do have an aunt who can take your throne if I need her to.”

“What is it you really want? Why are you here now?”

“To offer you a deal. To give you a chance to save your pathetic land and its people. To save your own life. In three days I’ll be back here…with an army. If you want your people to live you’ll come out and bow to me. Then, as a show of good faith, you’ll bring me the tear.”

“The tear? What’s the tear?”

“The Dragon’s Tear. I know you’ve found it. The cat hid the relics from me but she made sure you would have them. If you want this kingdom to survive you’ll bring it to me.”

“Esmeralda didn’t give me anything, let alone a powerful relic.” It wasn’t entirely a lie. She told me they were in the palace, but not where they were or what they were. “And even if I did have it, which I don’t, why would I give it to you?”

“Three days,” he hissed. “You, on your knees, pledging allegiance to me and giving me the tear, or this entire land will burn.”

“I’m telling you, I don’t even know what it is!”

He turned to look around the room. “Then find it. Now, I think it’s time for me to go. It’s been lovely chatting with you, my dear, but the hour is late and I do have an invasion to begin.”

“One of these days,” I called out as he started to walk away from me, “I’m going to kill you.”

“No, you won’t.” He snapped his fingers and I felt the magical bonds tying me to the throne fall away as time started again. People screamed, and then Rhys rushed forward, his sword drawn, pushing through the now stampeding crowd toward us.

“This world will be mine. No matter who I have to kill to possess it,” the Fate Maker said with a snarl. He lifted a hand and Rhys and two burly guards who’d been flanking him froze with their swords lifted to attack.

“We’ll see each other soon, my dearest one. So very, very soon.” The Fate Maker turned to smile at me, his eyes glittering with hate. There was another brilliant burst of light and I flinched as three swords sliced through the air in front of me.

Rhys’s blade stopped an inch from the tip of my nose and quivered there. I sat, looking cross-eyed at the steel blade and sighed. To think, back in the real world my biggest hassle had been gym class. At least there no one had tried to kill me.

I looked around. The Fate Maker’s light show had gotten everyone’s attention, and now, instead of rushing the doors, they were all standing there, dumbfounded, staring as Rhys shoved a razor-sharp sword in my face.

“I think you missed him.” I shook my head and tried not to look terrified. Right now the last thing I needed was for my people to think that I was afraid. Even though I was totally terrified.

“I can see that.” He pulled his sword back with a quick jerk and sheathed it. “How long was he here?”

“A minute, maybe two.” I stood as the other two guards put their swords away, and then I began to pace, clenching my hands into fists to keep them from shaking. “He froze all of you and the next thing I knew I was trapped on the throne so he could rant at me.”

“He put a spell on you?” Winston pushed forward, past Rhys’s guards, and grabbed my hands. “Did he hurt you?”

“No, but he wants some sort of magical relic—the Dragon’s Tear. It’s supposed to be like the mirror. Something that lets him move between this world and the World That Is.”

“Or what?” Rhys asked.

“Oh you know, the usual bad-guy stuff,” I said and huffed out a panicky laugh. “He has an army and they’re marching toward Neris. When they get here I can either give him the tear or he’s going to invade, kill all of you, kill my mom at my feet, torture me, kill me, and then let my aunt have the throne. I may not have all of that in the right order but I think that’s the basic idea.”

“Did he hurt you?” Rhys repeated. “Or was it just threats?”

“He just threatened me.” I closed my eyes and swallowed, trying to keep from losing it in front of everyone. “Just empty words about how he could hurt my mom. How he could go through to our world and kill her. That he’d bring her back here so that I could watch her die.”

“Allie.”

“He can’t do it. Not really. We’re here, and she’s on the other side of reality, beyond our reach. The mirror is gone and there’s no way that he can get to her. There’s no way between this world and that one. It’s all just threats. Isn’t it?”

“Of course it is,” Rhys said softly. “Your mom is safe on the other side of the Bleak. He can’t get to her.”

“Are you okay?” Winston asked softly. “You? Allie? Not Queen Alicia. Not your mother. You.”

“I don’t know.” I shook my head and tried not to cry. “I always have my sword on me but tonight, tonight was a ball and so I was unarmed, and even if I had had my sword it wouldn’t have mattered.” I could hear the panic seeping into my own voice. “He used magic to tie me to my chair, and I was helpless. You were frozen and I was unarmed, and there was nothing I could do. I was alone and I was trapped and there was nothing I could do.”

“Rhys,” John of Leavenwald said. He’d slipped into the area closest to the throne. “We need to give everyone a task. We need to keep them calm.”

“Calm.” I nodded. “Yes, that’s what we need to do. Everyone needs to remain calm.”

“Right.” John moved forward, blocking me from the view of the rest of the nobles while I got control of myself.

“We need to prepare,” he said to the crowd. “If the Fate Maker has dared to come here it must mean he’s planned something.”

Yeah, I thought to myself. He’s planning on murdering us all. And he intended to start with me. Probably something I didn’t want to fill my nobles on just yet, though.

“Where do we go?” one of the noblemen shouted.

“We’ll send out dragon messengers as Queen Alicia had suggested earlier. They’re quickest. They’ll go to each of your lands, stop in all the villages. If the Fate Maker’s army is two days away, we must be quick to raise an army and march them here. There is no time to waste.”

“We can’t fight an army headed by a wizard. Not again,” Lady Arianne said. “Think of the warriors we lost last time. My son, my heir, was wounded. If someone as brave as Gunter can be brought down then none of us are safe. Our army isn’t prepared for this.”

“So what do we do?” another man called out.

“We’ll fight back,” I said, ignoring Arianne’s whining and my own fears about taking our weakened army into battle. “And we’ll keep fighting back until he realizes that this land isn’t his for the taking. If he wants a war, we’ll give him a war to make the Pleiades tremble.”

“To war!” a young dragon on the far side of the room, near the windows, yelled.

“To war!” someone else joined in.

And suddenly the mood shifted from panic to something else. Something bloodthirsty. Angry.

“To war,” hundreds of voices replied, the windows in the ballroom shaking from the noise.

“Allie?” Winston looked at me, and I stepped forward, pushing my way between John and Rhys so that I could face my subjects, hoping that they couldn’t tell how badly I was shaking.

“To war,” I said, trying to ignore the way my knees were trembling and keep from vomiting on the throne room floor.

Chapter Seven

“All but the last of the dragon messengers have returned, Your Majesty,” one of the red-jacketed soldiers said. He handed me a glass of ember fruit juice and a stack of paperwork as the sun rose over the horizon, and two house fairies flitted over to us, balancing a plate of toast that I didn’t really want to eat between them. “These are the estimates of how many weapons we have below in the armory.”

“Will it be enough?” I asked, setting the documents aside and staring at the soldier instead. The estimates wouldn’t mean anything to me. They were just numbers until someone told me if the number of weapons we had was greater than or equal to the number of soldiers who needed them. I had never been that great at algebra but even I could figure out that was how the math of warfare worked.

“You’ll have to ask the lord general,” the young soldier said, his blue eyes dark. “But even if it’s not, we’re prepared to fight with rocks and our bare hands if need be.” The soldier slipped back into his place, silently guarding the formal dining room where we’d all spread out to start planning our war.

“Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that.” I took a drink of my juice and turned to the dryad sitting quietly beside me. “Darinda?”

“Yes, Your Majesty?” The head of the Dryad Order looked up at me from the parchment she was poring over with Mercedes.

“The Fate Maker said that if we didn’t cooperate he would bring my mother here and kill her. Then he’d find another girl to take my place as the Golden Rose. Can he actually do it? Can he travel between the World That Is and the World of Dreams?”

“It’s a threat, Your Majesty,” Aquella, Great Wave of the Naiads, said from her place at the far end of the table where she’d been having a hushed conversation with Boreas, king of the Aurae and the third member of the Nymphiad. “Just something he said to scare you.”

“Not if he can actually do it,” I said. “Is there any way that he can get from this realm to another without using the Mirror of Nerissette? Is there some other magic that he can cast to threaten the former queen?”

“There are other relics,” Darinda said, her silver eyes troubled. The fairies carefully flew her a mug of tea from the side table. “Other objects of magic that give their users unimaginable power.”

“I know,” I said. “Esmeralda told me about the Great Relics. She said that she had cast a spell to hide them inside the palace walls, to keep them away from the Fate Maker so he couldn’t use them. What I want to know is if any of these other relics are portals like the mirror? Can he use them to travel between worlds? Specifically this Tear that he’s asking for—can he use that to get to my mother?”

“I’m not sure,” Darinda said and then glanced at the other two members of the Nymphiad.

“Not a lot is known about the relics, Your Majesty,” Boreas said. “They are a powerful magic that none besides the queen and her handmaiden have ever been allowed to touch. A magic the queen and her handmaiden kept secret between themselves.”

“Just so we’re on the same page, you don’t know what these are, what they look like, what they’re capable of?” I asked. “You don’t know anything about them except that somehow my mother and Esmeralda used them?”

“No, we don’t,” Aquella muttered. “Until Esmeralda used the mirror to bring you from the World That Is to Nerissette, most of us didn’t actually believe the relics truly existed. We thought they were legend. As far as anyone knew the mirror in the Fate Maker’s tower was just that—a mirror—and nothing more.”

“But my mother used them,” I said. “Esmeralda said that she helped my mother use the relics to move between worlds. How else did you think she managed it? Did you think she could just magically hop there and back whenever she felt like it?”

“We—” Darinda coughed.

“You what?”

“When we were told the Last Rose had been lost we assumed that she’d been killed, and the Fate Maker was trying to cover it up with this idea of the relics.” The admission came out of her quietly, and I could feel my face reddening.

“So, you thought he had murdered my mother, and you let him stay on the throne?”

“The prophesies said the Last Great Rose would come—” Aquella started.

I stood, slamming my hands on the table and glaring at them all. “I don’t care about the prophesies. I don’t care about the legends. I don’t even care that you followed someone who you thought assassinated my mother. What I want to know, right now, right this second, is if any of you, any single one of you, actually knows something useful about this Tear.”

Boreas shook his head. “No. We don’t know anything definite.”

“Right. Okay. So what do you think you know?” I asked.

“All we have to go on are the stories, the legends as you call them, and they are incomplete,” Darinda said.

“Hit me with it, then. What do your stories say these relics are?”

“I don’t know,” Darinda said.

“What do you mean you don’t know?” I asked, a bite to my voice. “You’re head of the Dryad Order—you know everything. Come on. Think. What do the stories say the Tear can do?”

“They are legend, Your Majesty.” Darinda bowed her head. “The stuff of myth. Stories. I can tell you how the Dragon’s Tear was formed, from the tears of a Great Rose who watched her dragon consort die. I can tell you that the prophesies say that to hold the tear is to hold in your hand the fate of a thousand worlds. I can tell you that you are the only one with the power to destroy it. But I can’t tell you what it is or what it looks like. ”

“So what you’re telling me,” I said, “is that we have an army marching toward us that wants a relic that we supposedly have, and all we know is that it’s a bad idea for the wizard at the front of the army to have it, and somehow I have to destroy it. But you don’t know what it actually is?”

“And we’re not exactly sure how you should go about destroying it,” Aquella added.

“Great. This is perfect. Just perfect.” I sighed.

“Wait, let’s think about this. There has to be something we can do. Some mention of them in a book,” Mercedes said. “A picture, a description. Something that tells us what we’re looking for. Otherwise how are you meant to find them?”

“I’m not following.” I stared at her, my eyes narrowed, as I tried to work out where she was going with this.

“Who has the biggest, most complete library in Nerissette at her fingertips?” Mercedes pointed at me. “Ding, ding, ding, if your guess is the Golden Rose.”

“The library?” I asked, embarrassed that I hadn’t thought of it myself now that she’d said it out loud.

“Yes, the library. We find the book about the legends of the relics, figure out what they are, then we find the relics, use them to get everyone home, and call it a day. You can take them back to our world, destroy them, and we’ll all be safe.”

“And locked on the other side of the portal,” I said. “If the relics can even do that. We don’t know if they are portals like the mirror.”

“That’s okay, though,” Mercedes said, ignoring my comment about the relics even being portals. “John and the army and everyone else can defeat the Fate Maker, the relics will be destroyed and everyone gets a happy ending. Yay for books.”

“Except we would have an empty throne and no Golden Rose to sit back down upon it,” Boreas said slowly.

“Elect someone.” Mercedes turned to me. “You said it yourself. Queenship isn’t your idea of good government. They could elect someone instead, form a government. They don’t need us here to run their country for them.”

“No.” I felt my chest clench in disappointment. I knew she wanted to go home, but I didn’t expect my best friend to want us to run like a bunch of cowards. “We can’t just leave them here to face the Fate Maker alone while we hide in the World That Is.”

“But—” Mercedes started to protest.

“Look.” I held my hands up. “Right now we’ve got nothing more than talk. This Dragon’s Tear may be another portal or it may not be. It could be a weapon or a way of casting spells or, I don’t know, a way to keep people from crying when they chop onions. But we don’t actually know what it is.”

“If it’s another portal—” Mercedes started.

“Then it’s a threat we need to worry about.” I had to weigh the importance of backing my best friend against doing what had to be done for the good of everyone else. “And it’s a threat we’ll have to destroy because no matter what, we can’t allow him to travel from this world to another.”

“Like I said, we could destroy it from our side,” Mercedes said. “We could use it to go home and then destroy it there.”

“I don’t know. All I do know, all any of us know, is that the Fate Maker will be here, outside the gates of Neris, in less than three days. He’s coming for blood and a relic that we don’t know anything about. We do know is that it’s magical and he wants it, and that’s enough reason for me to make sure he doesn’t get it.”

“What would you have us do, Your Majesty?” Darinda asked, her voice soft.

“Rhys, Winston, and Eamon of Leavenwald are out in the courtyard, figuring out how to barricade the walls and where to put the army and the dragon version of the air force so that we actually have a fighting chance against the Fate Maker’s army. Sir John has started trying to evacuate the people of Neris, but most of them are refusing to leave—they say that they’re staying to fight. That means when the battle comes, we’re going to have a lot of people here, and it’ll be chaos. That means we need to be prepared. Hospital tents. Food.”

“But—”

I ignored whoever had tried to chime in. We had too much to get done for me to listen to everyone bicker and second-guess one another now. We were running out of time.

“Timbago.” I motioned for him to come forward. “You’re in charge of making sure the palace is ready. You know what to do.”

“I will not fail you, Your Majesty.” The goblin nodded once and then turned on his heel to stalk away. He snapped his fingers and the house fairies that had been flitting about the room hurried after him.

“Right.” I turned to look first at Darinda, then at Aquella and Boreas. “While he’s preparing the palace and the others are getting the warriors ready we need to focus on finding these relics, and we need to do it now.”

“The relics are lost,” Boreas protested. “They’ve been lost for almost seventeen years. How are we supposed to find them in less than three days?”

“I have no idea.” I shook my head. “But we aren’t going to do it sitting around here yelling at each other. I know that.” I drank the last of my juice and then took a quick bite of the dry toast that the fairies had brought me. “So, as Mercedes said, our best bet is to hit the books. Let’s go to the library and get to work.”

The nymphs all stood as one and started toward the doors, already quietly talking among themselves.

I watched them go, fear causing my stomach to tie itself into knots. What if I was wrong? What if there was some way to negotiate with the Fate Maker? What if there was a better way than war? I couldn’t see another way, though. He was coming and he was bringing an army with him; he wasn’t going to want to talk it out. And even if he did, I didn’t think there was any way we were going to compromise.

I stood and smoothed my hands over the green linen tunic and brown trousers I’d changed into after the ball. I made my way out of the dining room and a strong hand shot out, grabbing my arm and dragging me into the shadows of the hallway.

Winston pulled me into a hug. We hadn’t had a moment alone since the ball, and even though I had a war to plan, I couldn’t resist the idea of leaning against his chest for a few seconds. Right now, I just wanted to hug my boyfriend and pretend that all of this was a very bad dream.

“How’s the planning going on your end?” I asked quietly. “Will the walls hold if he attacks?”

“Forget about that,” Winston said, his voice rough. His eyes were like deep, dark pools that I could lose myself in as he stared down at me. “He could have killed you last night.”

“He didn’t.”

“He could have,” Winston repeated. “We were all in the room, and there was nothing any of us could have done.”

“But he didn’t. He didn’t kill me.”

“He got to you,” Winston whispered, and I could see that his face was filled with fear, his dark eyes wide.

“It—”

He pressed his lips to mine, silencing me. “You’re not allowed to let him kill you,” Winston whispered as he pulled away from me.

“I won’t.” I rested my head against his broad chest for a moment longer.

“I don’t know what I’d do if something happened to you.”

“You’ll find a way to get you and Mercedes home. Rhys, too, if you can convince him to go.” I pressed forward on my tiptoes so that we were eye to eye. “If something happens to me, you make Darinda find you a portal, and you use it. That’s an order.”

“You can’t order me to leave you behind.”

“If I die, you have to find a way to get yourselves home. You get home and let the portal close off the gate between this world and the World That Is. Forget this place and me and everything else.”

“I can’t forget you,” he said and tugged me closer. “I won’t.”

“Yes, you can. Forget me, and go live a fabulous life.”

“How about you just promise not to die and we can work on finding a portal out of here together?”

“I’ll do my best,” I said, melting into his arms a bit.

“I know.” He smiled for a brief moment before dropping his cheek onto the crown of my head. “Just be careful. Please.”

“I will.”

“And I want you to keep Kitsuna with you from now on. Let her stay and have a sleepover with you and Mercedes in your room.”

“Why?” Not that I minded hanging out with the red-haired wryen. But why did Winston want her staying with me now? Was there some threat he wasn’t telling me about? “I know you can take care of yourself,” Winston said. “But I’d like to make sure that if you need it, you’ve got someone to guard your back. Someone else who can use a sword.”

“Someone besides the dryad archer,” Kitsuna said, her voice low. She came toward us, her feet silent against the stone floor. “In case a more stabby, iron-loving approach is needed.”

“I have a guard. A lot of guards, actually.” I turned to her. “Not that I don’t want to hang out with you, but—”

“The soldiers are needed on the line,” Kitsuna said. “Every member of your security detail is needed to fight.”

“And you’re not?” I asked.

“I’ve fought beside you before, Your Majesty.” Kitsuna raised her chin. “It would be my pleasure to do it again. Besides, it’s not as if I’ll be flying off to war with the rest of the red dragon clan.”

I tensed at the way she clenched her jaw as she said it. Kitsuna was a wryen—the child of two different types of dragons. Her father had been a lizard dragon from Bathune, and her mother was part of the red dragon clan. And because they were two different breeds Kitsuna was trapped in human form. The only way she could fly was riding on the back of another dragon, and most of them considered her a second-class citizen anyway—unworthy of fighting as a warrior. Not that she’d ever let that stop her.

“Keep her safe,” Winston said as he let go of me. “Keep each other safe.” After one last, lingering look, he hurried in the opposite direction, back toward the aerie where the rest of the dragons were busy preparing for war.

“I can keep myself safe,” I muttered as he left. “Thank you very much. Flaming snot for brains.”

“Your Majesty…” Kitsuna touched my shoulder, and I wrenched my gaze away from Winston to her.

“What?”

“Are you feeling okay? You’re usually not so tense when the prince consort suggests that I act as your bodyguard.”

“It’s not you. It’s just…” I sighed and ran a hand up into my hair, tugging at the roots. “I have an army to prepare and a relic to find, and I have no idea where to start.”

“My suggestion would be to start at the beginning.”

“And where is that?”

“Breakfast. According to the cooks you’ve had nothing more than a glass of juice and a few bites of bread since the Fate Maker’s appearance last night.”

“But the others—”

“Breakfast.” Kitsuna herded me toward the kitchens. “An army, and its queen, all fight on their stomachs. So first we eat and then we go to the library to help the nymphs.”

“Slight change of plans,” I said. “Instead of eating and then looking, let’s get breakfast for everyone and eat while we search.”

Chapter Eight

I stepped through the open double doors to the library and froze, sizing up the miles of bookshelves covering the walls for almost four floors. I had a sinking suspicion that the book we needed was going to be all the way at the end of the top shelf farthest away from us. It’d be just my luck.

“Are you okay?” Kitsuna asked.

“Your Majesty?” Boreas turned to stare at the tray I had loaded with food in my hands. “Why are you carrying a tray full of muffins?”

“I brought everyone breakfast,” I said and raised an eyebrow at him.

“I have tea and dragon’s blood,” Kitsuna said from behind me. “As well as some of the ember fruit juice that Her Majesty is so fond of.”

“You brought breakfast?” Mercedes looked at me curiously.

I shrugged. “I thought we could all use it. Or Kitsuna did.”

“Right.” She followed me as I set the tray down on the main table in the center of the library. She picked up a muffin made with some sort of green fruit I didn’t recognize that sort of tasted like cherries. “Breakfast. Solves all our problems, doesn’t it?”

“Not really.” I couldn’t meet her eyes. “We may not have any idea about what the Dragon’s Tear is, but maybe the muffins will help us think more clearly?”

“And if we find the tear, you’ll destroy it, won’t you?”

“I have to.” I took a bite of my muffin. “It’s the only way to keep everyone safe.”

“Allie, if you destroy it, we’ll have lost two relics, and we still won’t be home. We’ll be trapped here. Won’t we?”

“Yes.” I nodded. “But we’re already trapped here anyway. We can’t go home.”

“Of course not,” Mercedes snapped, glaring at me. “Because somewhere along the line, after they plopped that crown on your head, you forgot that going home was what this was all supposed to be about. Finding a way to get us home. Not staying here and playing queen.”

Before I could say anything she grabbed another muffin and stormed past me, deeper into the library.

“Crap.” I sighed and turned to Kitsuna, who offered me a cup of tea. “That could have gone better.”

“Yes. It could have.” She looked around the library.

I followed her gaze, taking in Aquella, Boreas, and Darinda standing with their heads together over a scroll, chewing on muffins, but Mercedes was nowhere to be found. Weird.

“So, where do we start?” Kitsuna asked, her voice hushed as if the books themselves were forcing us to stay quiet.

“No idea.” I walked over to the nearest bookshelf and grabbed a green leather-bound book and read the spine: Criminal Trials of the Great Fairy Rebellion of 922. Probably not going to be helpful.

“I guess we start digging through these books and figure out what the heck it is we’re looking for.” I grabbed another book, this one bound in black, and read the heavy silver letters on the spine: Naiad Culture: A History for Nincompoops. This might take longer than I’d first thought.

“Come on,” Kitsuna said, motioning toward the far wall. “Let’s go ask the map. She’ll know where the dragon section is.”

I walked over to the Tree Folk stand and peered down at the piece of parchment trapped beneath the glass. “Hello.”

The map hummed in reply and words appeared on its surface. “What can I help you with today, Your Majesty?”

“I have no idea what I’m looking for, actually. So I was hoping you could guide me.”

Two tiny Xs appeared on the map, directly in the center of the library—where the case stood—and when I peered down at them I saw that the one X had a note on it that said, “You are here.” The other had a note on it that said, “You are not here.”

Well, that was helpful.

I moved closer and pressed my nose against the glass so that I could read the tiny script on the map. “Not so close” scrolled across the top of the map in bold calligraphy. “You’ll smudge my glass.”

I moved back slightly and narrowed my eyes at the case. “Is that better?”

“Much, thank you.”

Kitsuna shook her head, and I couldn’t help but grin. “Tree Folk wood. Always sassy, rarely helpful,” I said as I thought about how the doors—and the furniture in my bedroom—all had the same attitude.

The legends of Nerissette said that the Tree Folk were a tribe of dryads that had become so close to their trees they’d given up human form and became trees themselves. Then, one day, during the Great Wizard Wars, before the Pleiades showed themselves to the people of Nerissette, the Tree Folk had been destroyed—turned into various objects that could think for themselves. In the case of the Crystal Palace, it meant that we had living furniture in some places. Living furniture with way too much attitude.

“I need to know where the books related to the Dragon’s Tear can be found in the library,” I said.

“Dragon books are found in section four.” The words floated across the top of the map and I watched as a small area of the map—section four—began to glow. “Books about tears and sadness can be found in various places. Please be more specific.”

“I don’t want to know about tears.” I bit my lower lip. “I want to know about the Dragon’s Tear—the relic. I need to know about the relics.”

“Books on prisons, alchemists, and the search for eternal life can be found in the following areas of the library.” The map began to glow in three different sections, one near the top of the third floor, another in the very back of the library, and the third somewhere off to the left, in a section labeled Necromancy. I swallowed and then looked up to see a glowing light coming from what I thought just might be the “raising the dead” section of the library. Not really a place I wanted to go if I could help it.

“I’ll keep that in mind.” I tried not to roll my eyes. Tree Folk furniture could think—it was sentient—but as I’d found through various trips to the library, the map didn’t always tell you what you wanted to know, more what it thought you needed to know.

“It is my strongest recommendation that you search for your answers in section four.”

“Right.” I nodded. “Thanks.”

“Come on,” Kitsuna said.

I gave the case one last look before turning to follow Kitsuna along the highlighted path the map had laid out on the floor. We made our way up the spiral staircase toward section four, and climbed onto the balcony on second floor of the library. I was careful not to look across the railing or down below. It wasn’t that I was afraid of heights, it was just that suddenly the barrier between open air and me didn’t look nearly sturdy enough. If one of us tripped it was a long way down to a very hard marble floor.

“You okay?”

I tried to smile but all I managed was a weak grimace instead. “Fine.”

Kitsuna eyed the space in front of us uneasily. “I’m glad we’re not up in the higher sections near the third and fourth floor. What about you?”

“You can’t be afraid of heights.” I glanced over at her. “You’re a dragon. A dragon. That’s like being afraid of fire even though hello? Dragons are fireproof.”

“I’m a wryen,” she said, “and no, I’m not afraid of heights. I like being up high just fine. What I don’t like is falling. Which seems like a real possibility right here. So come on, let’s go find some books on dragons and just how great it is to be fireproof.”

“Do you have any idea what we’re looking for?” I asked.

“Yeah,” she said. “The book with the title 10,000 Things You Didn’t Know About the Dragon’s Tear and Where to Locate It. What else?”

“If only it were that simple, huh?”

“It’ll be fine. We still have two days,” Kitsuna said.

“That’s not much time.”

“But the upside is that we only have to search the palace and not all of Nerissette. That makes it easier. At least we’re not going to find out that it’s a half a day’s flight away in one of the far settlements of the Firas. Or, even worse, inside one of Arianne of the Veldt’s hair decorations.”

“You do have a point,” I said. “Now, if I were a book on legendary dragon relics that can be used to destroy the world, where would I hide?”

“What will you do if we find it? Will you really destroy it?” Kitsuna asked as we started scanning the shelves for something, anything, that could help us locate the tear.

I bit my lower lip and didn’t meet her eyes. How was I supposed to explain that I didn’t want to destroy the tear, but I didn’t have any other option? I couldn’t let the Fate Maker have it. “I don’t have a choice, do I?”

“We always have a choice.” Kitsuna shrugged. “Everything we do is a choice. The Fate Maker chose to be evil. You’ve chosen to fight him. That’s the way it is. When he comes to our gates and demands that relic, you’ll refuse him, and that’s another choice, a choice that not everyone would make.”

I shook my head. “Anyone would fight back against him. There’s no choice there.”

“Your aunt wouldn’t.” Kitsuna reached for a book and flipped it open, scanning it. “She’d give him the relic if she thought it would increase her power.”

“Then she’d be an idiot. He would kill everyone if he had the relic.”

“She wouldn’t care,” Kitsuna said, looking up at me from her book. “They’re cruel in Bathune. There’s a reason they choose to reside in a place where nightmares live.”

“Cruel?” I asked.

“Yes, cruel. Did I ever tell you that I saw my father once?” she asked. “He came back to Dramera from Bathune to see my mother.”

“But wait, didn’t he take off on your mom after you were born?”

“He did.” She shut the book and reached for another. “He came back, though, once I’d come of age. It’s said that some wryens can hunt. They’re often good trackers. We have a dragon’s hunting instinct, but because we can’t shape-shift we’re much better on the ground than regular dragons. So human flexibility with a dragon’s nose.”

“So you’re like the hounds the Fate Maker told me about once.”

“Hounds?” Kitsuna looked surprised. “How do you know about those poor creatures?”

“Gunter of the Veldt had brought one in from Bathune to hunt. The Fate Maker said that people had died trying to hunt the Hound and that it had escaped.”

“I’m not surprised,” Kitsuna said and wrinkled her nose. “Gunter has always seemed like a cruel child trapped in a man’s body. Anyway, my father came back to Dramera to see if I had similar skills to that of a Hound.”

“Do you?”

“No. In Dramera, female wryens aren’t traditionally trained to hunt. And even if they were, there are no older wryens in Dramera who could train me. So, when my father found out that I wasn’t going to make him any money, he left again. He didn’t even see me.”

“What?”

“He never even bothered to come and see me. He went to my mother and asked about my abilities, and when she told him that I couldn’t track, he went away again and never even came to see me. He couldn’t walk up the stairs to the loft I was hiding in to see his own daughter because I wasn’t going to turn him a profit.”

“That’s horrible.”

“That’s how people in Bathune are taught to think. It is a cruel country and your aunt is a hard empress. If she were in your position she would hand the Dragon’s Tear over to the Fate Maker and not think twice about the consequences to other people. ”

“Then it’s a good thing that this is our quest and not hers then, isn’t it?” I reached for a book—A History of Dragon Lore. That looked promising. I flipped it open and started looking for any mentions of the tear. “Dragon Creation Myths,” “Dragon’s Fire,” “Magical Properties of Dragon Scales.” Nope. “Myths and Legends of Treasure”? Now, that could be interesting.

I flipped through the book to the beginning of that section and started to skim through the text. There, halfway down. The word “Tear.” That was it. I skimmed a few more pages. Nothing more than a mention of the Dragon’s Tear. No description of what it was or what it could do.

“This isn’t helpful,” I said as I slid the book back onto the shelf. There had to be some way to narrow it down from the hundreds of books in section four. “I need to find something, anything, about the Dragon’s Tear. Please, whatever stars rule this world, help me find something useful.”

The world around me started to buzz. The air hummed like bees inside my ears and the hair on my arms and on the back of my neck prickled.

“Your Majesty?” Kitsuna’s voice sounded far away. “What’s…”

The shelf in front of me started to fade out and I could see a faint light glowing as the whole shelf seemed to waver like a mirage. Behind that shimmery image I could see another shelf, this one hidden behind the first, and there, directly in front of me, was a thick book bound in royal-blue leather. Just like the Chronicles of Nerissette had been when I’d first seen it in the World That Is.

The book seemed to float, levitating above the shelf, and I reached out, plucking it down. Once it was flat in my hand the book flung itself open, the pages flipping rapidly on their own. Suddenly the book stopped moving, and I looked down at two pages. One of them held a portrait of a woman on a throne and the other was filled with text. The Dragon’s Tear was across the top in large letters.

“Hey, Kit, I think I might have something. ‘The Dragon’s Tear is said to give its owner the power to imprison their enemies, to hold the fates of every person and thing in Nerissette in the palm of their hand. A magical talisman, its purpose is to temporarily melt the barrier between the World That Is and the World of Dreams.’”

“That certainly sounds like a portal,” Kitsuna said. “Does it have a picture? And where did that come from anyway? It’s like a magic book just appeared in your hands.”

“Maybe.” I stared at the other page, at the portrait printed there, ignoring the bit about magic. These days I would have been surprised if there wasn’t some sort of weird magic involved in all of this.

A woman in the same coronation dress I’d worn three months ago was sitting on the Rose Throne, my crown sitting on top her head. She wore a crystal necklace and held a twisted wooden staff with a glass dome on top, no bigger than a golf ball, and a silver leaf floating in the center of the glass.

“Okay.” Kitsuna took the book from me. “What in here looks like it could be the relic?”

“That glass ball.” I pointed at it. “I bet that’s a relic.”

“Maybe, but I don’t think it’s the tear. Not dragon-y enough.”

“You’ve got a point. So what else could it be then?”

“No idea.” Kitsuna shook her head. “What else is in this picture that speaks to you? What else feels like it could be a relic? Specifically a dragon-related relic.”

I took the book back and studied the picture, trying to find something, anything, that might be a relic.

“The necklace?” Kitsuna pointed to the trinket the woman in the portrait was wearing around her neck.

I leaned closer and scrutinized it. The Golden Rose in the picture was wearing the necklace the dragons had given me at my coronation. Winston had put it on me himself. The necklace wasn’t lost—it was in my jewelry box. But the bracelet…

“What about that?” I pointed to the queen’s hand and Kitsuna took the book from me, bringing it up close to her face.

“Are those dragons?”

“They look like dragons to me,” I said. “Each of them is biting the tail of the one in front of it.”

“Someone biting my butt would make me cry,” Kitsuna said. “Nice, big, fat tears.”

“Not to mention a bracelet goes around your—”

“Hand,” Kitsuna and I said at the same time.

“So, crying dragons circling a hand… If I was a magic sorceress looking to make a relic called the Dragon’s Tear that holds fate in the palm of your hand, then that’s what I’d go for,” I said. “What about you?”

“I’d say that magic has never been a very subtle force of nature,” Kitsuna agreed.

I stared at her and we both started to laugh as she hugged me tightly and I clung to her in relief.

Chapter Nine

We hurried down the stairs and into the main part of the library. “We’ve found something,” I called to the others.

Darinda looked up at us. “What?”

“This.” I held the book out to her and she took it. “According to the photo caption, this Golden Rose has the relics. That means they’re in this picture.”

“And?” Aquella asked, coming toward me. “Does anything in the picture look like the relic?”

I pointed to the picture, lingering on the necklace that I’d worn. The crystal on it seemed to call to me, but the necklace wasn’t lost. I’d had it the whole time and besides, Esmeralda had said specifically that the relics had been hidden inside the palace. Winston and the dragons had brought me the necklace from Dramera. Whatever weird magic was drawing me to it had to be trying to play a trick. To distract me from what I was really looking for. To keep the tear hidden for just a bit longer.

I put my finger directly under the bracelet that I’d never seen before. A piece of the crown jewels that was lost. It was the Dragon’s Tear. It had to be. “That.”

“Are you sure?” Darinda asked.

“That’s it. I don’t know how, I know but I do. That bracelet has to be the Dragon’s Tear.”

“Okay.” Darinda nodded. “What I want you to do is go to your rooms and start searching for it. The bracelet is part of your royal jewels. It has to be in the Rose’s Tower.”

“And what will you do?” I asked.

“We’ll keep searching for a way to destroy the tear while you find it.”

“And if it’s not in my jewelry box?” I asked. “What do we do then?”

“Then search the other rooms,” Darinda said. “It might be tucked away in another closet, or a wardrobe, or even hidden inside a vase. It’s in this palace and we need to find it. My guess is that that now that the tear knows you’re looking for it, it’ll make sure that it’s found.”

I raised my eyebrow, unconvinced.

“The relics want to be found,” Darinda said. “They’re magical instruments so they want nothing more than to have magic flowing through them. They need the magic that you can give them. They need to be used like you need air to breathe.”

“So you’re saying that what? The relics are addicted to me?”

“Something like that,” Darinda said. “Only you can provide that magic now that Esmeralda is gone. They’ll be somewhere clever but obvious. The tear will be somewhere that it knows you will find it.”

“Clever?” I asked.

“Somewhere you wouldn’t notice them if you didn’t know what to look for,” Darinda explained. “But still easily found.”

“Then why hasn’t the Fate Maker found them before now? Why does he need me?”

“Because”—Darinda smiled at me—“when your mother was trapped on the other side of the mirror, your tower locked itself. If the cat was clever…”

“What? What happens if Esmeralda was clever?”

“The Rose’s Tower can only be opened by the Golden Rose. Without a Golden Rose, the doors won’t open. The cat could have specified in the spell that she cast that the relics were to hide themselves someplace only you could find.”

It hit me hard then. “She hid them in my tower, the one place he couldn’t go.”

“Yes.” She nodded, her eyes wide. “The rest of us thought they were legend. Myth. We’d have never even thought to look for them. Never noticed that they were gone.”

“But the Fate Maker, who knew they existed…”

“Couldn’t get to them without the rightful heir. He needs you to bring him the relics because he can’t get them on his own. The Rose’s Tower itself has protected them for you.”

I swallowed and looked over at Kitsuna. “Well then, let’s go find the tear and finish this. What do you say?”

“If a couple of doors are strong enough to stand up to the greatest wizard in the World of Dreams then so am I.” She nodded at me. “Let’s find the tear and end this. Right here and right now.”

“You find it and we’ll keep looking for ways to destroy the tear,” Aquella said. “When you find the relics we’ll have a way to get rid of it. I promise you that, Your Majesty.”

“Thank you.”

I heard a faint sob from somewhere inside the shelves of books, and my shoulders hunched as I recognized the sound of my best friend crying. We were going to find the tear, and we were going to have to destroy it, and with it we were going to destroy another chance to go home. All I could hope was that once the Fate Maker had been beaten back there would be something left to take us home. Some piece of magic that we hadn’t been forced to destroy.

“Come on.” I nudged Kitsuna and tried to ignore the way Mercedes’s sadness made my stomach clench. “We’ve got a Tear to find.”

Kit followed me out of the room and instead of using the runes in the hallways to teleport as Esmeralda had taught me, like I would if I were on my own, we started up the stairs to my bedroom. We remained silent until we reached my tower, and the doors to my room creaked open, warming slightly under my touch.

“So,” Kitsuna said as I sat down at my dressing table and set the box of jewelry on top of it. “Where should I look?”

I swallowed. My rooms were huge. What if the tear wasn’t here? What if Darinda was wrong? What if we were on the wrong track? What if we didn’t find it?

“Your Majesty?” Kitsuna asked.

I shook my head and tried to focus. “I’ll do the jewelry box, and you start going through my wardrobe.”

“And what will you do about Mercedes?”

“Mercedes?” I asked.

“How will you make it up to her when you destroy the tear? It will break her heart.”

“I know. But I don’t have a choice. It has to be destroyed.”

I pushed down the lump in my throat and tried to ignore the sting of tears filling my eyes. I was going to ruin my best friend’s life. Destroy another possible route home. I didn’t have a choice, but that didn’t mean it didn’t still suck that my best friend was downstairs, crying her eyes out in the library. “It does, but perhaps you could use it first? You could send her back.”

“Could I?” I asked. “I’ve never opened a portal before. What if it went wrong? What if I sent her to the wrong place? Or she was trapped in the Bleak? What if she goes back and they don’t remember her? Our families are under a spell that makes them forget us. What if I send her back and it doesn’t break the spell?”

“I don’t know.” Kitsuna shook her head.

“Neither do I,” I said quietly. “All I know is that if I send her through and something goes wrong then she’s alone and we might not be able to get her back. There I can’t make sure she’s safe.”

“And you can do that here?” Kitsuna asked. “Guarantee her safety?”

“No.” I shook my head. “But if she’s here then I have a chance and that’s more than I’ve got with her on one side of the Bleak and us on the other. Besides, if I use the tear and it goes wrong, then I’m the one who killed my best friend.”

“If it makes you feel any better, Your Majesty,” Kitsuna said as she opened my closet door, “Mercedes’s last real chance to go home died the minute, the very second, that you decided to declare war on the Fate Maker. Even before that, really, because no one who comes here ever goes back. The minute you fell through the portal between the World That Is and Nerissette you were all doomed to stay. There was never a safe way for you to get home. ”

“But my mother—”

“Your mother was desperate and she took a dangerous gamble. She risked everything, including her own life, for the chance to make sure you were safe. And even then, with all that risk, it wasn’t your mother controlling the magic—it was a centuries-old sorceress trapped in the body of a housecat. A sorceress who is no longer with us.”

I sat down at the dressing table and took off my crown, dropping it into the heavy wooden box where I stored it. The box slammed shut the second my fingers were clear of the lid, and I heard the ominous sound of its magical locks clicking into place.

“What you said before was the truth, Your Majesty, no matter how much you don’t want to accept it. If you try to send Mercedes back there is a very real chance that you could kill her.”

“I know. It’s just that Mercedes has always believed that someday, somehow, we were going to find a way home. She’s never given up hope that we would go back to the families we left behind.”

“They’ve forgotten that you existed.” Kitsuna leaned against the door to my closet. “Why would you risk your lives to return to a world where you don’t exist? Why mourn over families that have forgotten you?”

“I don’t know.” I grabbed my braid and tugged on it, frustrated. “Because it’s not like they chose to forget us. It’s a spell. They were forced to forget us but we still remember them. We still remember what being loved was like.”

“And that’s enough to risk dying for? The memories of families that forgot you?”

“Yes! No! I don’t know, but I think deep down that Mercedes believes her family could love her enough to beat the spell. That somehow that love would keep her in her family’s mind. She wants their love to be stronger than anything else—even magic.”

“Nothing, not even love, can stand against magic,” Kitsuna said.

“She doesn’t want to believe that. She wants to be loved enough that even if they can’t remember her, they instinctively know that something’s missing with her gone. If I could give her that, I would. ”

“What about you?” Kitsuna asked. “Do you feel the same way? Do you want to be someone’s missing piece?”

“No.” I opened my jewelry box and started to search through it, not meeting her eyes. “The only person who loved me that way is trapped inside her own mind. The Fate Maker put her there, and there’s nothing I can do to change that. Just like I can’t change the fact that we’re trapped here in Nerissette.”

“What about your Gran Mosely?” Kitsuna asked. “You don’t think your foster mother loved you enough that her heart isn’t complete without you?”

“I don’t know. Maybe she misses me. Maybe she’s happier with the life that she has. Either way, you’re right. The minute we came here, any real chance I had of getting back to her was gone. They’re as lost to us as they would be if they were all dead. And I refuse to let my best friend die chasing the ghosts of what might have been. No matter how much she hates me for that.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Yeah, me, too.” I sniffed once and then wiped at my eyes with the back of my hand before turning back to the jewelry box.

“So what are you going to do?” Kitsuna asked, standing just outside the wardrobe.

I turned to her. “We’re going to find that bracelet, wherever it is, and then we’re going to destroy it.” I spied the necklace with the heavy crystal on it that the other Rose had been wearing in the picture and put it on for good luck. Maybe it was linked to the tear somehow. Maybe they’d be able to feel each other and the tear would show itself. Or maybe I was finally losing it from the stress.

“Yes, Your Majesty.” Kitsuna scurried into the closet as I began to carefully pick through the jumble of jewelry in front of me.

Somewhere in this room was a relic that needed to be destroyed, and I was going to find it.

“I’ve found it!” Kitsuna yelled from deep inside my closet two hours later.

“What?” I sat up from where I had been slumped over the dressing table, picking through a pile of overly fancy rings.

“I’ve found it.” Kitsuna rushed out of the closet, the bracelet clasped in her hand, high above her head. “I found it, I found it, I found it.”

“Are you sure?”

She brandished the bracelet at me again. “Dragons biting each other on the butt.” She set the bracelet down on the dressing table in front of me. “Right here.”

I picked up the bracelet, waiting for something magical to happen. It was supposed to be a relic. Why didn’t it feel magical? Shouldn’t it at least feel tingly or powerful or something?

“Your Majesty?” Kitsuna asked. “Is everything okay?”

“I don’t know.” I shook my head, still staring at the bracelet, waiting to feel something. Anything. Maybe I needed to turn it on? Or was there supposed to be some sort of spell to zap it back to life?

“We have it now, so let’s go back to the library and find out how to destroy it,” Kitsuna said quickly. “You destroy it and then we use our army to beat the Fate Maker.”

“Okay, right.” I hesitated. “But the thing is, it doesn’t feel magical. It just feels like a bracelet.”

“There’s no power in it?” Kitsuna asked.

“No.”

“Not filled with awesome world-bending power?”

“Nope.”

“Maybe even just a little enchanted?”

“No.” I widened my eyes. “I mean, I feel something but I don’t know what it is. It doesn’t feel like touching the Mirror of Nerissette did.”

“But it’s not the mirror,” Kitsuna pointed out. “Maybe they aren’t meant to feel the same.”

“Maybe,” I said dubiously.

“Let’s take it down to Darinda in the library and see what she says,” Kitsuna suggested. “She’ll be able to do some sort of dryad magic to tell us if it’s the right relic, won’t she?”

I bit my lower lip. “I wouldn’t think so if it only responds to the Rose, but maybe…”

“So let’s go.” Kitsuna motioned to the door. “We’ll get Darinda and figure out how to destroy this thing. Even if it is sort of pretty.”

“Yeah, it actually is.” I held the bracelet up and studied it. Shiny gold with intricately carved dragons. I could see the individual scales on each dragon. Every one of them slightly different from the rest, their eyes were made of tiny, precious jewels. It was a beautiful piece of jewelry…if you ignored the fact that it apparently could be used as a weapon to destroy our entire world.

Chapter Ten

Halfway down the stairs I felt a shiver run along my spine. The back of my neck started to tingle and my stomach knotted. Something in my head was screaming, something primal telling me to run. To run as far and as fast as I could. There was a niggling spark in the back of my brain telling me not to go to Darinda. To avoid the library. To hide myself somewhere that no one would be able to find me. Apparently all the bracelet had needed to wake up was the threat of its own imminent destruction.

“We—” I brought my hands up in front of me, the hand with the bracelet on it running along the chain of my necklace. I rubbed my other hand over the wrist that I had the bracelet on, tugging at the clasp. I wanted it off. Hidden somewhere no one could find it, touch it, take it away from me. Somewhere that Darinda couldn’t find it. Couldn’t use her magic against it.

“Your Majesty?” Kitsuna touched my arm. “Are you okay?”

“No.” I shook my head quickly as nausea rolled through my stomach. “No, I’m really not.”

“What’s wrong?”

“I don’t know.” My stomach clenched again. “There’s just this feeling of wrong.”

“Wrong? Wrong how?”

“I don’t know. All I know is that somehow it feels like we shouldn’t go to the library. The relic doesn’t want to go there.”

“That makes sense,” Kitsuna said gently. “The relic isn’t going to want you to destroy it.”

“But the thing is, I feel—really, really feel—like we shouldn’t go to the library.”

“Then where should we go?”

I closed my eyes and tried to focus on what the sensation in the back of my head was telling me. “The labyrinth. We need to go to the labyrinth and see Talia.” The queen of the mermaids, my confidant, would know what to do.

“Talia? Why? Do you think Talia knows something about the relics that isn’t in the library?”

I shook my head. “I just have the feeling that I need Talia.”

“You’re the Golden Rose,” Kitsuna said. “So, let’s go. This is your relic. It responds to you. If the tear thinks you need to see Talia then maybe it’s the right thing to do.”

“Okay, then.” I nodded. “Let’s go see some mermaids and find out what they can tell us about the tear.”

I started toward the labyrinth, silent, while Kitsuna followed me along the twisting path that led to the mermaids’ grotto. I made my way through the labyrinth, trying to figure out if this was actually a good idea or if the relic was somehow messing with my head to keep from being destroyed. I couldn’t be sure.

When we reached the very center of the maze Kitsuna stopped. “I’ll give you two some privacy to talk—queen to queen. Or should I say the three of you? Queen to queen to relic?”

Instead of responding, I pushed open the shrubbery-covered door and stepped into the dead center of the maze, where Talia and her small group of remaining subjects lived. The air here was sharper, and I could smell the fresh tanginess of trickling water in their pool.

“Queen Allie.” Talia was sitting on the bank, her pink tail flicking lightly back and forth across the water’s surface like a small child teasing a kitten with a ball of string. “It’s good to see you.”

“It’s good to see you, too,” I said. “I have something I need to talk to you about.”

“What is that?”

“We’ve found the Dragon’s Tear.” I held up the bracelet I’d secured around my wrist.

She smiled at me, her eyes not even glancing at the bracelet. She kept her eyes focused on me instead.

“Congratulations.”

“And I wanted to know what you know about it.”

“Know about what?” Talia raised a feathery eyebrow at me. “The tear?”

“Yes. What do you know about the tear?”

“I know that it has great power, Queen Allie. Immense, dangerous power. A power that could destroy the World of Dreams itself.”

“Do you know what kind of power?” I asked. “Or how it’s used? The only thing I’ve found about it says that the tear can melt the barriers between worlds. It’s a portal.”

“No.” Talia shook her head. “It’s not.”

“Are you sure?” I asked.

“I only know what the mermaid legends tell us, but according to our myths, the tear melts the walls between this world and the Bleak. Do you know what that is?”

“Yes.” I swallowed as fear crawled instinctively up my spine. “The Bleak. It’s the void between worlds. The emptiness between the World That Is and the World of Dreams. Where the Spirit Dragons hunt out the wicked and eat their bones.”

“The race of men believes that the souls of those undeserving of the light of the Pleiades are forced to reside there after they die. Lost, wandering, hunted by monsters for the rest of time.”

“Yeah.” I swallowed, remembering the one Sunday school class I’d gone to as a kid. “The religions of the World That Is believe in something similar, just without the flesh-eating dragons.”

“Right.” Talia nodded. “So you understand exactly how horrible the Bleak is. If you use the tear it will melt the walls between this world and the Bleak, leaving you trapped inside. Then, once the Bleak has closed around you, you can use the tear to melt the walls between the Bleak and another world. But to move between worlds you must find their weak points and travel inside the Bleak itself.”

“And that’s bad.” I ran a shaky hand through my hair. “Traveling through the Bleak. What with Kuolema and the lost souls that are trapped there and all the other monsters that live in the space between worlds.”

“It’s very bad. But it’s a myth. Nothing more. A story. The Bleak. The tear. Kuolema. All of them are nothing more than myths.”

“Everything here comes from myth,” I said. “This entire world is a myth. Why would this be any different? What I need to know is whether or not your myths can tell us how to destroy the Dragon’s Tear.”

“The tear can only be destroyed with a fire a million times greater than the heat of the flames of all the dragons of all the worlds combined.”

“And where do I find that?” I crossed my hands over my chest and tucked them under my armpits to keep them still.

“I do not know,” Talia said. “And unfortunately I can no longer help you with this.”

“You can’t? Why not?” My jaw dropped open as I stared at her, stunned. How could she not help me? Couldn’t she see that I was lost here? That I had no idea what to do? I was currently wearing a portal into the Bleak around my wrist and she couldn’t help? How could she leave me alone with this? I’d thought she was my friend.

“Our world is in danger,” Talia said quietly. “The very fabric of the World of Dreams could be torn apart, and I must protect my people. That is my duty, just as protecting your people is your duty.”

“You can do that by helping me. Helping me protects them.”

“Helping you threatens them. My people can’t fight. We aren’t warriors. All we can do is flee and hope that this world is waiting when we return. I would stay with you if I could but I must keep them safe.”

“What will you do?” I swallowed, trying to fight back my tears and stay brave. Talia was right. We were queens, and if our people were in danger our first responsibility had to be protecting them. No matter what it cost us personally.

“Gregor and Valkin are preparing our pool for the Sleep. It is early still, but it’s better that we enter the Sleep than risk our deaths.”

“The Sleep?” I looked over at the two bare-chested, well-muscled mermen who were waving their hands about and muttering. A bluish haze seemed to dance between their hands and skim across the water. Everywhere the blue haze touched, the living things that surrounded them shrank back, pulling away from the water.

“Our hibernation,” Talia said as I sat beside her, careful not to put my feet in the cold water. “Normally we only go into the Sleep when winter comes, because we cannot survive outside this grotto. This year, though, we will enter the Sleep early to protect ourselves.”

“So when the lake freezes you’ll stay underneath the ice?” I asked. “You’ll stay underwater until when? Doing what?”

“Sleeping.” Talia let her tail skim over the water again. “Resting our minds and communing with the songs of the Pleiades. It is an important time for us. A time of rejuvenation. When the spring equinox comes we will be ready to celebrate the blooming of the world with you again.”

“But it’s summer. The water isn’t going to freeze. It will be months before that happens. We don’t have that long. The Fate Maker will be here in days.”

“We will freeze the lake ourselves.” Talia reached over for my hand. “Gregor and Valkin are making sure that the lake is safe, and tonight we will retreat from the world until it rejoices in rebirth.”

“Tonight?” I asked. “You’re going to freeze the lake tonight? And you didn’t think to, I don’t know, send me a message? A ‘by the way, I’m going to disappear for almost a year, see you when I get back’ note?”

“I had assumed Darinda would explain to you what was happening.”

“And that makes it okay?”

“Your Majesty—“

“You can’t freeze the lake now,” I said, my voice high and nervous. “I need you.”

“You are a fine queen.” Talia patted my hand. “You don’t—”

“I do need you. What am I supposed to do? He wants the tear.” I held it up in front of me again. “And he’ll burn the world to get it. I don’t know how to destroy it or how to stop him or anything else. I need you to help me. To advise me.”

“If I could leave my people to sleep and stay with you, Your Majesty, I would.” Talia’s eyes were wide. “But I cannot. Just as you have to protect your people, I have to care for mine.” She moved closer and reached out to capture my face inside her hands, pulling our foreheads together.

I closed my eyes and squeezed them shut so I wouldn’t cry. “What am I going to do? I can’t do this alone.”

“You have no choice. In the end, you are the only one who remaining who can control the relics. You are the one who must destroy them. If you don’t, the World of Dreams, and everyone in it, will be lost.”

“You aren’t listening to me! I don’t know how to destroy it! I don’t know what to do!”

“I’m sorry.” Talia slid her tail into the water, her palms now braced against the bank, and planted a brief kiss on my forehead. “This is what you must do. Good-bye, my sister queen.”

“I’ll be standing here waiting at the spring equinox.” I didn’t bother to stifle my sob. “I’ll find the relics and defeat the Fate Maker, and I’ll be right here, the first thing you see when you wake up.

“This isn’t good-bye forever,” I said, remembering what my mother would always say when I was little and we were leaving another town behind. “This is only good-bye for now.”

Talia let go of the bank and sank under the water. I stood up and found that the mermen had disappeared as well. I wiped away the tears that had started to pool in my eyes.

It was time to get back to the palace and find out exactly what sort of fire was out there that was hotter than the flames of a million dragons. And then I had to figure out where the fire was and go to it. Because time was running out and no matter how much this relic didn’t want to be destroyed, that was exactly what I was going to do.

Chapter Eleven

“Hey,” Winston said when he found me in the garden later that night. The lights from the palace reflected around him and fairies sang in the distance. It was almost like those old teen movies from the ’80s that my mom had been such a fan of, with crickets and Molly Ringwald.

“Hey.” I shrugged and instantly felt stupid. I mean, Hey? Really? Talk about lame. The guy was my boyfriend, my consort—and according to some of the more traditional people in Nerissette, my husband—and we had been reduced to heying each other?

“What are you doing?” He crossed his arms, his skin brushing against mine, and gazed out near the lights of the fairy circles toward the trees. The music swelled from their dance and sparks moved up my arm where it touched his.

“Just thinking.”

“About what?”

“The Dragon’s Tear,” I said. I held up my wrist to show him the bracelet. “We found it today.”

“What?” He looked at me, stunned.

“We found the tear. Me and Kitsuna. We found the tear. Well, Kitsuna found it actually, but I was there.”

“Seriously? It’s the tear? You’re sure?”

“Yeah.” I nodded slowly. “I’m sure.”

“And what did Darinda say?”

“What?”

“Darinda and the other members of the Nymphiad. What did they say? Did they say it was the tear?”

I felt my stomach start to churn at the mention of the Nymphiad. I didn’t want them to see the tear. I didn’t want to take the chance of them taking it from me. It was mine. A magic that only I could control. One thing, the only thing, in this entire world that belonged to me and only me. “I…”

“Allie?”

“I haven’t shown it to them yet,” I admitted.

“Allie.” He put his hands on my shoulders and stared down at me. “You have to show it to them. Let them tell you how to destroy it.”

“I will.” I pulled away from him and turned my face away from his gaze.

“We have to destroy the tear. You know that, right?”

“I know,” I snapped. “I do. I know that we have to destroy it. The Nymphiad has been looking in every book that has the slightest link to the Dragon’s Tear and none of them can tell us how to destroy it. The only people who seem to know are the mermaids and their legends make no sense.”

“The mermaids have a legend about how to destroy the tear?”

“It’s a fairy tale.”

“It’s the only thing you have right now. You’ve found the tear and now we’ve got to find a way to destroy it. What do the mermaid legends say?”

“A fire that’s a million times hotter than the breaths of all the dragons combined. We need a fire hotter than anything else in this world. A million times hotter than anything we have in this world.”

“A fire that’s a million times hotter than the breaths of all the dragons combined?” Winston wrinkled his dark nose. “It doesn’t exist. There’s nothing hotter than dragon fire.”

“I know. Everything I’ve read says that dragon fire is the hottest thing in the World of Dreams. But whatever it is that burns hotter than dragon’s fire, we need to find it and use it to destroy the relic.”

“What are you going to do with it until then? Are you going to hide it? Lie to the Nymphiad about it?”

“No. I don’t want to lie about it. I just want to keep it safe.”

“So what are you going to do?”

“Hide it, I guess.” I shrugged, fingering the bracelet. “We have to keep this a secret. Only tell the people who absolutely need to know that we have it. We’re willing to destroy the tear but some of the nobles?”

“They would give the tear to the Fate Maker,” he agreed.

“So we hide it,” he agreed. “Where?”

“The only place it’s safe. My tower. With the rest of the crown jewels.”

“Or we could give it to the Nymphiad?”

“Not yet,” I said. “Not until they know how to destroy it.”

“So we keep it secret. Just me and you. “

“And Kitsuna. She was with me when it was found. She knows I have it.”

“Do you trust her?” Winston asked.

“Yes.” I nodded. “But we need to keep it among the three of us.”

“We will. No one else will know until we need them to. We’ll keep it secret. Me, you, and Kitsuna.” He put an arm around my shoulder and squeezed lightly. “It’s going to be okay. You know that, right? All of this will be okay. You’ll hide the tear until we find a way to destroy it.”

“And if it’s not okay?”

“Then we’ll figure out what to do to fix it. Whatever is going to happen, we will find a way to make it okay.”

“How? Even if we do find a way to destroy the tear, the Fate Maker will be here in less than two days with an army. Are we going to send these people out to fight him? Again? What if it’s not enough? What if there are too many wizards or more trolls or—”

“It will be okay.” Winston grabbed my shoulders and turned me so that we were facing each other before wrapping his arms around my waist and pulling me close for a hug. “I promise it will be okay. I won’t let anything happen to you. I won’t.”

“What if you die?” Tears filled my eyes. “What if it’s like last time and you get grabbed by a giant? Or Mercedes is attacked by a goblin with a sword? What if I make the wrong decision, and Rhys and his army are set on fire in a forest with no chance to escape?”

“Allie—”

“Heidi and Jesse died last time. They died, Winston. Dead. Gone. Never coming back again. Dead.”

“I know.”

“What if it’s you this time? What if you’re the one who dies? What if we never get our chance at a real beginning? A beginning where we don’t have the threat of a scary wizard hanging over our heads?”

“We will.”

“What if we don’t?”

Instead of answering, he leaned forward and fitted his lips over mine, making my skin tingle as my heart started to pound and my toes curled. He jerked away from me after a second and rested his forehead against me. “I love you. Is that enough of a beginning?”

“What?” I looked up at him. “You what?”

“I love you. I, Winston Carruthers, love you, Alicia Munroe.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes.” He nodded. “Are you?”

“Am I what? In love with you?” I swallowed. “Yes, but could you maybe kiss me again? ’Cause I really want to be sure that you mean it.”

“Oh, Allie.” Winston buried his head in the side of my neck. “I do mean it. I promise.”

“Say it again?” I asked.

“I love you.” He gave me a light kiss on the cheek.

“I love you, too,” I whispered. “I don’t know what I’ll do if you die.” I felt his arms tighten around me. “Or if Mercedes dies. I don’t know what I’ll do. I need you here with me.”

He ran his hand down my back and pulled me close enough that my head was pressed against his shoulder. “I know.”

“I’m scared,” I said as he let go of me and threaded his fingers through mine, leading me to a nearby bench.

“So am I. I’m completely terrified, but that doesn’t change anything.”

“Do you know what the tear does?” I asked.

He raised an eyebrow. “Do you?”

“It melts the barriers between the World of Dreams and the Bleak.”

“It’s a portal?” His eyes grew wide as saucers.

“No.” I shook my head. “It’s a trap. A trick. It may melt the barrier, but once you pass through it, you’re trapped unless you can find the weak spot between the Bleak and the next world you’re trying to get to and melt that too.”

“And if you don’t find the weak spot?” Winston asked.

“Trapped inside the Bleak. Forever.”

He grimaced. “Fun.”

“I wish it were really a portal so we could use it…”

“You wouldn’t, though.”

“Not for me.” I shook my head. “But I could send Mercedes home. And you, if you wanted it.”

Winston fell silent, and I looked over to see him staring out at the dark garden, the lights of the fairy circle dimming as they finished their nightly ritual.

“Would you want to go home if you could?”

“I don’t know,” he said. “I’d like to tell you that if the Dragon’s Tear were a portal that I wouldn’t use it. That I’d stand and fight no matter what happened. I want to tell you that I’d be brave and nothing could make me go through that portal and leave everyone else behind. But…”

“But?” I asked.

“Then I think about my mom and my dad.” Winston’s hands were now shaking. “I think about playing hoops with Dad and family game nights. I think about what it’s like to score the winning touchdown during a football game and what life was like before we came here, and then all I want to do is find a way back home.”

“I’m sorry that—”

“I want to go back to the life that we had. I want to go back to that day and come up with some reason not to go to the library. I’d do anything to find a way to travel back in time and stop you from picking up that book, but we can’t. We can’t change that moment. Even here, you don’t get a do-over on life.”

“Not unless Esmeralda had another secret she wasn’t telling me.” I shook my head. “Even if we could travel back in time, there’s a chance we could mess with the space-time continuum, and I’m not sure but all those sci-fi novels Mr. Brinnegar made us read last year seemed to make a big deal out of how bad that would be.”

Winston laughed. “My dad was so mad when he found out that we were reading sci-fi in English class. He was screaming at Principal Daughtry about how he sent me to school every day to learn useful information, not how to deal with alien cultures in the far-distant future.”

“It has come in handy a few times here. Think about it: if we hadn’t read all those novels we’d never know that it’s a bad idea to travel back in time and stop the old me from grabbing that book.”

“That doesn’t change the fact that I would if I could.” Winston leaned close to me. “And I wouldn’t give a crap about the space-time continuum.”

My pulse fluttered, and I tried not to act too affected by the feel of his breath on my skin. I mean, he was my prince consort now, and my boyfriend. This shouldn’t be that big of a deal. That didn’t change the fact that every time he got close to me my brain and my skin went all tingly.

“I would, too,” I said. “And if we can somehow find a portal, somewhere, I’ll send you and Mercedes back. I promise I will. I’ll get you home to your family again.”

“No.” Winston shook his head. “I said that if I could change things I would, but I can’t. I can’t change things so that means I’m staying right here with you.”

I leaned my head against his shoulder and sniffled once before I clung to him, drawing strength from the boy sitting next to me. “What about your family? Football? All those things you miss about our old life?”

“I’d miss you more.”

“You wouldn’t miss me. You would forget that I exist.”

If he and Mercedes went back, they would forget that I’d ever been a part of their lives. I would no longer exist and Winston would end up with someone else. Probably lots of someone elses, with the way all the girls at school flirted with him.

“I’ll never forget that you exist,” Winston said. “I can’t forget you. You’re Allie. You’re my best friend. My girlfriend.”

“I wouldn’t be if you went back.”

“That’s why I’m not going back—even if you do find some super-secret, hidden portal that would get us there.”

“You could be safe—”

Winston pressed his lips against mine again, shutting me up before I could keep arguing.

I wrapped my arms around his neck and breathed in the smell of brimstone and boy that was unique to Winston, my toes curling inside my brown leather hunting boots.

He scooted away from me, and I had to fight the urge to slap myself in the forehead. Way to keep it cool, Allie. Then he tugged me into his lap and kissed me again. “Nothing is going to happen to me,” he said while he stroked his hand down my back. “No one is going to kill me.”

I shook my head. “You can’t know that for sure.”

“I’ll always do what I promise you, Allie. You know that, right? I will always be here to keep you safe. I just told you I love you after all. I can’t die after that. It would be anticlimactic. Think about how much this would suck as a movie if I copped it in the middle of the big battle?”

“This isn’t a movie.”

“I know that.”

“You can’t promise me that you’re not going to die.” I turned away so he couldn’t see the tears that were forming in my eyes. “No one can promise that… Look at my mom. She said we’d always be together—that we were a team—and look what happened to her. She kept all these secrets and now I’m here and she’s there and who knows what will happen to either one of us?”

“I’m not your mom,” Winston said, “and I promise you that no matter what, I am going to be here when this is over. I’m not going to die, and I have no intention of leaving you here alone.”

“You’ll be safe there. Here you might die. Think about it. Heidi and Jesse died here. They died, Win. We buried them. They are never going home again no matter what.”

“I could die there, in the World That Is. The difference is that here I get to be with you.”

“You can’t—”

“Quit telling me what I can and can’t do, Alicia Munroe. I won’t leave you here while I run away.”

He kissed me again and instead of arguing, this time I decided to enjoy it. Even if the Fate Maker was coming for me in two days, it didn’t mean I was going to let him ruin the time I had left.

“Your Majesty,” Ardere said, appearing in front of us.

Winston let go of me and turned to bow his head to the gold dragon who had been acting as his mentor.

“Troops have been spotted along the north road. We’re going to fly a night patrol to scout out their plans if we can.”

“I’m coming.” Winston nodded and turned back to kiss me once again.

“Don’t.” I grabbed his arm. “We need you here in case they attack the palace. He said two days, but it could be a lie. They could be out there waiting in the dark. It could be a trap.”

“I have to go.”

“No, you can stay.” I kept a tight grip on his arm. “Other dragons can go out on patrol, and you can stay.”

“I can’t. You’re the queen, and you have a job to do.”

“And I’m doing it,” I protested.

“So let me do mine. I am a dragon and that means I need to be in the sky with my clan.”

“But—”

“Try to get some sleep, Allie.” Winston looked me in the eye. “I’ll be back in the morning.”

“What if something happens to—”

He kissed me one last time before following Ardere out of the garden and toward the aerie.

“Be safe,” I said quietly as I watched him leave. I pressed my fingers to my lips and closed my eyes, focusing every ounce of my being on the wish I was making. “Please be safe.”

Chapter Twelve

Early the next morning I sat on a bench next to my window, staring out at the labyrinth, and waited for the sun to come up. Winston and the dragon scouts hadn’t made it back to the palace yet and I couldn’t sleep. Not until I saw them on the horizon and heard them landing in the gardens. Until I knew that none of the warriors who had gone out there had died.

So instead I’d paced. Then, when pacing had gotten to be too much, I’d cleaned out my closet. Then I’d organized the soaps in the bathroom. Anything to keep busy. Anything to keep my mind off the dragons who were putting themselves in danger in my name.

I looked at the bracelet on my wrist and shook my head. A fire a million times hotter than the combined breaths of all the dragons… But according to everything I’d seen in the library there was nothing in Nerissette hotter than the fire of a dragon. Nothing. Not even the legends of the Firas—the fire worshippers who lived in the southern part of Nerissette—hinted at anything hotter than the flames of a dragon.

I sat at the dressing table and glanced at my jewelry box. I undid the clasp on the crystal necklace Winston had given me and placed it inside. Then I looked over at the container my crown was kept in, a box that only the Fate Maker and I could open. It was such an obvious place to hide it I had to hope that he wouldn’t look there. But at the same time, the box was imbued with magic. It would keep the tear safe.

I dropped the bracelet into the box and slammed the lid shut. “I don’t know how exactly you work,” I said to the box, trying not to feel stupid talking to an inanimate object. “But I think your fate and mine pretty much depend on you not opening up again for anyone but me. So if the Fate Maker, or anyone else, tries to open you…”

The box began to vibrate against my fingers like it could understand me.

“Slam your lid down on their fingers hard enough to break the bones,” I whispered. The box began to hum even stronger then, like it enjoyed the idea. Apparently, my bed wasn’t my only bloodthirsty belonging.

I walked into my closet, leaving the door open behind me, and brushed past the dresses that lined the walls. I reached for the plain brass door handle at the end of the room, turning it and letting the door swing open.

Heidi’s room. Or her cell, as she’d called it.

The room was plain, barely big enough to hold a bed and a hook for her clothes. There wasn’t even a window, but it held the only furniture in my tower that would allow her to sleep on it. The only room that wouldn’t slam its door in her face. The only place in my entire palace that made her feel at home.

I sat down on her lumpy bed and sighed. I should have done more to help her adjust. To protect her. She’d been trapped here because of me and I should have done more to keep her safe.

The changes we’d faced here in Nerissette had been hardest on Heidi. She’d gone from being most popular person in our class to picking up after the girl she’d spent years bullying. She had to bow and scrape to someone she’d tortured just because she could get away with it.

Part of me had wanted to torture her back when we’d gotten here. I’d wanted to make her life as miserable as she’d made mine. Everyone in the school had worshipped her, and she had everything she’d ever wanted. But when the time came and our roles were reversed, I couldn’t make her feel as small and insignificant as she had made me feel every day. I just couldn’t.

I reached for her pillow, and my hand brushed against something underneath it. I tossed the pillow to the foot of the bed and found the pile of stuff stacked underneath it. The clothes Heidi had been wearing when we arrived. Her cell phone. Lip gloss. A mirror to check her makeup.

I reached for her cell phone and turned it on, surprised to see that it still had a charge. Her phone beeped and her wallpaper lit up. It was a picture of her and Jesse at Kennywood, the amusement park less than twenty minutes from school where we always had our end-of-the-year school trips, smiling for the camera with a roller coaster in the background. I stared at the picture of our home, my heart clenching as I remembered how much easier it had been back then. Back when Heidi was still the queen bee and the world made sense.

I flipped through her photo folder, ruthlessly invading her privacy in a way that would’ve mortified me if the tables were turned, but right now I wanted to see what our world, the world that made sense, had been like for Heidi. Inside were pictures of her with the other cheerleaders, her parents, a little boy I thought might be her younger brother. And hundreds of pictures of Jesse. Jesse at football games. Jesse at the movies, playing soccer. Pictures of the two of them at last year’s spring formal.

Her life had been filled with Jesse—a guy who had dumped her for me the minute our roles were reversed. Not that I’d wanted Jesse. Sure, he was the hottest guy in school, but he wasn’t my type—he wasn’t tall or dark or able to turn himself into a large black dragon. I felt a small stab of sadness in my heart as I looked at her pictures, though. He’d told me once that I didn’t know how rough Heidi really had it, and I’d laughed at him. As far as I could see she’d had the perfect guy, the perfect family, and the perfect life. Now, though, looking at her pictures of the “perfect guy” and remembering how he’d treated her, I couldn’t help but wonder if he’d been right. I’d had no idea what sort of crap she was going through.

“I’m sorry,” I said as I turned the phone off, saving the last of her phone battery for no real reason besides the fact it seemed like the right thing to do. “I’m really, really sorry. No matter how crappy you were to me I didn’t want you to die.”

I took a deep breath. Sorry wasn’t going to do either of us any good right now. I set the phone down on the pile of her stuff and dropped the pillow back on top of it. I shuffled back into the closet, closing the door to Heidi’s room behind me, and stopped at the rack of flimsy shoes in the corner. Standing on tiptoes, I grabbed the gold shoes that I’d worn for my coronation and pulled the right heel down carefully.

Flipping the shoe over, I felt inside the toe and fished out the shard of mirror that I’d hidden inside it. Another one of my lies. My mother had been on the other side of that mirror—the Fate Maker was right, there was no way I was going to destroy my last link to her. No matter how risky it was to keep.

I tried to focus my mind on Gran Mosely, watching the mirror go dark and spiral through the other woman’s memories before it settled on the image of my foster mother, sitting on her couch with a blanket on her legs.

“Roberta?” I heard a voice call out, and I knew it was Mr. Wapperly from down the road. He and Gran Mosely had dated before she’d taken me in, and I knew from watching them in the mirror that if I hadn’t been there the two of them would’ve ended up together. “Do you want some popcorn?”

“No, thanks, Frank,” Gran Mosely replied. “You know—”

“If I eat late at night it gives me heartburn,” I said at the same time she did.

Gran perked up and looked around, confused.

“Roberta?” Frank Wapperly called out, his voice closer this time. “Are you okay?”

“Fine. Fine.” She shook her head. “I thought I heard something. Must be my imagination playing tricks on me.”

“Are you sure?” he asked.

“It was nothing.” She glanced at the front windows and started to get up before stopping and sitting back down again, turning to look away from me, toward the kitchen. “Some bleed-through noise from the street. Nothing important. I’m just being a goose.”

“Well, come on then, Mother Goose.” A hand appeared and Gran Mosely took it, letting him help her off the couch. “Let’s get you tucked in bed before any more nursery rhymes decide to haunt you tonight.”

“Good night, Gran,” I whispered as he led her away, my heart catching in my throat as she turned her head to look back at me, her eyes meeting mine in the mirror, even though she couldn’t see me.

“Roberta?” Mr. Wapperly asked.

“It’s nothing.” She shook her head and started up the stairs, glancing back over her shoulder one last time. “Must have just been a shadow.”

“Sleep well.” I ran my finger over the mirror’s face and the reflection went blurry.

I closed my eyes and focused on my mother, trying to picture her in my mind. The mirror vibrated, humming lightly, and when I opened my eyes her memories played across the shard’s surface. The day I was born. The first time she sang on stage. Bright flowers flashed across it, and as they faded away, the image of my mother lying in her hospital bed appeared. The reflection was dark, and the only light in the room was a faint glow over the sink. I heard the beep of monitors and the whoosh of the machine that breathed for her. Tilting the mirror, I stared at my mother, her dark hair laid out on the pillow in a neat braid, and her eyes closed like they always were. Her blue hospital gown looked fresh, and heavy white blankets were tucked in around her.

“Mom?” I tried not to cry as I stared at the unconscious woman in the mirror.

Why couldn’t she be in a coma there and ruling Nerissette here? Why couldn’t she be around to give me advice? It wasn’t like there were any pressing plans on that side of the mirror to keep her occupied. If Esmeralda could visit people in their dreams why couldn’t my mom? Why couldn’t she be here with me?

A flash of anger at the unfairness of it all shot through me, and I tightened my grip on the mirror. The jagged edges dug into the palm of my hand like a sharp bite. I jerked my fingers open, letting the glass fall to the floor.

I stared at the gash in my hand and bit my lower lip. Man, it stung—and it was bleeding. Bad enough that I was pretty sure I would need a bandage. Which meant I was going to have to come up with some lie about how I’d hurt myself. More lies. More deception. More secrets. It seemed like that was all my life was made up of anymore.

The beads of blood had quickly become a stream, and I forgot all about concocting an excuse as I focused on finding a way to stop the bleeding. I clenched my hand around the cut, and reached down to shove the mirror shard back into my shoe and slip it back into its place.

“Your Majesty?” I heard someone call out from my bedroom. “Your Majesty, where are you?”

“Timbago? What is it?” I hurried out, still clutching my hand to my chest and trying not to get blood on my tunic.

The goblin pursed his lips and stepped forward, peering at my hand. He extended his arm toward me, twitching his gnarled fingers, and I placed my hand in his.

A faint warmth jolted through my body, and when it faded my hand no longer throbbed. The skin was clean and completely healed, like I’d never even cut it. Sort of cool. Or scary, if you thought about the fact that a goblin could do that sort of magic. But ultimately cool.

“Thank you.”

“It was my pleasure, Your Majesty.” He bowed his head. “Although, I regret to inform you that you are needed in the throne room. Immediately.”

“In the throne room? Now? Why?”

“The dragon scouts have returned, Your Majesty.” He dipped his head again and then looked up, his red-rimmed eyes meeting mine.

“What about Winston? He’s with them, isn’t he?” I watched Timbago turn to my dressing table. He ran his finger over my jewelry box and I watched as it began to hum. He whispered something to the box and I watched stunned as the lid slid back, opening for him. He reached inside the now-open box and began to flick aside various bits of jewelry before he picked up the crystal necklace I’d been wearing earlier.

“He’s with them, Your Majesty.” His voice was low and breathy, and he grabbed the crystal and held it before his eyes, his green tongue coming out to swipe at his chapped lips. “The crown prince is fine.”

“Timbago?” I stepped closer, surprised to see the goblin rocking on his heels and humming as he looked at the crystal, his eyes fixed on it as he licked his lips again.

“You should take this with you.” He stuck his hand out straight, keeping his head turned, so that the necklace dangled in front of me from his outstretched hand. “Keep it hidden if you can.”

“Why?”

“It will keep you safe.”

“The necklace?” Confusion clouded my mind, and the room seemed like it was fading away. Like the picture had gone hazy and my mind was disappearing along with it, making it hard to concentrate on anything as my head spun. “This isn’t the tear,” I pushed out. “It’s just a necklace that Winston gave me for my coronation. A gift from the dragons.”

“Keep it with you. The magic woven into the stone will protect you.”

“What magic?” I asked. “The necklace doesn’t have magic.”

“Forget about the necklace and the stone’s magic.” Timbago’s eyes swirled a brilliant green instead of their usual mud-brown color. My brain had trouble focusing on him again, the world going in and out of focus. “Forget that you are wearing it and go on about your duties.”

“But—”

“Forget about the necklace. Focus instead on the Fate Maker. Focus on the battle to come.”

“Of course.” I put the necklace on, dropping the stone inside my shirt where no one would see it. “I’ll forget about the necklace.”

“Keep it hidden,” Timbago warned me.

“I will.”

“Now.” Timbago grabbed my hand and turned it palm up. “Forget all of this. I’ve healed your hand, and now you can go meet the dragon warriors in the throne room. That’s what I’m doing now. I’m healing your hand.”

“You already—”

“I’ll heal your hand, and we won’t tell anyone about this,” he said, his bright eyes still boring into mine, muddling my mind. “You don’t want them to know about the shard you kept. It’s not time for them to know. Not yet.”

“How did you…?” I tried to focus. “The mirror shard, I’ve kept it hidden. Secret.”

“The shard is secret. Between me and you alone, Your Majesty. Now is not the time for anyone else to know. Not even the dragon.”

My mind cleared suddenly, like I was waking up from a long night’s sleep, and I shook my head, trying to focus. “Timbago? What are you doing here?

Timbago smiled at me. “You’re needed in the throne room, Your Majesty. The dragon scouts have returned.”

“What about Winston? He’s with them, isn’t he?”

“He’s with them, Your Majesty.” Timbago patted my hand gently. “The crown prince is fine. Now, come along. You don’t want to keep the crown prince waiting.”

I nodded. “Let’s go find out what Winston and the others have learned.”

Chapter Thirteen

“The Fate Maker is on the main road,” Winston announced as he met me at the foot of the main staircase. “His forces will be here soon.”

“How?” I rushed into the room, and everyone scurried to get out of my way. I ignored the mass of bowing dragons and stalked to my throne. “If the Fate Maker’s army is at Bekal how did he get them here this fast?”

“They’re using magic,” Ardere said, leaning against the white marble window ledge. “He’ll be here before the sun reaches its highest point at midday. Maybe sooner.”

“How many? How big is his army?”

“Big,” Winston said. “Very big. And he’s got wizards.”

“Including the ambassador from Bathune,” John said. “Ambassador Eriste is gone. He must have fled the palace sometime during the night. Most likely to join the Fate Maker’s army.”

“That—”

“Exactly,” he said, his eyes narrowed.

“And our army? Rhys?” I looked at the young man who was in charge of my troops. “Do you have enough warriors to fight? Have the volunteers all arrived safely?”

“The soldiers have been inside the walls since last night,” Rhys said. “I inspected them already this morning. When the time comes we’ll be ready.”

Loud, panicked bells tolled out in the distance, urging my people to find safety, to hide anywhere that the Fate Maker wasn’t. To run as far away as they could get, as fast as they could get there.

“What about the people who aren’t fighting? The children? The families? Have they evacuated into the forests?” Fear for my people rose in my throat. I didn’t want to take the chance of any innocents dying if I could help it.

“The ones who wanted to flee have gone,” Rhys explained. “The rest have been flooding into the palace, ready to fight. The back garden is filled with volunteer fighters.”

“I don’t care about the back garden. I just want everyone safe. We need to make sure that the Fate Maker doesn’t get to the people hiding in the forest. We have to stop him here so they have the chance to escape.”

“We’ll keep them safe,” Winston assured me with a gentle squeeze of my hand. “I promise.”

“Good,” I said. “So the question is, what do we do now?”

“I get our army into position,” Rhys said. “Then, when his men attack we’ll be ready.”

“Are they ready to fight against the Fate Maker and his monsters?”

“They could be better.” Rhys swallowed and ran a hand up over his face. “Correction: they have been better, but they’ll hold up under attack. For a while, at least.”

“Right. Okay. That’s good. If we can just hold him off long enough, maybe he’ll go—”

A loud whistle shrieked, and all the hair on the back of my arms stood up merely a second before the palace walls shook, a sound like a bomb echoing through the chamber.

“Too late,” Rhys said, all of us covering our heads.

“What was that?” Another explosion shook the room as I spoke, and the marble floors buckled and cracked. I reached for one of the large columns that held up the roof and wrapped my arms around it.

“I’d say we have a group of wizards who have decided to come for a visit,” Rhys said, kneeling on the ground and bracing himself against the wall. “I don’t think they’re going to believe we’re not home.”

“Crap,” I yelled as a third blast hit the palace and plaster rained down on me, chunks of marble from the columns hurtling toward us like hailstones. Win grabbed me around the waist with one arm and pulled me closer to the wall, covering my head and shoulders with his own.

“Your Majesty?” Kitsuna cried out from across the room, huddled near the throne with an empty plate in her hands and food scattered around her on the floor. “What’s going on?”

“The Fate Maker’s trying to bring the palace down around our ears!” I shouted.

“I can see that.” Kitsuna scrambled to her feet and hurried over to us. “The walls probably won’t hold much longer,” she said. I felt Winston nod. “We need to get out of here.”

“Come on.” I waved at Rhys, and he and Ardere managed to get to their feet and follow me, Winston, and Kitsuna out of the throne room. The main doors to the palace had been thrown open, and soldiers ran around the front lawn, grabbing their weapons and hurrying to the walls that surrounded the palace.

I looked from side to side, trying to figure out where the attacks were coming from, where the wizards were hiding to throw their evil, destructive spells at my army. I couldn’t see anything.

“People of Nerissette,” Rhys roared, drawing his sword. All the soldiers outside stopped running and turned to look at the tall, dark-haired boy now standing behind me. “To war!”

“To war!” they yelled back.

“Dragons to the roof,” Winston commanded. Kitsuna’s hand tightened around my wrist as she led me toward a side passage that would lead us directly to the nearest transport rune.

“There.” I pointed at a brick near the floor inside the kitchen. “The rune’s there.”

“Come on then,” Kitsuna said, hustling me toward it. “You’ll want to get to the roof before the dragons take off. Otherwise Winston might leave you on the ground for your own good.”

“He wouldn’t—” I froze. Because the thing is, he would. My sweet, stubborn, noble boyfriend would absolutely leave me behind if he thought it would keep me safe.

“Wait.” Mercedes’s voice came behind us.

I turned to see her running in our direction, huffing for breath.

“Wait for me. I’m not letting you go up there alone.”

“Are you sure?” I asked. “I thought you’d been assigned to defend the walls.”

“You want me to take the chance of you going head-to-head with some monster holding nothing but a sword? Again?” Mercedes snorted. “Please. You need me up there to help watch your back.”

“You know I have no intention of ending up on the ground again. Right?”

“Yeah, well, let’s not risk it,” Mercedes said as she grabbed my hand and reached for the rune, mere seconds before I got a grip on Kitsuna. “Take us to the roof.”

My body jerked hard, crackling like one of those static electricity balls as my hair stood on end, and as the rune’s magic took hold of us, transporting us from the inside of the palace to the roof, it felt like the world was splitting apart. My skin felt like the magic itself was tearing me apart at the seams, and the minute the pain became too much it was gone, instantly, and the world righted itself again there at the highest point of the palace’s roof, in a small, flat space next to the glass dome. For once, sparkles or colored smoke didn’t decorate the transport, and I realized that even the magic that controlled the palace had a pretty good idea that we were in trouble right now.

“By the Pleiades,” Kitsuna muttered.

I turned to see what she was looking at.

The army outside the gates was enormous. Hundreds of soldiers. Maybe thousands. The field was now filled with monsters that I couldn’t have imagined in my worst nightmare. Green-faced goblins, giants, ogres with spiked clubs. Towering creatures that looked like men wearing insect suits of armor holding long knives over the top of their hands as they rode on the backs of animals that looked like elephants, but instead of being cute they had these razor-sharp tusks and paws that reminded me of enormous tigers. Burly soldiers in helmets with hooked faceplates and cruel spikes across the top were ranged behind them, and I watched, stunned as a row of archers lifted their bows and launched a volley of arrows straight at us.

Kitsuna yanked me down onto the roof beside her and Mercedes, covering both of our heads with her arms.

“Where did all these soldiers come from?” Mercedes asked. “The Fate Maker’s army wasn’t this big last time.”

“They’re Bavasama’s.” Kitsuna pointed at a group of soldiers near the front. “That’s why Eriste isn’t hiding his betrayal. He’s out there on the battlefield, leading the army of Bathune.”

My eyes widened and my mouth hung open as I tried to take it all in. My aunt had officially betrayed me. I hadn’t trusted her before, but I hadn’t really expected her to outright betray me, either. I’d thought she’d have been more secretive about it. More stealthy. “How many of them are there?”

“I don’t know,” Kitsuna admitted. “But I do know that if those walls don’t hold we’re in serious trouble. We’ll be overrun.”

“And who’s that?” I pointed to a woman on the ground, a woman with crimson hair who was identical to the one who had ridden behind the Fate Maker on Kuolema’s back in my dreams.

“That’s your aunt,” Kitsuna said. “The Empress Bavasama herself. It looks like she’s come to steal herself a kingdom.”

I heard Mercedes gasp.

“Not today.” I gritted my teeth. “Not if I have anything to say about it.”

Dragons launched themselves into the air, off the ledges below us, and I turned to stare at them instead of the army that had come to claim my kingdom.

“Winston!” I yelled and scrambled forward, trying to climb down to where the rest of the dragons were massed, at the far end of my palace’s roof, so that I could reach Winston before he and they took off too. I needed to get on his back and go face down the traitorous witch who had brought her army along to settle a family fight.

“You need to stay back, Your Majesty.” Kitsuna grabbed me, pulling me toward the dome. I pulled Mercedes with me. “If the walls give, you need to be prepared to run.”

I watched, frozen, as the creatures kept coming, pushing against the gate, pressing into the hastily reinforced walls we were using as barricades. My archers rained down arrows, and knights and other soldiers jabbed at the enemy with their pikes and blades. But for every man who fell, two more moved forward to take his place.

“Oh, God.” I grabbed my friends’ hands as a large fireball shot toward our walls and exploded into blue-black flames.

The dragons swooped forward and blew flames at the enemy. There was a roar, and I turned to see a blue dragon fall, struggling as if caught inside some invisible net. The roars continued before turning into high-pitched, pain-filled shrieks.

“We need to…” Kitsuna’s shaky voice trailed off as the screeching suddenly stopped.

A horrible, ominous creak sounded, and then the snap of the gates buckling under the pressure. The enemy troops poured into the palace grounds, bloodthirsty screams filling the air.

Winston wheeled away from the rest of the dragons, another red dragon and a gold following close behind. The three of them landed heavily on the top of the roof, and he lowered his head in front of me, stretching his neck out so that I could climb on.

“Come on.” Kitsuna grabbed my hand and urged me forward, toward the dragons. “We need to go.”

“What? I thought you said I wasn’t riding into battle today?” I yelled as she shoved me toward Winston’s neck and began scrambling onto her mother’s crimson back.

“We’re not riding into battle, Your Majesty,” Kitsuna said as I hoisted myself onto Winston’s back. “We’re retreating.”

“How are we going to retreat? My army is trapped inside the walls, and I refuse to leave this palace for my aunt. She’s not getting anywhere near my throne.”

Mercedes dragged herself onto Ardere’s back, keeping a stranglehold on his neck once she made it up.

Kitsuna pointed down at my army, and I watched in horror as they all started to flee as the Fate Maker’s troops rolled into the front gardens. “Forget about your aunt and your stupid throne! The army is running away! We’re retreating.”

“There’s a wall back there!” I threw my hand out, motioning to the back of the palace. “There’s no escape.”

“I’m sure they’ll make one.” Kitsuna gestured to Winston and then met my eyes. “Come on. We can’t take the risk of you being captured.”

“I don’t have the tear.”

“Forget about the tear!” Mercedes yelled. “He can’t use the tear without you. So come on. We need to go before they kill us.”

“I can’t. Not with the Fate Maker and Bavasama here.” I jumped off Winston’s back and sprinted for the rune at the top of the roof. “I’ve got to get the tear. I can’t leave it for him.”

“Oh, for the love of the Pleiades,” Kitsuna yelled, her footsteps beating behind me.

I reached the rune and slapped my palm against it. “Take me to the Rose’s Tower.”

Fingers brushed across my back and the entire world spun as the rune ripped me away from the roof and transported me to my tower.

I hit the stone floor on my knees, my head spinning, and I put my hand in front of my mouth to keep from vomiting. I pushed myself to my feet and hurried forward, hoping that the Tree Folk doors to my room wouldn’t stand in my way.

The doors must have realized that I was in a hurry and threw themselves open hard enough to smack against the walls. I raced into the bedroom and grabbed my crown box, tucking it under my arm like my gym teacher used to yell at us to do with the ball when we were playing flag football in gym class.

A roar from outside made me glance out the windows, where I saw dragons swarming over the back garden, pouring down flames on what I hoped was the Fate Maker’s army. Kitsuna was right—we had to go. We were being overtaken, and I had to keep the tear safe and out of the Fate Maker’s hands.

I sprinted back out to the rune, and before I could even get the word roof out of my mouth, the magic that protected my palace wrapped itself around me. I gasped as the spell proceeded to tear me, and the box, into a million pieces. I came to a split second later, in the exact same place I’d transported from just a few moments before.

“Your Majesty!” Kitsuna called out.

“It’s okay, I have it.” I held the case up to show her.

“Forget about the stupid relic!” Kitsuna shrieked. “Let’s go already.”

“What about my army?” I screamed as I ran to Winston and climbed, one-handed, onto his back.

“They’ve managed to get away from the palace,” Mercedes said. “They’ve run for the back garden to escape into the forest, and the dragons have stalled the Fate Maker’s army here. Now we need to go. Before you and the precious relic you’re willing to risk all our lives for are captured.”

Before I could say anything, Winston launched himself into the air and raced toward the dragon stronghold at Dramera. Once we’d cleared the palace walls I tucked the crown case into my tunic, keeping it safe against my chest. Then I looked back, watching as the dragons bathed my palace in flames.

Stunned, I watched as three very large, SUV-sized black birds burst out of the fire, racing toward us. Those definitely weren’t part of my army.

Chapter Fourteen

“What in the name of Esmeralda and corn flakes are those things?” Mercedes yelled as she looked back at the bird trailing behind us, screeching at the top of its lungs.

“They’re ravens,” Kitsuna said. “Now keep your head down so that they can’t aim for you.”

“Those monsters are not ravens,” Mercedes said. “Ravens are ugly black birds that perch on desks next to Edgar Allan Poe and yell ‘nevermore’ all day long. They aren’t monstrous killers with beaks the size of New Jersey.”

“Yeah?” Kitsuna reached for the knives she had stuck in her belt and threw one at the ravens. “Well, we grow them a bit bigger here. If I were you I’d use that bow you’ve got strapped to your back. It’s not just for decoration.”

I threw the knife that was nestled in my own sword belt at the bird, missing it completely. Mercedes had managed to free the small, curvy dryad bow she’d been training with and was loading an arrow into it.

“Keep your head down,” Kitsuna shrieked as Mercedes let the arrow fly. A loud, angry shriek preceded the sound of breaking branches as something big fell out of the sky.

Winston flew into a deep dive, throwing me forward. I grabbed his neck with my arms and dug my heels into his sides, scrunching my eyes shut and trying not to scream as he hurtled toward the ground.

“Don’t crash,” I howled, my eyes still closed. “Please, please, please don’t crash.”

He leveled off, and I opened my eyes, staring in horror at the ground not so far below me. I heard another dull thwap and then a shriek, and glanced behind me to see that the other two dragons had managed the same maneuver.

“Is everyone—”

“Duck!” Mercedes yelled.

I looked up to see the two trees we were speeding toward. There was no way we’d make it through the narrow space between them. On instinct I tightened my grip on Winston’s neck and tried my best not to wet myself.

“Lento!” Mercedes screeched, her voice high and panicky.

Winston flipped sideways, and the trees leaned away from us. We zipped between them, leaves slapping me in the face and twigs tangling in my hair as we brushed past the branches.

I squeezed my eyes shut again and decided to keep them that way until we were back on land. Screw being some sort of heroic warrior queen—I wasn’t cut out for this level of excitement.

“Redito!” Mercedes yelled.

I heard the snap of branches and the groan of trees moving just before a loud squawk pierced the air, followed by the boom of a large object crashing into the thick foliage.

I loosened my hold on Winston to draw my sword and looked over my shoulder for the ravens. Behind us, inky feathers filled the gap between the two trees. Obviously our little friends hadn’t made it through in time. Oops.

Winston shifted upward, taking us out of the trees, and I quickly sheathed my sword before holding tight once more as we burst out of the forest and into the blue sky. When we leveled off I let go of his neck and turned, trying to see my palace as it shrank from sight.

Everywhere I looked blackness filled the air. Plumes of fire and smoke had turned the remaining forests around my palace into huge bonfires. Even if we made it back to the palace grounds there would be little left to save.

The dragons flew faster and the sky darkened as we moved farther west, away from the people I’d sworn to protect. When I thought we’d never stop flying, that we’d keep going until we reached the edge of the world itself, we went even farther. Later we circled back, and I realized that we’d been traveling around Dramera Lake, close to the main village of the dragon clans, keeping to the air as the dragons determined whether or not we were safe.

Winston tilted his body forward, and all three dragons glided to a graceful stop in the middle of the large, cobblestoned town square. Surrounding us were tall, narrow houses, each of them covered in tidy straw roofs.

I slid off his back and felt for the crown case, still safely nestled inside my tunic. “What do we do now?” I asked. “We’re here, our army is there.”

The other two dragons let Kitsuna and Mercedes off, then followed Winston back up into the air, probably to find somewhere to shift back to their human forms.

“Take me back!” I yelled after him.

“No,” Kitsuna snapped.

I shot her a glare. “I need to go back. My people are dying there.”

“And we’re needed here,” Kitsuna said. “You’re needed here.”

“Why? What are we supposed to do here? Away from the fighting?”

“We hide, and we hope that no one from the Fate Maker’s army manages to arrive before our own soldiers do,” Kitsuna said.

“Who could have followed us here?” Mercedes asked.

A loud squawk sounded behind us, and I turned to see an enormous, angry, black raven that was missing half its feathers coming straight at us. Again.

“Them.” I pointed.

Mercedes stared at the bird. “I thought we killed them already?”

Kitsuna grabbed my arm to pull me away, and I watched, horrified, as the dragons who had taken off a moment before raced across the sky, flames erupting from their mouths like giant, flying volcanoes.

The raven managed to get over Dramera Lake and swooped toward the ground. A man slipped from the bird’s shoulders, and once the rider was free, the beast arched itself up to its full height, wings beating ominously as it let out a loud squawk and then hurled itself at Winston, Ardere, and Kitsuna’s mother. Winston roared and shot forward, driving his head into the raven’s stomach, and launched them both toward the lake. The other two dragons moved upward, circling above them as if searching for other attackers in the sky.

Winston reared up, dragging the raven upward in his claws, and then did the dragon version of a body slam into the raven’s stomach, driving it down onto the banks of the lake. The bird skipped across the ground like a large stone and both the bird and the dragon plunged into the water, still swiping at each other.

“Come on.” Kitsuna tugged urgently on my hand, and we both backed away from the square.

“What about Winston?”

“He can take care of himself,” Kitsuna said. “We need to warn the others.”

A burst of magic exploded in front of me, enveloping the spot where Winston had disappeared in brilliant blue-black flames.

I froze. “Oh no.”

“Allie, come on,” Mercedes shrieked.

“Wizard.” Kitsuna pulled my arm and dragged me through the winding streets of Dramera at a flat-out sprint, one of my arms cradled over my chest as I tried to keep from dropping the box with my crown and the Dragon’s Tear tucked inside my shirt. “Now come on!”

“Wizard?” Mercedes asked as she ran behind us, already wheezing. “Of course it’s a wizard. What else would it be?”

“Wizards ride on the backs of ravens. They use the birds to go into battle when they want to fight,” Kitsuna said, still breathing fine and not slowing in the slightest. “Then they let the stupid birds eat the bodies of the dead—and the not-so-dead, if the mood takes them.”

“What?” Mercedes’s voice was barely more than a wheeze.

“Raven!” Kitsuna yelled, using her free hand to smack open shutters as she ran, calling out to anyone who could hear her. “Raven in the square. Hide your hatchlings. Guard your eggs. There’s a raven in the square!”

All around us heads began to pop out of front windows and doors of the thick-timbered lodge houses that made up Dramera. And then, as quickly as they came, the windows and doors were slammed closed, and we could hear the collective snick of the bolts being thrown into place as the dragons who had stayed behind began to screech for their young.

“Shouldn’t they be going to help?” I panted as we swung wide around a corner.

Kitsuna began to shout again, still running so fast that I was having trouble keeping up. “Did you not hear me when I said that ravens eat the dead? They also eat hatchlings.” She didn’t slow down as we sprinted along one of the side streets and toward a large, thatch-roofed house with a red dragon topping the totem pole outside. She threw open the door, shoved me and Mercedes inside, and then slammed the door closed behind us before throwing the heavy iron bolt.

“Up the stairs.” She made a shooing motion toward a ladder in the back corner. “Into the loft. Hide. We have to hide. Now.”

“Winston—” I started.

“Is distracted by the raven.” Kitsuna pushed me toward the ladder, not bothering to be gentle. “He’s going to be no help against the wizard, so we have to hide. Right now, because I’m pretty sure that guy came specifically for you.”

We scrambled up the ladder and pulled ourselves into the large, airy loft. “Why would he come by himself, though?” I asked. “Shouldn’t there be more of them?”

“There were,” Kitsuna said. “All three ravens had wizards on their backs. This is just the only one who made it past the knives, the arrows, and through our dryad’s rather clever Trees of Death.”

I heard a pained roar and ran to the loft’s large front windows. They must’ve acted as an extra door for those who chose to stay in dragon form. Looking out, I could see Winston and the raven coiled around each other in the air, each trying to close its jaws over the other one’s neck. The black, swirling mass shifted, and Winston was on top, his head tossing back and forth, biting at the raven, gouging at its flesh with his teeth. I struggled to breathe as I watched them do battle. He managed to maneuver so that the bird was falling through the sky, Winston’s claws shoved into its belly, and when they hit the ground, my boyfriend poured flames into the monster’s face.

The raven, meanwhile, kept shrieking through the flames, its inky black wings beating at Winston’s head while the creature’s legs pushed at his stomach. The bird reared its head back and then slammed forward, its beak aimed at Winston’s eyes. He cried out, and I shrieked, both of them faltering, looking in my direction. I could see the pure, naked fear in Winston’s eyes as the monster loosened its grip on him, its eyes now fixed on me.

Win roared, swiping at the animal with his claws. Blood dripped from his snout and he opened his mouth, breathing more flames down the raven’s back. The stench of roasted feathers filled the air as the giant bird gave a pained howl.

“Get away from the window.” Kitsuna grabbed me and pulled me toward the back of the room. “That monster could tell the wizard where to find you.”

“Oh, you have got to be kidding me.” Mercedes groaned as we hurried across the loft.

“They have a psychic link,” Kitsuna explained as she pushed us back. We were pressed against the far wall, on the opposite side of the house from the square where Winston was battling the raven.

“Of course they do,” Mercedes said, “because this can’t get any worse. The wizard and the demon bird would have to have a link to each other.” She paused and looked at Kitsuna as she tugged at the rusted bolt of another large, closed window. “What are you doing?”

“I’m finding us a way out of here in case the wizard tracks us. And don’t say that,” Kitsuna said, the bolt giving way.

“Don’t say what?” Mercedes asked as we tried to heave the heavy wooden hatch out of the way.

“That it can’t get any worse,” Kitsuna said.

“Why?” Mercedes grunted as all three of us put our weight against the hatch. It wouldn’t budge.

“Where wizards are concerned—”

I felt all the hair on my arms go up. Oh, no. Not again.

A ball of magic slammed into the front of the house, causing the entire lodge to vibrate. I tumbled to the floor. “It can always get worse,” I said as another blast hit and the loft shook harder.

Kitsuna grabbed my arm and pulled me up. “He found us. We need to go.” She pushed her shoulder against the hatch and shoved, still not getting anywhere.

“Hold on.” Mercedes grabbed me and Kitsuna, forcing all of us to take a step back. “On the count of three.”

“One,” Kitsuna said.

“Two.” I swallowed and shifted my feet, trying to keep them steady.

Another explosion and the front door below us snapped loudly, splintering open. Mercedes launched herself forward, pulling us beside her as she hit the hatch with her full weight and it flew open with a crack as sharp as a starter’s pistol.

I tumbled forward and a strong hand grabbed the collar of my shirt, jerking me back into the loft and onto my feet. I turned and found Kitsuna staring at me, her green eyes bright against her pale skin.

“The woods aren’t far.” Kitsuna threw her arms around me and gave me a panicked hug. “Run straight toward it and hide. And Dryad…”

Mercedes stopped and turned her.

Kitsuna released me and nodded. “Hide the Golden Rose well. No matter what. The fate of our world—”

“Yeah, fate of the world on one set of skinny shoulders,” Mercedes said. “No pressure to keep her safe or anything.”

“What are you going to do?” I grabbed for Kitsuna’s hand. “You have to come with us.”

Instead of answering, Kitsuna turned back to the main room of the loft and lifted her head to breathe a steady stream of blue flames straight into the thatch over our heads. The straw glowed blue for a second then the roof erupted into flames. The wryen lifted her head and breathed more flames onto the walls, catching them on fire as well.

“Kitsuna!” I watched in horror as she set her own house on fire, trapping herself and the wizard underneath the burning roof.

She turned to me, the loft behind her smoking. “Go,” she mouthed before turning away from me one last time.

“Kitsuna.” I lunged forward, but Mercedes grabbed my shoulder, pulling me back toward the hatch.

“She’ll be okay. She’s a dragon. That means she’s fireproof. We’re not. So come on. We have to go while she has him distracted.”

My two best girlfriends were right. For once I was just going to have to trust that Kitsuna could take care of herself. Even if I felt like crap for leaving her and Winston behind while I ran for my life like some sort of spineless chicken. But right now, I was going to have to deal with being a chicken long enough to stay alive.

“Where?” I saw nothing but ground below. I then spotted a hay bale, no more than a four- or five-foot jump across and a two-story drop down. “There!”

“Where?” She looked around, her eyes wide and terrified, as I grabbed her arm and then jumped into the air, dragging her along behind me.

We hit the hay with a bone-jarring thump, and I had to fight the urge to moan in pain as the crown box’s edge jammed into my rib, knocking the air out of my lungs. All those adventure movies were wrong. Landing in a hay bale seriously hurt.

“Come on.” I tumbled out of the pile. “We have to move. Kitsuna said to meet her in the forest so that’s where we need to go.” I stood and looked back at the house, now totally engulfed in flames, before taking off at a run beside Mercedes.

I spotted the woods in front of us and tried to run harder, pushing my legs to get me from the field to the tree cover as quickly as they could. The faint beat of wings sounded behind me, and I looked up to see Kitsuna’s mother hovering low over the forest entrance. Once we had broken through the tree line I heard a raspy roar and then felt the heat of the world behind me exploding in flames, blocking anyone who might have tried to follow us. Mercedes and I ran into the forest, both of us searching for a place to hide.

“There!” She pointed to a patch of thick plants and high grasses among a group of trees. “Come on.”

“Are you sure?” I asked as she started toward the patch of underbrush. She didn’t bother to answer as she led me into the waist-high grass, holding her hand out so that the plants would lean out of the way and give us a clear path.

“Here.” Mercedes stopped in front of a large tree with several thick, low-hanging branches covered in leaves. “You’ll be safe here.”

She pushed me forward until I was standing next to the trunk, and then dropped to her knees, urging me down beside her. She grabbed a handful of mossy dirt and smeared it on my face and arms, covering all my exposed skin.

“Don’t make a sound. Stay still,” she said before standing and moving away from me.

“What are you doing?” I asked as she raised her hands and chanted in a language I didn’t understand.

“Mala he onohie,” Mercedes said, touching the tree’s trunk. “Mala te omate. Mala te omate.”

“What are you doing?” I asked as the entire tree seemed to sway with her words.

“Mala te omate,” Mercedes repeated, louder this time.

The tree began to shrink in on itself. The drooping branches brushed past Mercedes, who was still kneeling in the same spot as they drew inward and cradled my body against the tree trunk. The branches imprisoned me in their grip, wrapping around the trunk like a flower closing for the night. Instead of crushing me with their weight, the branches shifted and moved, forming a tiny nest for me to hide in.

The dull thump of footsteps moved away from me, and the woods fell silent. No chanting. No birds. No tiny animals moving around in the grass. Just the distant roars of Winston and the raven battling each other.

I wanted to cry out but knew that would just bring the wizard directly to me. So I stayed quiet and tried to find a comfortable position inside the tree. The branches nestled closer to me, and I brought my knees up to my chest, hugging them close as I waited out the battle.

Chapter Fifteen

My mother had always said there was nothing worse than waiting. Personally I’d always thought there was nothing worse than biology on dissection day, but it turns out that Mom was right. There is nothing worse than waiting to find out if your friends are dead.

I shifted in my tree cocoon and listened for any sounds coming through the forest. Something. Someone. Winston. Kitsuna. Mercedes. A crazed, homicidal wizard intent on causing mayhem. Anything was better than sitting here alone, not knowing what had happened to everyone else…well, except maybe the “getting caught by a homicidal wizard” thing.

“Your Majesty?” a faint voice called. I shifted to my knees from my seated position to peer between the intertwined branches at a small girl with the same red curls as Kitsuna and her mother. “Queen Alicia, are you in here?”

“Hey,” I whispered, my voice thick with nerves, as I pressed my face against the tree branches. “I’m up here.”

“Queen Alicia?” The girl looked up at me and then clapped her hands over her mouth. “Oh no! The tree ate you.”

“What? Wait. No, the tree didn’t eat me.” I tried to throw a hand out to stop her as she turned on her heel and took off at a dead run, bolting in the direction of Dramera.

Crap. So much for getting rescued any time soon. But the little girl had known to come into the woods to look for me. That meant the battle was over and someone would figure out what she was talking about and come for me. Although maybe—now that the danger had supposedly passed—the tree might be persuaded to let me save myself… Just for once. Sort of like a test. Could the princess be self-sufficient? My vote was for absolutely. I could only hope the tree agreed.

I moved back, closer to the tree trunk, and rubbed my hand along its bark. “I think I’m safe now.”

The tree pulled its branches more firmly around me.

“You were very brave.” I stroked the tree again, trying to act reassuring and more than capable of kicking butt all on my own. “Now it’s time for me to go back and find my people.” Most importantly Winston, to make sure he was okay, that he was safe and the raven had been taken care of.

The tree tightened its grip, and a branch snaked up to wrap around my ankles as another slid around my waist and a third tightly bound my shoulders. The rest of the branches moved away from us and I drew in a breath as the three branches holding me began to lower, carrying me toward the forest floor. I held as still as I could and tried not to look down.

When we reached the moss growing along the tree’s trunk the branches slithered away from me and I stood, brushing dirt and green flakes of moss off my clothing before turning to the tree and bowing my head. “Thank you for hiding me. I won’t forget it. I need you to do me one final favor.”

I pulled the crown box out of my shirt and held it up for the tree to see. “I need you to keep this safe for me. No matter what. Can you do that?”

The tree swayed toward me and then back like it was nodding, and then two branches came forward, like hands, cupped in front of me.

“It sounds cliché,” I said as I placed the box onto the cupped branches. “But the fate of our world sort of rests inside that box. So keep it safe. For all of us.”

The top of the tree dropped forward, bowing, and then the branches that it had used as arms retreated slowly, the case with my crown and the Dragon’s Tear disappearing from sight.

“Thank you,” I said before I turned to run back toward the village, following the path of broken twigs that the tiny dragon girl had left in her wake. I searched for Mercedes as I ran. Surely she wouldn’t have gone too far.

Nothing but trees greeted me. That wasn’t good.

I stopped and turned in a circle. Giant trees were covered in glossy, dark-green leaves, and tall grasses and scraggly undergrowth were mired in the black mud that covered the ground. No footprints peppered the dirt beyond the tiny prints the little girl had left as she sprinted for Dramera. No markings on the trees. Nothing that my years of television crime show–watching would provide to help me figure out which direction my best friend had taken off in when she left me hidden in a tree.

Crap, crap, and double crap. Where could she be?

I could go back to Dramera, check on Winston, and try to form a search party to look for her. But then again, if I could save myself, then I could save my best friend as well.

I started into the forest, searching for a sign—any sign—that Mercedes had gone in the same direction. There wasn’t much to go on, but if Mercedes had left me here and hadn’t melded with the trees around us, then she would have gone away from Dramera. Deeper into the woods that had been her home here in Nerissette.

I walked into the trees, alert for any sign that she was nearby. There, on a low branch, was a scrap of brown material. I moved closer and saw a few silver hairs clinging to the trunk. Mercedes had been here. She’d brushed up against this tree and gotten her hair caught.

“Mercedes!” I whispered. “Come out, come out wherever you are! Come on, Mercedes, leave me another clue to find.”

“Allie?” I heard a panicky voice whimper.

I turned, glancing around, trying to figure out where Mercedes’s voice was coming from. Across the clearing I could see a deep gouge of mud, and the tree seemed skinnier than the rest. Like it had wrapped its branches around itself or something. Whatever it was, something with that tree wasn’t right.

“Mer?” I moved closer to the tree, careful, searching for danger with every step.

“Allie! Oh crap, Allie, help me!”

“Mercedes?” I hurried over to the strange-looking tree. “Are you in there? What happened?”

“There have been some complications,” she muttered. “I may be stuck.”

“Stuck? How did you get stuck?”

“It’s a bit complicated,” she squeaked as I moved toward the sound of her voice.

“Complicated how?”

“You’ll see.”

“Mercedes, just tell me, are you okay?” I asked.

“Not really,” she said, her voice going higher at the end like it was a question. “I seem to have gotten myself into a bit of trouble.”

“Lions, giants, and wizards oh my, trouble, or I think I got turned around in the forest and I’m so glad you’re here trouble?”

“A little of both.”

When I was directly in front of the tree I looked up into the narrow branches and found her strung up in some plant’s tentacles, cradled against the trees trunk while the branches held her like some sort of spider’s web. “A little of both” might be the understatement of the day. Possibly the week—and that was saying something.

“What the heck happened to you?” I peered up at her face high above me, the rest of her obscured by thick, leafy green vines.

“I was searching for a place to hide,” Mercedes said, “and I chose the wrong tree. This one has apparently been taken over by a giant carnivorous vine of some sort. It caught a bird a few minutes ago and ate it whole. Bones and all. I think it was supposed to be the appetizer.”

“So what’s the main course?” I asked.

“That would be me.”

“But you’re a dryad. I thought all the trees and plants loved you. You’re like the Snow White of trees and birds and all that sort of stuff.”

“Yeah, well, this particular vine seems more interested in lunch than it is in making friends. So can you help me or not?”

“Help you do what?” I asked.

“Allie!” She glared at me. “Get up here and get me down before the tree decides to turn me into its lunch.”

“Are you saying that’s a cannibalistic tree?”

“Technically it’s the vine that’s going to eat me but yes, it’s a carnivore and it just happens to have a taste for dryad!”

“Okay, okay. What do we do?”

“I don’t know. It has me in such a tight grip that I can’t even touch my magic, and it’s already started to sort of tickle at my toes. I think it’s trying to figure out if it wants to eat me from the bottom up or the top down. So hurry up and think of something already. Please?”

I looked skeptically at the tree. There had to be some way to get her out of this, and right now I was the only one who could do it. “No one told me how to deal with killer trees.”

“Well, where’s Kitsuna? If anyone knows how to deal with crazy trees then it’s Kit. She knows everything there is to know about all things weird in Nerissette.”

“I didn’t go and get her. I got out of the tree and came to find you so that we could go back to Dramera together.”

“Oh, that’s brilliant. We’re out here alone, trapped in a forest, and I’m going to die inside a houseplant. This is so not cool.” Mercedes kicked her feet and struggled to get loose.

She managed to wiggle one foot free and the plant seemed to shrink back from her kicking heels. “Mercedes, wait… I might have an idea.”

“What?”

“Kick the vines again.” I could feel the beginning of a plan starting to form as I saw the way the recently injured tendrils kept their distance from her.

“Do what? Why?”

“Because the vines moved away from your ankle when you were kicking it.”

“So?”

“So, it’s a living creature, right?”

“It’s a homicidal maniac in plant form.”

“Right, so I think the vine doesn’t like when you kick it.”

“And?” She struggled again and brought her foot back to deliver a futile kick. It wasn’t much, but the plant definitely shrank away from it, which was something.

“Can you get a hand free? Or even better, an arm?”

“What?”

“Never mind.” I spotted a large rock and made my way over to the branches of the tree where the plant had made its home. Shoving the rock into the pocket of my hunting trousers, I grabbed on to the rough bark and pulled myself up onto the branch, grumbling about all the upper body strength I’d lost since I wasn’t going to swim team practice anymore. “I got it.”

“What are you going to do?” she asked, her face turning a sort of mottled purple, her silver eyes wide. “Order it to release me by command of the Golden Rose of Nerissette?”

“Do you think that will work?” I tightened my grip on the rock and made sure I was wedged tightly between where the branch and the plant met.

“No. What other ideas do you have?”

“Bash it with a rock, obviously.” I held the stone up for her to see and then brought it down as hard as I could on one of the vines near her. Just as I suspected, it peeled away and shrank to the far side of the trunk, trying to stay away from me and my crude little hammer.

“So what do I do when you’ve got the last of the vines off me?” Mercedes asked.

I started to bash in the vines nearest her head and worked my way down. “Lean over and grab the branch. It can hold both of us, and then we’ll climb down.”

“Great. Tree climbing. That’s exactly what I wanted to do after a long day of running for my life.”

“You’ll be fine,” I said as the vines pulled away, retreating in the face of my bashing stone. “All you have to do is hang on until I can get you out.”

“Like I’ve got anything else to do—I’m tied to a tree.”

“Don’t crab at me about it.” I rolled my eyes before bashing the vines closet to me, hoping that they would release her without too much difficulty. “It’s not my fault.”

“Fine, it’s not your fault I’m stuck here in this crappy world being eaten by a plant. Can you please get me down now?”

“I’m working on it, bossy. I swear by the stars, you were never this much of a pain in the real world.”

“I was never eaten by a plant there, either!”

“Give me a second and you’ll be free.”

“Fine!”

“Fine!” I brought the rock down as hard as I could on the one remaining vine. It let go of Mercedes and she swung over, dangling underneath the branch. I heard a soft creak, then a crack, and all I could think was that today was really not my day.

“Allie?” Mercedes asked, her voice suddenly a lot less angry and a lot more worried.

“Yeah?” I braced myself as the branch creaked again, one last time, before it broke completely and we plummeted to the forest floor below.

“Ouch,” Mercedes moaned. “That really hurt.”

“Tell me about it.” I sat up, pushing my hair back off my face. The soaked green cotton of my tunic was now more of a mud color, and I sniffed. Yep, it had picked up a moldy smell as well.

“So what do we do now?” Mercedes asked as she sat up beside me and pushed her own hair back.

“We find our way to Dramera. Wait for Rhys and the army to get here. Save the kingdom, and find a way to get you, and anyone else who wants to go, back home.” I grabbed her hand.

“Together.” Mercedes tightened her grip on my hand. “No matter what, we’re going together. You are my best friend, and I don’t care if I have to drag you through that portal, I’m not leaving you behind.”

I pushed myself up, all the muscles in my legs and back aching, and reached, hoisting her up to stand beside me. “We’ll see.” I didn’t want to fight with her right now about the fact that I wasn’t going back to the World That Is, even if she did. I couldn’t. My place was here now.

“We’ll find a way home, Allie.” She squeezed my hand. “We have to.”

“Come on. Let’s get back to Dramera.” I tugged her along behind me as I started in the direction of the dragon stronghold, not meeting her eyes.

“Hiking and tree climbing?” Mercedes asked. “This day is getting better and better by the minute.”

“Well—” A branch snapped and we froze. Another branch snapped and I turned to look at Mercedes and saw that her eyes were wide, her pupils dilated. My stomach started to roll and all I wanted to do was vomit. But I swallowed and tried to clamp down on the terror that was racing through me.

“Come on.” Mercedes pulled me toward another tree and brushed her fingers against it. “Take me home. Please, all I want to do is go home. Back home we’ll be safe.”

“What?” I asked as a branch reached out to grab me. The next thing I could see was smoke. Lots and lots of smoke, and all I could think as the smoke filled my lungs and the tree tightened its grip on me was, this can’t be good.

Chapter Sixteen

We spun through a cloud of smoke that felt way too much like the one that had brought us to Nerissette in the first place, and I flung my hand out for Mercedes. Wherever this tree was taking us I was pretty sure that I didn’t want to end up there by myself. Mercedes grabbed my hand tight in hers, and before I knew what was going on, the smoke opened up and dropped us onto the hard ground below. My ribs ached and bruises were already starting to form on my back from the beating I’d taken today, thanks to all the helpful magic I’d been forced to endure.

Peeling my eyes open slowly, I looked up and saw blue sky and fluffy white clouds floating over my head. One of them sort of looked like a bunny holding a spear and attacking an ogre. Or it could have just been a random shape. It all depended on how you turned your head. Right now I was definitely rooting for the bunny.

“Mercedes.” I coughed from all the smoke still trapped in my lungs. “Where are we?”

“Back at the castle,” Mercedes said quietly. “We ended up back at your stupid, ridiculous, burning palace.”

“Why?” I coughed again.

“I was hoping that it would work in reverse.” Mercedes sat up beside me, and I struggled to follow her train of thought.

“What would work in reverse?” I turned to her and froze as I saw the palace, my palace, or the smoking ruins of what had once been my palace, burning behind her.

The glass dome that had just been replaced was shattered again, looking like the open mouth of a giant glass creature with really bad teeth, and the remaining white marble was blackened and crumbling in uneven columns, showing the utter destruction beyond.

I turned to look at the rest of the palace grounds and felt tears prickling at the back of my eyes. Everything was destroyed. The grass was black with soot and there were huge ditches scored into the ground, gaping wounds along the body of the land the palace sat upon. The only thing still standing was a large, silver-leafed tree with black scorch marks wrapped along the trunk—the Silver Leaf Tree. The Tree of Life. Mercedes’s tree.

“I don’t understand,” Mercedes said. Her eyes were wide with shock, and tears ran down her cheeks. She reached up to swipe at them and then slammed her fists against the patch of ground that we were sitting on.

Immediately I saw the grass begin to fade from black to a pale gray and then transform to a light green that darkened until it was the color of a four-leaf clover. “Mercedes?”

“How could it not have worked?” she asked.

“I don’t know.” I watched as she slammed her fists down again, and the color bled from one blade of grass to another as if her energy was healing the land around her. “What were you trying to do?”

“I was trying to take us home!” Her shoulders sagged in disappointment. “Dryads can use the trees as portals, like you use the runes in the palace. We can travel from one part of Nerissette to another by using the trees. If you already know where you’re going and can visualize the place, the trees can take you there. And I wanted to go home.”

“But…” My heart broke at the fact that she had been so desperate to get home that she’d been willing to leave Winston and all the rest of our friends behind while she made her escape.

“According to all of the other dryads it only works inside Nerissette. They’ve never been able to use the portals to travel anywhere else. Not even the Borderlands. Only, the thing is, I realized that none of Nerissette’s dryads have ever been to the Borderlands. They can’t visualize it. So I thought it could be that—”

“The reason they can’t transport anywhere else isn’t that the trees are incapable of transporting them but that they can’t manage to visualize where they want to be enough to control the magic?” I sighed as my brain tried to wrap itself around what I’m pretty sure was more than one violation of basic science.

“Exactly.” Mercedes pushed herself up to stand.

“And you thought if you asked the portal to take us home that it could break through the wall between this world and ours? Oh, Mer.” I shook my head at her, disappointed.

“I thought it was worth the chance, but instead of taking us there the stupid tree got confused and brought us here.”

“I don’t think it got confused at all.” I grabbed her shoulders and turned her to face her tree. “You asked the magic to bring you home, and it did. It brought you back to the tree you claimed as your own.”

“I only claimed it temporarily. Just until we go home. Besides, this isn’t what I wanted. This isn’t where we’re supposed to be.” She crossed her arms over her chest and narrowed her eyes at the silver tree standing tall and more than a little proud in the distance, giving off an air of annoyed indifference at the world around it.

“When has the magic of Nerissette given any of us what we wanted? Especially when it thinks we need something different?”

“But what could we need that’s here? Winston had the dragons burn the Crystal Palace to the ground to keep your aunt and the Fate Maker from taking control of it and the Fate Maker destroyed everything else that wasn’t in flames. There’s nothing here to find.”

“I don’t know.” I rubbed my right hand over my left arm nervously as I glanced around, searching for someone, anyone. If only Winston were here, he’d know what to do. He’d keep his head and he’d be able to think our way out of this. “I don’t know why we’re here.”

“So what should we do?” Mercedes asked.

“We search the castle,” I said as I pushed myself to my feet. “Maybe there are still people here. Timbago or some of the rest of the staff.”

“And what is Timbago going to tell us?”

“I don’t know. But he knows more than almost anyone else, and we have to be here for a reason.”

“What about the tear?” Mercedes asked. “Do you think that maybe we’re here to find that?”

“No, it’s not the tear.” My hand drifted up to the necklace tucked inside my tunic and grasped the crystal, tugging on it for reassurance. Just touching it made me feel safer, calmer. Like I knew that I’d be okay.

“What do you mean? What else could we be here for? It’s got to be the tear we’re here for.”

“No.” I shook my head, not wanting to lie to my best friend unless I absolutely had to, but I knew I couldn’t tell her about the box hidden inside the forests of Dramera. Not until I was sure that I could keep her—and everyone else—safe.

“So why then?”

“I don’t know, but right now we need to find someone, anyone, who can tell us what’s going on.”

“Right,” Mercedes said. “Where do we start?”

I looked at the burning palace and my stomach rolled as I took in the destruction.

“Maybe they’re all hiding in the cellars?” Mercedes suggested. “That was the plan, wasn’t it? Everyone who wasn’t fighting was either going into the woods or hide in the lower levels of the palace. Maybe they’re there.”

“They can’t be inside that.” I swallowed as the flames crackled and smoke poured out of where my dome had been. “Where else could they be?”

“On the road? Or maybe they went into the forest?” Mercedes asked. “If I were the rest of the household staff, when they set the palace on fire I’d have followed the army. It’s the only safe place to go.”

“No.” I clenched my hands in my shirt, trying to keep them from trembling. “Timbago wouldn’t have left the palace.”

The necklace I was wearing started to hum, almost as if it approved of my decision.

“Allie, he wouldn’t stay here—the palace is on fire. On fire. A flaming palace is not a place you stick around.”

“He would have stayed,” I said, even though I didn’t know why I was so sure. “He would have wanted to be nearby in case there were people still in Neris who needed him.”

“There were soldiers attacking,” Mercedes said. “He wouldn’t have stayed.”

I turned away from my palace and toward the maze. “He would have hidden and waited for them to leave. He wouldn’t abandon the palace.”

“Where then?” Mercedes asked. “Where would you hide in this nightmare?”

“Inside the labyrinth.” The stone hummed again, and somehow I knew I was right. When the palace caught fire he would’ve herded the rest of the household staff into the maze. If they could’ve gotten to the inside of the labyrinth the magic that surrounded the mermaids’ pool might have been enough to keep them safe.

“Why would they go to the labyrinth?” Mercedes asked. “It’s surrounded by trees. Trees burn, Allie. If the palace was on fire then the labyrinth is the last place they would have gone.”

I started toward the hillside where the labyrinth was anyway, determined to find Timbago. “I don’t know how I know, but I do. If Timbago is here then he went to the maze.”

We reached the hill between my palace and the mermaid’s grotto and I saw smoke coming over the other side of it, a giant funnel of horrible-smelling black smoke curling toward the sky.

“Oh, God.” I sprinted up the hill, Mercedes following behind me.

“Wait!” She screamed, and I felt all the air rush out of me as she tackled me from behind, knocking both of us to our knees just as we reached the top.

The tears I’d been holding back slipped down my cheeks. I looked up and found myself staring at lifeless bodies scattered in the valley below where the labyrinth had once been. Brigitte, the housemaid who had woken me on the morning of my Great Hall, was curled up on her side, her eyes closed like she was sleeping.

Timbago was lying on the ground in front of me, his eyes closed and his face turned toward the sky, his arms flung out at his sides as blood soaked through his shirt.

“No!” I lunged toward him, and Mercedes threw her arms around me, holding me as I started to sink to the ground, my knees shaking as I stared at him, wide-eyed and disbelieving. “No. No.”

“Wait, please.” She hugged me closer. “Everything down there is still burning.”

“I have to get to Timbago,” I sobbed, scrambling to get free of her arms as she pinned me against her, cradling me to her chest. “He needs my help.”

“Allie—”

I jerked out of her arms, sobbing, and crawled to him, unconcerned about the embers floating around me. “I can’t leave him here like this.”

“Your Majesty…” Timbago’s voice no more than a faint whisper, and his eyes fluttered open. “Is that you, Queen Alicia? My queen. The Rose in my charge, what are you doing here?”

“I could ask you the same thing,” I said when I finally reached him. I patted along his chest looking for his wounds, trying to keep from crying. “What happened?”

“We…” He struggled to sit up and winced as I helped him sit upright, leaning against my side. “…were outnumbered.”

“I’m sorry,” I sobbed as he reached up to grab my hand in his clawed one.

“It’s our war, too, those of us who only serve and watch. It’s our home to defend as much as it is yours. All of us. This was our home as much as it is yours. None of us were willing to abandon it. To abandon you.”

“I know.” I nodded, and he clutched at my shoulder with his other hand.

“The tear? Have you kept it safe?”

“It’s in my crown case in Dramera. It’s safe.”

“No.” He reached up to cradle my neck, slipping his finger underneath the chain of my necklace and pulled it up so that I could see the crystal shining in the mixture of fire and sunlight. “Keep it safe.”

“But—” I stared down at the necklace and suddenly it all made sense. The tingly feelings that I felt every time I touched the necklace. The burning desire I had to hide the tear from Darinda, to keep her from touching the bracelet. I’d thought it was to keep the bracelet safe, but it hadn’t been. It had been to keep her from touching it, from telling me that the bracelet contained no magic. The tear itself had worked the magic to keep it hidden. To keep it safe. Even from me.

“I had to make sure that it was protected,” Timbago said, wrapping both of our fingers around the stone. “I swore my life to protect the tear until it was needed. Now it is. When the time comes, use it to trap the Fate Maker inside the Bleak, and then destroy it. Break the spell and trap him.”

“How? Everything we can find says that I need a fire a million times hotter than all the dragons of Nerissette combined. I don’t know what burns hotter than dragon flame or where to find it.”

“Break the spell and destroy him. Destroy him, my queen. Only then will you ever have the chance to make Nerissette free. Be a good queen.” Timbago let his eyes close, slumping against my shoulder.

“Timbago?” I shook the goblin but his mouth fell open and nothing else happened. He didn’t breathe or move or anything. “Timbago!”

Mercedes came toward me and stood on the other side of his body, her eyes wide. “Allie?”

“He’s dead. I don’t know what happened. He was alive and now—”

She reached down and touched the side of his neck, her hands trembling. She pulled away from him and came around to grab my shoulders, dragging me away from him as well. “I’m sorry, Allie,” she whispered into my hair.

“But he was just talking to me. You had to have seen him. He was just sitting up, talking to me.”

“Allie.”

My hunting shirt was smeared red with blood and the goblin’s body was drenched in it as well.

Mercedes stood and raised her hands, swaying toward the roasted, dead branches of the shrubs that had made up the maze. “I’m so sorry,” she said. “I’m so sorry that I let them do this to you.”

She raised her arms higher, and the trees of the surrounding forest began to sway, a wailing sound coming from the clash of their branches that sounded like they were weeping for the sacrifice of the burned shrubbery. The breeze from the trees lifted the ashes and they began to float away, drifting past me like angry snowflakes.

When the last of the ashes had fallen away I stood and moved closer to Mercedes. I stared at the empty pool, the water in it dried up, the large rock in its center that had once been Queen Talia’s throne just sitting there alone. They were gone. All of them were gone.

“Allie?” Mercedes looked at me.

“What?”

“What do we do now?”

“I don’t know.” I let my hand come up to tug on the crystal of the Dragon’s Tear. “I really, really don’t know.”

…

As the sun went down over the forest I heard the snap of a branch. Mercedes and I just kept staring into the fading daylight, waiting. Somehow I was pretty sure whoever was coming up on us wasn’t with the Boy Scouts, but right now I couldn’t find it in me to care.

“Oh my God and all the stars,” Rhys said as he came into the clearing and found the remains of the burning lawn illuminating the horror in front of us.

“Rhys?” Mercedes struggled to her feet and then helped me up. “Oh, God, Rhys.”

“What happened to you?” He wrapped his arms around both of us, holding us to his broad chest. “Are you okay?”

“No.” My heart clenched and my stomach heaved as I started to sob again, deep, aching cries that scratched the back of my throat as my shoulders started to shake. I didn’t want to believe what I’d seen. I didn’t want it to be true, but I knew it was. I couldn’t pretend it hadn’t happened. “They’re gone.”

“Everyone?” His voice was soft as he clung to us, holding me up as my knees shook and I buried my head in his shoulder and cried. “Surely not all of them? Someone must have gotten away. They would have followed the army into the forest, retreated. Someone—”

“We don’t know if it’s everyone. But anyone who stayed to defend the palace—he killed them. He killed them all. Every single one of them.” Mercedes’s voice cracked on the last words and I looked up to see that she’d buried her head in his shoulder.

“In the name of the Pleiades,” he said, his eyes fixed on the carnage in front of us.

“All of them?” He looked at me, his eyes wide. “What about the mermaids?”

“We don’t know. None of the…” Mercedes lifted her head and her eyes lingered on the field in front of us. “There are no mermaids—their pool is empty.”

“The maze was on fire when we showed up,” I said, trying to keep from losing it right here in the middle of the still-smoldering field. “There was no way that any creature, even the mermaids, could have survived that kind of fire.”

“They were under ice, though,” Mercedes said. “They froze the pond. So maybe they were protected. They could be safe.”

I shook my head. “How? There’s no more water. They had nowhere to go.”

“I’ll go check. Just in case.” Rhys turned away from the two of us, striding off toward the embers, kicking them out of his way as he went. He stopped at the lip of the pool, staring into it with his hands clasped behind him. He stood there for another moment and shook his head before turning and returning to us.

“They aren’t there,” he said. “No sign of them having had been there, even. If they had been trapped inside the pool when it was on fire, there would be ashes or something. And there’s a rune on Talia’s throne. Maybe they used it to get away.”

“Where would they go?” I asked. “They’re mermaids, they couldn’t exactly run through the forest.”

“I don’t know where they’d go, but you can’t give up hope.” Rhys sat next to Mercedes, and I crumpled beside them, pulling my knees to my chest. He wrapped one hand around mine and snaked his other arm around Mercedes. “All we know is that there are no bodies and no ashes. And for now that means no mermaids. But we’ll find them.”

“Or they could have burned beyond all recognition. Their ashes could have blown away. The wizards could have taken them somewhere.”

“Don’t think like that.” Rhys squeezed my hand. “Wherever they are, we’ll find them. You can’t give up hope.”

“You said that already! But look around you!” I pulled my hand away from his and threw my arms in the air. “What here tells you we should hope? Everyone is dead, Rhys. They’re dead! They stayed here when I ran so that they could protect me, so they could protect a stupid house, and they died. For what?”

“Allie.” The calm in his voice just made me angrier.

“They died to protect what? This?” I waved my hand at the palace grounds, still smoldering around us. “Me? What? What sort of choice did I make that led to this? Tell me!”

“I don’t know.” He shook his head and looked at the burning hillside below us. “We chose to fight an evil wizard, and this is one of the consequences.”

“People died because of what we did today. We killed them. The choices I made killed them.”

“So what do you want to do?” Rhys asked. “Do you want to stop? To surrender? Because let me tell you—if you surrender, more people will die. Lots more people. Is that what you want?”

My entire body trembled as tears slipped down my cheeks. “No.”

“Good.” Rhys nodded, his jaw tight. “Then get a hold of yourself and remember that you’re supposed to be a queen.”

“Rhys,” Mercedes said, her voice dripping with warning.

“No.” He turned to glare at her and then back at me. “They stayed to give you time to get away. Timbago stayed to give you time to escape with the tear. They died protecting you because they believed in you.”

I swallowed and clutched the cool pendant. “I know.”

“So we finish this,” Rhys said, his voice low, almost a growl. He stood and threw a rock at the still-burning embers. “We bury our friends, and then we go back to Dramera, regroup our army, and we make the Fate Maker pay for what he did. Do you hear me, Allie? We make him pay for this.”

I nodded as he reached to help me up and gave my shoulder a brief squeeze. “We hunt him down and we end this. I end this. Once and for all.”

He kept his eyes on mine and nodded slowly as I reached up to touch the Dragon’s Tear. Timbago had told me generally what to do, but first I had to finish taking care of my friends. “We need to get shovels.”

“No, we don’t.” Mercedes said, her voice soft. “I can handle it.”

“It’s my…”

“I can handle it. Just… Rhys, keep her back turned.”

“I don’t need to keep my back turned.”

“Do it for me,” she said.

Instead of saying anything I lowered my head, resigned, and let Rhys turn me away from my best friend and the horror that would always be tattooed inside my mind.

“I’m so sorry,” Mercedes said. I could hear the world around me start to cry out a horrible heartbreaking song, the ground itself trembling like it was weeping. “I feel your pain, my sisters. I am so sorry.”

“What?” I tried to turn, but Rhys kept a tight hold on me, not letting me move.

“Come on,” Mercedes said as she wrapped her arm around my waist, and the two of them half carried, half dragged me up the hill and away from the maze. When we reached the top I stopped and shook myself loose, turning around.

Long vines had burst out of the ground, snaked across the grass, and covered the field, twined over anything and everything that lay in their paths. The field was now covered in dark-green leaves. It was like the vines had swallowed the field whole, eating it, destroying it. Like, if the vines were left alone, they would swallow the entire world.

Maybe it would be better if we let the vines take everything. For us to let the world itself destroy us all and save ourselves from the pain of watching the Fate Maker do it anyway. That way it would at least be our own choice.

“Mercedes,” I said quietly. “We should just burn it. Everything. We should destroy it all. That way the Fate Maker won’t be able to take it from us.”

“We’re not going to let him take it. Not on my life. Or yours for that matter,” she muttered as we reached the soot-blackened trunk of the Silver Leaf Tree. There at the bottom, barely visible under the soot, was a rune carved into its bark.

Mercedes kept her hand in mine and reached down to brush her fingers against the carving. “Come on. Let’s finish this. Then we can come back and give them the memorial they deserve.”

“You’re right.” I pushed away from her slightly, standing on my own. “No one will ever forget what they gave up for the rest of us.”

“No.” Mercedes shook her head. “We’ll make sure that no one ever forgets how brave they were. I promise. You and me, together, we’ll make sure that they’re remembered. Forever.”

“Right.” I nodded.

Rhys took Mercedes’s free hand, and I clung to her fingers in mine. Then I bent down and touched the rune.

“Take me to Dramera. Take me to Dramera so I can find my army and end this once and for all.”

Chapter Seventeen

“Your Majesty!” Kitsuna yelled, and I sat up, turning toward the sound of her voice through the forest.

“I’m here.” I pushed myself up and saw that Mercedes and Rhys were getting to their feet as well. “We’re all here.”

“Go.” Mercedes pushed me forward.

I ran in the direction of Kit’s voice, still calling for me, and put my hand up to knock branches and leaves out of my way. I didn’t take too much of a beating before we found each other.

“Oh, thank the Pleiades,” Kitsuna said as we broke from the edge of the forest and reached the field behind the red dragon clan’s lodge house. “You’re not hurt. Thank goodness none of you are hurt.”

“Forget about us.” I hurried over to her and took her face in my hands, grimacing at the sight of the deep gash on the side of her face and the dried blood around her nose. “What happened to you? And Winston. Where is he? Is he safe?”

“He’s fine. We’re fine,” Kitsuna reassured me, and then her face crumpled as tears started to flow. “I just set fire to my clan’s lodge house, burned half my village, battled a wizard who was intent on killing me, and almost lost the queen I’d sworn my life to protect. It’s—”

“It’s okay.” I tried my best to sound like my mother always had when I’d come to her with my problems. “Everything is okay. As long as everyone is safe then we’re all okay.”

Instead of helping that only made Kitsuna cry harder, and I hugged her. I closed my eyes, remembering that for right now we were safe and that had to count for something.

“Your Majesty,” Rhys said quietly. “We’re going to go find the rest of the army.”

“Do you want us to—” I squeezed Kit again, breathing in the smell of dragon and sweat that came from her hair.

“You can find us when you’re done here.” He led Mercedes away as I turned back to comfort Kitsuna.

When her sobs slowed I lifted my head and looked at the destruction in front of me. Half the rooftops in Dramera were smoking, and patches of air existed where once thatched roofs had been. It looked as bad as my palace had. Trying to save all that was good in our world had led to us burning it to the ground. Nothing was safe unless we’d turned it into ashes first.

“We can rebuild it,” I said as the walls of a nearby half building croaked. Three large, male dragons circled it, and the largest blasted one of the walls with a fireball, and the other two beat at the house with their wings. A moment later the house groaned and another fireball caused it to collapse on itself. “We will rebuild it. Bigger. Stronger. Fire-resistant.”

“They’ll never forgive me,” she whispered. “The others, they won’t forgive me.”

“Yes, they will.” I patted her back. “We’ll all pitch in to rebuild the lodge house and the rest of the village. Everything will be fine. No one will blame you.”

“They will.” She sniffled.

“No, they won’t.” I stepped back from her and gave her shoulders a quick shake. “You fought a wizard all on your own. That was incredibly brave. You saved all of us. You saved me. When we were faced with a wizard you did what needed to be done. If anyone doesn’t like it you tell them to come see me.”

“To come see you?” Kitsuna asked weakly.

“That’s right. I’m the Golden Rose of Nerissette, and I’m saying you did the right thing. And if anyone else doesn’t like it, they can deal with me.”

“What are you going to do? Scold them?”

“I don’t know.” I shook my head. “But you did the right thing, and no one is going to punish you for that. If they try, I’ll…I’ll banish them. I’ll banish them into Bathune, and they can try life out there living under my aunt’s rule.”

Kitsuna sniffled, her eyes bright with tears, before she laughed, her voice high-pitched and slightly hysterical. “Really?”

“Yes, really.” I gave her shoulders another shake before pulling her close. “I was so worried about you. Don’t ever do something as stupid as saving my life ever again, do you hear me?”

“Or what?” She trembled against me, and when I looked down I could see that the brat was actually laughing.

My own lips twitched upward and a panicky, freaked-out giggle slipped free. “Or I’ll banish you along with all the people who think I should banish you for fighting a wizard single-handedly to protect me.”

“Where are we supposed to go?” Kitsuna giggled. “All these people you’re going to banish. You can’t send us all over the White Mountains. The dragons in Bavasama’s kingdom won’t allow us to just take over their hunting grounds. So if you’re banishing us, where are we supposed to go?”

I laughed harder, my brain going a bit fuzzy as the nerves from the past few hours started to unwind. The adrenaline coursing through me made me slaphappy and I realized that, for at least right now, I was safe.

“There’s got to be a crappy part of this world. I’ll send all of you there, and if it’s not crappy enough I’ll find a portal and send you into my world. I can make you settle somewhere that sucks enough for you to realize that I’m right.”

“You’re going to banish us to your world?” Kitsuna giggled again, and I felt my knees weaken with relief. “But I thought this whole war was to keep the Fate Maker from going back to your world? Remember, find the relics, destroy them, and stop the Fate Maker before he destroys us all?”

“Okay, so maybe I’ll wait to banish you until we’ve gotten all that done, but I swear if you ever do something that stupid again I will banish you. Somewhere really crappy. Really, really crappy.”

“Sure you will.” She pulled away from me a little bit and smiled. “Okay, come on.” She wiped the tears from her face. “Time to go find Winston and everyone else. We’ve got a battle to plan.”

“Right.” I felt my good mood evaporate at the mention of battle. The Fate Maker was trying to take over our world, and it was time that we stopped him. “And as soon as that’s done, I’m going to find that portal and that crappy place to banish you.”

“No, you won’t.”

“Just you wait.” I tugged her braid as we started toward the square. “Oh, and Kit?”

“Yeah?”

“Thank you for saving me and Mercedes. It means a lot to me.”

“That?” Kit scoffed. “That was nothing. What any honorable dragon would do for someone they call a friend. Not to mention, what any soldier should be willing to do for their queen.”

“Somehow,” I said quietly as we turned down another street, “I doubt that everyone else sees it the same way.”

Chapter Eighteen

I saw Winston round the opposite corner onto the street, and I raced toward him, not caring whether or not people stared. He was alive, he was human-shaped, and considering he’d gone to war and battled a demon raven earlier today, he looked really, really good.

I slammed into him, and he wrapped his arms around me, lifting me off my feet as he buried his face in the side of my neck and let out a shaky breath. “Allie.”

Before I could say anything he crushed his mouth against mine and squeezed me tight, knocking the air from my lungs and making my skin spark everywhere he touched.

“Thank God you’re safe,” he said and pressed our lips together again.

“Me? I was more worried about what was going to happen to you. You were the one fighting for your life up there against that overgrown canary.”

“Hardly.” He dropped his head so that our foreheads were touching. My stomach fluttered. I was holding him, we were both safe, and right now that was all that mattered. “All I was doing was distracting the bird so that it couldn’t help that wizard. I was trying to keep him busy until you could find somewhere safe to hide.”

“We went to the red dragon clan’s lodge house.” I snuggled against his shoulder, trying not to let him see how freaked out I was by everything that had happened today. “I wanted to help you but with the wizard on the ground we had to run. What if you would have—”

“I’m fine.” Winston kissed the top of my head as he cradled me against his chest, unconcerned that we were hugging in the middle of the street where anyone could see us. “Nothing but a few scratches. Little girls in tiaras playing dress-up are tougher than that bag of feathers. But what happened to you? You’ve been gone for hours.”

“Forget about me,” I said. “What happened to it? The bird?”

“Don’t.” Winston grimaced, and I felt my stomach clench because I knew. I knew that if he was safe then the bird was dead and Winston had been the one to kill it. He turned his head and refused to meet my eyes. “The raven has been handled.”

“The wizard? The one that Kitsuna fought?”

“He was seriously wounded, but somehow he managed to escape. Disappeared. One minute he was there and Kitsuna had her sword at his neck and the next second he was gone and Kitsuna was stabbing at air.” Winston turned to lead me down the street in the same direction he’d come from.

“Great, so we have a wounded wizard who knows we’re at Dramera.”

“It’s where the Fate Maker and your aunt would expect us to go anyway,” Winston said. “They’ll already have plans to attack us here, which is good for us, because Dramera is a strategic place for us to take a stand.”

I looked around us at the high cliffs that enclosed the area on two sides, surrounding the broad lake, and then over at the thick forests on the other two sides. “You want us to fight a war here? We’re boxed in.”

“Yes. Because unless your aunt and the Fate Maker decide to transport an entire army,” he said, “or fly, their only way in is right there.”

I stared pointedly at the narrow gap between the two cliffs at the far side of the lake. It looked like a shadow, a thin line down the middle of the cliff face. “There?”

“The woods are impassable. They’re surrounded by swampland to the north. Behind us are the Cliffs of Lament, and they’re a straight drop into the Sea of Sorrows. So no way in there. If the Fate Maker uses his magic to teleport their army, it will have to be in small groups and that will be too risky.”

“They could fly, though, you said?”

“Against dragons?” Winston glared at the bustling village around us. “It wouldn’t be the smartest plan.”

“So it’s the cliffs, then.”

“They’ll follow the stragglers from our army through the cliffs, and the passage is so narrow they’ll have to travel single file. It will funnel them right into our army.”

“And if they don’t do that?” I asked.

“That’s where we are going, what the Dragos Council needs to meet with you about. They have some ideas on how to fight back.”

“What kinds of ideas?” I asked as we crossed the square toward a group of large, still partially thatch-roofed buildings on the other side.

“Good ideas,” Winston said. “Ideas that we need to listen to if we’re going to keep the dragon warriors supporting us against the Fate Maker. We brought our war to their home and half of Dramera was burned to the ground today because of this. We have to let the Dragos Council have their say now or we will lose them.”

“They aren’t going to punish you and Kitsuna, are they? For the raven, and well, the wizard, too? It’s not your fault the wizard and his monster set the village on fire.”

“Nobody is going to be punished,” Winston said. “Especially not Kitsuna. After watching her fight I don’t think anyone, including the Dragos Council, is going to look at her cross-eyed while she’s wearing a sword.”

“Good,” I said as he led me up the front stairs of the largest building in the town square and opened the heavy wooden front door. “She was only trying to protect me.”

“A rather remarkable display by a wryen.” The voice belonged to Tevin, a pale blond man who was the head of the dragon clans of Nerissette. He stood just inside the doorway. “I didn’t imagine one of her kind could have such courage.”

“You don’t think much of her kind at all.” I narrowed my eyes, annoyed at how dismissively he talked about the girl who had saved my life today. “She’s just a wryen after all. To you she’s worthless.”

“She’s not worthless to you?”

“She chose to fight a wizard, alone, with nothing but a sword to protect me. Meanwhile, your full-blooded dragons cowered inside like scared little children, waiting for the scary monsters to go away. You want to take a guess on who I value more right now?”

Tevian’s lips tightened, and his jaw clenched. “Perhaps the Dragos Council should consider claiming neutrality in this fight?”

Winston stiffened beside me, and I put a hand on his arm, trying to keep him from rising to the bait.

I smiled at Tevian and tried to look fierce. “Perhaps I should remind you that the prince consort is a dragon. How many of your people would go against you and fight if he asked?”

“And how many would stay put?” Tevian asked. “We’ve fought this wizard twice for you. Why should we do it again?”

“Because once the Fate Maker’s done with me, it’s your lands he’ll come after next. How many people are you willing to let die for your pride?”

“I could ask you the same thing.”

“I am fighting to protect my people,” I said, keeping my eyes fixed on his. “And I will not fail them. Now the dragon clans can side with me, or once my armies have finished with the Fate Maker, we can turn our sights on you, our newest enemy who abandoned us in our time of need.”

“So you’re saying that I must decide who conquers my people? Which army it is better for us to kneel to?” Tevian stepped closer so that we were nose to nose, and I had to clamp my hand down on Winston’s arm to keep him from stepping between us. “Yours or the Fate Maker’s?”

“Does it matter?” I arched an eyebrow at him. “Either way, Dramera is no longer yours. If your luck holds out it will be my army that conquers you. If it doesn’t, well, the Fate Maker has threatened to hang me, behead me, and imprison me at various times. What do you think he’ll do to someone like you? To him, you’re worth less than Kitsuna.”

Tevian swallowed and fear flickered in his eyes. He took a step back and turned sharply on his heel. “Come with me.”

He pushed the wide double doors open and we followed as he stormed into a large room. The timbers that held up the wall were painted in the colors of the dragon clans—black, red, blue, silver, and gold—and the plaster between them was a stark white in contrast.

“So much for being friendly so that the dragons fight on our side,” Winston muttered as he followed me inside.

“Golden Rose of Nerissette,” a loud voice boomed from the far end of the room. “Enter and find you here the wisdom of the dragons.”

I straightened my shoulders before I let go of Winston’s arm and walked forward, trying to project nothing but self-confidence. These guys were nothing—just a bunch of dragons—and I was the queen. The queen of an entire world. The queen who had conquered them without a single sword being drawn. A queen that any one of them could eat in a single bite and not have to bother chewing first.

As I made my way up the aisle I saw that I was walking toward a dais like the one in my throne room, but instead of only one throne there were five ornately carved chairs. Two of them were empty. Tevian took the empty seat in the middle of the dais and placed a crown with curling silver horns on his head, the horns protruding from the front of his forehead. The other three men on the platform were wearing similar crowns, each with a different pair of horns.

“Black dragon, join your kin,” the loud voice boomed.

Winston looked from me to them. “I won’t sit in judgment of my own queen. I am her prince consort, and I would give my life for her.”

“You must choose,” said the old man. He was wearing a set of blue robes, and his white hair stood up around his head like a lion’s mane.

“Then I choose her. I’ll always choose her.”

The four men gritted their teeth as Winston straightened his shoulders beside me, every inch of him not just a soldier’s son but a warrior in his own right. His father would be proud of him…if he knew he existed anymore. I hoped again that I’d have the chance to set things right for Winston and his family.

“The Fate Maker has returned to these lands,” the old man said. “After you claimed you destroyed him, he returned.”

“I never said that I destroyed him, just that he was gone. He disappeared that day,” I said.

“Yet now he’s back. With an even larger army. An army filled with the troops of your aunt, the empress of Bathune.”

“I know. I was there when they attacked.”

“You chose to flee,” Tevian said.

“My castle was overrun, and we were forced to retreat.”

“A retreat was the best option,” Ardere said quietly from this seat. “It was better to give our troops a chance to regroup and fight another day.”

“You brought a wizard into Dramera,” said another man, this one in a red hat with curly black horns on it.

“My friends and I stopped two more before they could follow.”

“And that makes the one who found his way here acceptable?” he asked.

“The wizards are coming anyway,” I snapped. “One is now wounded. He’ll be an example to the rest of what they can expect when they come.”

“That you will flee and leave others to fight your battles? The wryen Kitsuna of the red dragon clan fought the wizard while you ran into the forest,” Tevian argued.

“She was trying to protect me.”

“One day soon, Golden Rose of Nerissette, it will be time for you to stop running and stand and fight.” The old man in the blue robes sneered down at me from the dais like I was some sort of kid he was punishing in the principal’s office.

“Then that’s what I’ll do,” I said. “Just as I did the first time we faced him. Like I would have done today if our walls would have held.”

“Enough of this!” the man in red robes roared. “The Rose did what any of us would do. She is not to blame here.”

“She told us that he was defeated,” the man in blue said.

“She told us that he disappeared,” the dragon in red corrected. “We took that to mean he was defeated and most likely dead. We told her he was gone forever, and as an outsider, she chose to believe us—the elders of this world.”

“That’s—” the man in blue started.

“I told her that he was gone,” Ardere said, his voice even. “I told her that if he had disappeared into the light then he was most likely dead. I was the one who told her and the crown prince that a search for him would be pointless. John of Leavenwald and I convinced her not to send the men.”

“Then you were a fool,” Tevian snarled.

“I was,” Ardere said. “That doesn’t change the fact that the queen acted on my advice and now we are here, at war again—this time against a larger army.”

“The Fate Maker won’t wage war against us if we claim neutrality,” the man in blue said. “Even though the prince consort is one of our own. We can cut him loose, break our alliance with the world of men, and let them fight amongst themselves. When the war is over the Fate Maker will have no quarrel with us. We’ll live in peace as we did before.”

“Your loyalty to your own is touching,” Winston said drily. “But even if you cut me loose and do not fight, he’ll come here next. He’s not going to be happy living in peace now, not now that he knows there’s a chance for the dragons of Dramera to rebel against him. For him it’s all or nothing.”

“He’ll settle for what he can get easily,” Tevian said, his voice filled with razor-sharp anger.

“He wants the tear.” I paused as every single dragon on that dais sucked in a breath, their eyes wide. “He wants a relic that melts the walls between this world and the Bleak itself. Now, does that sound like a man who’s willing to take only what he can easily conquer?”

“No.” The man in blue shook his head. “But the tear doesn’t exist. It’s a legend.”

“Yes, it does exist,” I said loudly. “And I have it.”

All of them went silent. The man in the blue robe’s mouth was gaping open.

“Liar,” Tevian said.

“I have it.” I lifted the chain of the necklace up and let the crystal swing in front of my chin. “I have the Dragon’s Tear.”

“By the light of the Pleiades,” Ardere said, his eyes wide. “Are you sure? Are you sure it’s the tear?”

“Yes.” I nodded. “It’s the tear. Timbago was its guardian.”

“Timbago?” Winston asked.

“He gave it to me. Before he…” I swallowed and didn’t meet his eyes.

“Can you bend the tear to your will?” the man in red asked and I turned to look at him, holding my tears in check.

“I don’t know. I haven’t exactly wanted to mess around with it. Not with the whole ‘melting the walls between us and the Bleak’ thing. It’s not like we can use it anyway. Everything we found says that you have to know where the weak spots are in the other worlds in order to move between them. So it’s not really a very good portal.”

“You silly girl.” Tevian stood and stepped off the dais, coming toward me. “The tear isn’t a portal.”

“It’s not?” I swallowed as he wrapped his fingers around mine, cupping the crystal.

“No.” He looked down at me and his eyes glittered. “It’s the key to the greatest prison in all of creation. It melts the wall between here and the Bleak and then it allows you to trap your enemies inside the nothingness for all time.”

“That’s why the Fate Maker wants it,” I said. “He wants to imprison me and put Bavasama on the throne.”

“Or…” Tevian smiled at me. “You can trap him.” Timbago’s words echoed through my mind—that’s what he’d told me to do, too. “Now, close your eyes and concentrate. Concentrate on the crystal in your hand and nothing else.”

I closed my eyes and focused everything inside of me on that crystal. The way it felt in my hand. Its smoothness. The coolness of it against my fingers.

“Now,” Tevian whispered. “Melt the wall between this world and the Bleak.”

Melt, I thought. Just fade away.

“Oh crap,” Winston muttered behind me, and my eyes flew open.

There, just in front of me, was a square of darkness the size of the door to my old bedroom in the World That Is. Through the blackness all I could feel was…nothing. It was like I knew somewhere deep inside that if I stepped through that door nothing would follow me. Not love or hope or fear or hatred or anything else. On the other side of that black square was a never-ending world of emptiness. The Bleak.

I closed my eyes again and returned all my energy back to the door. I tried to force my mind forward to close it and lock it so that the nothing couldn’t come through. Once I’d pretended to lock the door in my head, my hand began to warm, and I opened my eyes again to find the room the exact same as it had been before. Except for the dragons all staring at me, mouths hanging open and funny, ceremonial hats askew.

“It seems the Golden Rose has, in fact, found the tear,” Ardere said with a cough.

“Yeah, told you so.” I resisted the urge to stick out my tongue. “The question is how do we destroy it? Because I don’t know anything that breathes a fire a million times hotter than what all of you can do.”

“The problem, Your Majesty,” Tevian said as he let go of my hand and stepped away from me, “is that neither do we.”

Chapter Nineteen

“How long has it been since you slept?” Winston asked as we made our way out of the Dragos Council meeting an hour later.

“I…” I tried to think but suddenly just the word sleep had my eyes growing heavy. “The night before the Great Hall. I had a nightmare about Esmeralda.”

“Two days then.” Winston steered me down a side street that hadn’t been damaged.

“Where are we going?” I asked.

“The black dragons have a guest house on this street,” Winston said. “You can bed down there and get some rest.”

“But the army is coming and we’ll need to get things—”

“Allie.” Win stopped and turned to face me, his hands on my shoulder. “We need sleep. You need sleep. Just a few hours.”

“What if something happens while I’m asleep?”

“Then someone will come and get you.”

“And if the wizards attack again?”

“I’ll have guards posted outside the house,” he said. “And I’ll be asleep in the black dragon lodge house, across the street. We’ll both be safe.”

“Okay.” I nodded slowly.

“Okay?” he asked.

“Yeah, okay, you’re right, I need to sleep.”

“Good. Come on.” He motioned me toward a large, hulking black house with two tall, dark-skinned men standing in front of it.

“Your Majesties,” one of the men said and they bowed their heads.

“Good night.” Winston kissed the top of my head, and I gave him a quick hug.

“Good night.” I started up the steps, and when I reached the top I turned to watch him making his way across the street to the tall house with blue shutters directly across from us.

“Your Majesty?” one of the guards said. His fingers brushed across my sleeve. “If you’ll follow me, please? We’ve got a bed for you. The wryen and the dryad are already inside.”

I followed him through the front door and up the stairs to a large, airy room on the third floor. On the floor were two piles of blankets. Kitsuna had curled up on one and was snoring softly, while Mercedes had splayed herself out, spread-eagled, her mouth hanging open.

“I’ll arrange to have breakfast provided for you when you wake,” the guard said as he backed out of the room, not meeting my eyes.

The minute I was alone with my sleeping friends I let my shoulders slump and exhaustion overtook me. As the last of the adrenaline began to wear off I realized there was nothing left that I could do. I yawned, my jaw cracking.

I quickly made my way over to the blankets that had been set aside for me and toed off my boots. Kitsuna had taken off her sword belt and put it beside her pallet, and I did the same with my own, setting it gently on the floor so that the clatter of the blade wouldn’t wake my friends.

“Right,” I muttered as I climbed between the blankets and closed my eyes. “Time to—” I yawned again and let my eyes drift close.

“Your Majesty.” I heard Timbago’s voice, and when I opened my eyes I was back in the palace and the sun was shining. Instead of trying to wake up I sat at the palace’s kitchen table and waited for the goblin who couldn’t really be there.

“Ah.” He waddled into the kitchen and came to stand beside me. “There you are. I had wondered when we would talk again.”

“You’re—”

“Never far, Your Majesty. Even though you may feel differently from time to time.”

“I’d rather you actually be here and not just some strange appearance in my dreams.”

“So would I,” he said, “but that was not what was meant to be. Now you must be the Golden Rose I’ve always known you can be.”

“I don’t know if I can.”

“You can be so much more than you believe is possible.” He took my hand in his, and I felt a pinch as he pressed something sharp into my hands. I held it tightly. “You just have to make the choice to act even if you’re afraid. Make the choice, Queen Allie. You know what you have to do.”

“Imprison the Fate Maker inside the Bleak.” I swallowed, my throat thick. My voice box felt like it was clenched in an ogre’s fist.

“Imprison him and then destroy the tear so that he can’t ever come back,” Timbago said.

I shook my head. “According to the Dragos Council there is nothing in Nerissette that burns hot enough to destroy it.”

“There is.” He shook his head at me. “Even if the dragons do not understand what it might be.”

“Then what is it?” I asked.

“You’ll know when the time comes.” He gave me a grim look. “But first you must imprison the Fate Maker and come back to the palace to be the Golden Rose that the people of Nerissette deserve. The Golden Rose that they’ve been waiting for.”

“I will,” I promised him, the pain in my palm stinging as I clenched my fist. “And we’ll find some way to show people what you did. We’ll make a monument so that no one will ever forget how brave you were. How brave all of you were.”

“That won’t be necessary, Your Highness.” He shook his head and reached down to pat my closed fist. “Be glorious and our choice will have been the right one. It will have been worth it.”

“Nothing will ever make it worth it to me…”

“I’ll never be far away,” Timbago said. Then he stepped back, letting go of my hands. “Remember that, my queen. None of us will ever be far away.”

“Timbago?”

“Yes, Your Highness?”

“How did Winston get the tear?” I said, finally asking the question that had been niggling at the back of my brain. “On the night of my coronation he put it around my neck, but the Tear was hidden in the palace. You were its guardian. So how did Winston end up with it?”

“Simple, Your Majesty.” The goblin smiled at me. “I gave it to him, just like I gave it to you in your apartments, and then I made him forget.”

“Why?”

“Because the sorceress and I…” Timbago bowed his head. “Each of us had a destiny. A role to play. Her fate was to bring you here. Mine was to keep you safe. And now I have.”

He took another step back, and I could see that he was starting to fade.

“Don’t—” I grabbed for him, but my fingers passed through his reflection instead. “Don’t go.”

“I must.”

“Just one more question. Please.”

“Anything.”

“Did it…” I faltered. “Did it hurt? When you…you know.”

“Not even for a second.” He shook his head. “But it’s time for you to wake up. Wake up, Your Majesty. Wake up.”

“But—”

“Wake up.”

And the next thing I knew he was gone, the palace was gone, and the world was nothing but darkness and someone shaking me.

“Allie! Come on, Allie. Wake up.” Mercedes shook me again, and I groaned. “Wake up or I swear by the trees I will slap you.”

“Don’t,” I moaned. “I’m awake. I’m awake.”

“Your Majesty,” a rough-sounding voice said as I struggled to open my eyes.

I cracked an eyelid open and found myself staring at John of Leavenwald’s haggard, soot-covered face. He had a streak of mud down the side of his left cheek, and I couldn’t help wondering how it had gotten there. The way the sunlight filled the room now, I must have been asleep for hours.

“They’re all dead. Everyone who stayed behind to defend the Crystal Palace.” I peeled back my blankets and stood up. “They’re dead and the mermaids are missing.”

“I know.” He didn’t look at me, his eyes fixed at a point over my right shoulder. “Lord General Sullivan told us when you returned last night, while you were in the meeting with the Dragos Council.”

“The Fate Maker and my aunt, the Empress Bavasama, they killed everyone they could, and now that I have the tear and know how to use it I’m going to make them pay,” I said. “I will make them suffer for every life they took.”

I tightened my hand into a fist and felt a sharp jab in my palm. I ran my thumb along the edge of whatever had poked me and instantly knew what it was that Timbago had given me in the dream. I didn’t know how he’d managed to make it materialize in real life after giving it to me in a dream, but somehow he’d saved the last shard of the Mirror of Nerissette. There was so much I still had left to learn. And I could only do that if I stayed on the throne. I slipped the shard into the pocket of my pants and stared at John of Leavenwald.

“Your Majesty.” He fixed his gray eyes on mine. “If I get the chance I’ll kill him before he ever gets close to you, but if you feel you must get revenge yourself all I ask is that you let me hold your cloak.”

“I don’t wear a cloak.”

“It was a figure of speech, my queen.” He smiled at me. “Now if you’re awake, and we’re done planning your revenge…”

“What?”

“The last of your army has arrived. I offered to come wake you so that we could convene a Council of War.”

Chapter Twenty

“What do we know?” I asked as I followed John to a grassy knoll just above the edge of the lake where a hastily set up white awning held tables inside. I glanced around—all of them were scattered with papers and maps.

“The dragon scouts searched Nerissette last night, and we’ve found the Fate Maker’s army,” Ardere said. “They are near Tahib.”

“What’s that?” I asked, my face growing pink. I didn’t even know my whole kingdom yet, and I’d almost lost it twice.

“Tahib is an oasis where the Firas hold their annual gatherings each year. It empties out during the wet season when the Firas are traveling.”

“And that’s where his army is? Why would they go there?”

“We don’t know,” John said from beside me as he pointed to the map. “It makes no sense. In the time it took for his army to make it to Tahib, they could have reached the Cliffs of Fesir and brought the war to us.”

“They could be resting there, regaining their strength,” Rhys suggested.

“Or waiting there for more troops,” Tevian said, staring at the map, his fingers tracing along the place where the White Mountains curled along our borders. “There, the White Mountains are no more than foothills. It would be easy for Bavasama to send more troops across the border at Tahib.”

“More troops?”

“It is possible, Your Majesty,” John said as Winston put his hand on my back and we leaned over the map.

“So what do you recommend we do? You’re all warriors—if it were you, why would you lead your army into the middle of nowhere?”

“More soldiers,” John of Leavenwald said, the other men nodding in agreement. “They’re waiting for more troops. Fresh troops from Bathune to help them fight against us.

“Right, okay.” I took a deep breath. “They’re adding soldiers to their army. That’s bad. We need to figure out some way to stop them before that happens.”

“So we go out to meet them,” Eamon said. He and his woodsmen guards stood outside our awning, armed to the teeth and staring at us. “We send our troops out and finish their army before the reinforcements arrive. We quit running like weak children and stand and fight.”

Exactly what I was thinking. We needed to go out and meet him. He kept chasing us down, and we were always on the defense, waiting for the Fate Maker and his army to strike and hoping that we could survive it. Now, though, we would attack.

“That’s a bad idea,” Rhys said.

“Why?” I asked.

“Tahib is on a hill.” Rhys pointed at the map. “And the Firas use it for their gatherings because it was once a fortress. One of your fortresses, from a time when our world was less peaceful, a fortress that was made to withstand attacks by dragons.”

“We can lay siege!” Eamon declared. “We’ll starve them out. We can win this war once and for all.”

“If they’re on a hill, inside a fort, they’ll have the advantage,” Winston said. “We could starve them out but that will take time, and while we’re waiting for them to run out of food, they’re on a hill looking down on us, and we’ve got nothing to hide behind.”

“And then we’re sitting ducks,” I said.

“Exactly.” John nodded. “They’ll pick us off one by one.”

“Then let us die like warriors instead of being picked off,” Eamon argued. “We have done nothing but retreat like cowards since these children took control of our world. Instead of looking to them for direction let us, the true people of Nerissette, fight for it. Let us live and die as the warriors we’re meant to be.”

“And die is what you’ll do,” Rhys snapped. “All of you.”

“It’s better to die than—”

“He’s right.” John cut in. “If we attack, we’ll die.”

“But—” Eamon started

“And as I am still head of the woodsmen,” John continued, “I say that we find a plan of attack that doesn’t leave all of us to be slaughtered like animals.”

“This is weakness. Cowardice.” Eamon sneered as he flipped over the table that our maps were sitting on and then stormed out of the tent, his men following behind him.

“John.” I reached for him but he shook my hand off his arm.

“He’s young,” he said as he watched his son go. “One day he’ll learn that when the choice is between survival and glory, only the stupid man chooses glory.”

“So what do you recommend? If we’re not going to take the fight to my aunt and the Fate Maker, what do you, as the generals in charge of my army, think we should do? The cliff plan?” I asked, desperately trying to find a way to change the subject back to the impending battle and off the fracture in the ranks of the woodsmen.

“The cliff plan,” Winston agreed. “It’ll be just like that movie 300.”

“With the guys in the skirts?” I narrowed my eyes at him.

“We’re skipping that part,” Rhys said darkly as he gazed across the lake.

“But that didn’t work for the Spartans. Did it? They all—” I stopped.

“What?” John looked at me. “What happened to these Spartan warriors?”

“They all died,” I said quietly.

“Yeah, well, that’s why we’re playing the other guys.”

…

I sat on the banks of Dramera Lake watching the sun sink over the horizon that evening. I’d spent the entire day holed up with my generals trying to plan for a battle that could very likely be the slaughter of my entire army if we failed. Now all I wanted to do was be by myself so that I could quietly fall apart for the next few minutes. I was alone except for the young woodsman who was standing guard—well, more sitting, actually—a few feet behind me, staring at the water as it lapped along the shore. I glanced over at my guard, and he immediately looked up from the stick he was sharpening with his knife. I smiled at him, my mind cluttered with dozens of thoughts and ideas and plans, and he smiled back before turning again to his stick, like this was any other afternoon.

I turned my back a little so he couldn’t see my face and looked down at the new pair of hunting pants that one of the black dragons had found me this morning—too long, and more than a little baggy, but definitely cleaner than the ones I’d been wearing for the past two days. I reached into my pocket and carefully pulled out the mirror shard that Timbago had given me in my dream. “Show me the former queen,” I whispered as I brushed my hand over the glass.

Smoke filled the mirror, and when it cleared I was looking down at my mother, lying motionless in her hospital bed. Her eyes were closed, and she was sweating. Her hair was damp, and her face flushed. She jerked, her shoulders twitching, and as the mirror moved down the length of her body I could see her legs shifting, almost like she was trying to run in her sleep.

“What are you running from?” I asked. “What is it that you see? Who is it?”

Tears welled up in my eyes, and I scrubbed the palm of my free hand against my cheeks. I didn’t have time for this. My mother was too far gone; nothing I did could bring her back. She was trapped—alone—on the other side of the mirror, and I wasn’t sure I could protect her. I was a queen, leading an army, and I couldn’t even keep my own mother safe.

The dull sound of boots moving through the grass caught my attention, but I didn’t bother to turn around. Instead I stared at my mother and wished there were some way to make her wake up. I wanted her to be my mom again and tell me what to do.

“Allie?” Win touched my shoulder as he came over and sat beside me. “Are you okay? I mean, well, you know what I mean. Is there anything you need? Anything I can do?”

“No.” I shook my head and rubbed at my cheeks again before leaning my head against his shoulder. “No, I don’t need anything.”

“Are you sure?” He took my hand in his and squeezed. “I know you’re freaked out right now about what happened at the palace. We haven’t really talked about it, but I can’t imagine what it was like finding those bodies.”

I laced our fingers together and tried to ignore the way my hands were trembling. “Don’t imagine it. I don’t want you to ever know what that’s like.”

“If there were some way to make it better, you know I would.”

“I know.” I took a deep breath in and blew it out. “But you can’t—none of us can. They’re dead, and even in Nerissette they don’t have any kind of magic that can bring them back. All we can do now is finish this.”

I shoved the fragment of the mirror back into my pocket and turned to smile at him, even though I knew that the edges of my lips were quivering as I tried to keep my emotions in check.

“It’s okay if you’re scared.” Winston let go of my hand and wrapped me in his arms, pulling me into a reassuring hug. “I am, too.”

“I know you are, and I can never tell you how sorry I am about that. How sorry I am about a lot of things. I never wanted this to happen. If I had a choice…”

“I know.” He lowered his face so that his forehead tilted against mine.

A roar came from the east, and we turned toward the town square. Ardere and a phalanx of gold dragons launched themselves into the air and circled Dramera, standing—well, flying—guard.

I turned my back on them and stared out at the lake, trying to pretend that my spine was made out of steel instead of Jell-O. I was the Golden Rose of Nerissette. I was the leader, and I was the Fate Maker’s target. I was the one he wanted. He’d murdered so many people for a chance to get to me. He’d destroyed so many lives, and all I’d done was run and hide as he’d chased after me, bringing destruction along with him.

Well, I was done running from him. I was done running. Period. I’d run my entire life from people like Heidi and Dawn Thompson in second grade who’d called me Stinky Allie the Alley Cat. Now people were dead—Heidi and Jesse and Timbago and all the people who worked in the castle—and I was never going to run again. They deserved better from me than that.

I looked out over the lake and closed my eyes, willing Talia and the other twenty-three merpeople to appear. I wasn’t ready to admit that everyone was gone. I wasn’t ready to give up hope of seeing Talia again. Not yet. After everything else, I wasn’t ready to let them go that easily.

I wasn’t ready to lose anyone else. No matter what the reason was.

“Allie?” Winston’s voice was soft against my hair.

“I’m sorry.” I pulled out the fragment of the mirror and held it up for him to see. “I lied to you, and I’m sorry.”

“Is that what I think it is?” His voice was low and breathy, like someone had just sucker-punched him.

“I’m so sorry. So, so sorry.”

“You’ve had this the entire time? You had it and didn’t tell anyone? Why?”

I stared at the small sliver of glass. “I kept thinking, hoping, there had to be some way to use it to get home. If I could just find a way to get us, you, home, then it wouldn’t matter that I’d kept it. You wouldn’t care that I kept it secret if I could make it work in the end.”

“And did you? Find a way to use it?” he asked, his voice hopeful.

“No.” I shook my head. “I can see through it, but I can’t use it as a portal. I just…”

“You just…?” Winston asked.

“I wanted to be able to see my mom. I wanted to make sure she was safe.”

“I understand.”

My jaw dropped open at the completely calm way he’d said it, like it was no big deal that I’d kept something like this a secret from him. “What?”

“I would have kept it, too,” Winston said. “Even though it put everyone else at risk, I would have kept it. I wouldn’t have been able to give up the chance to at least make sure my parents were okay.”

“Wait, what? But I lied to you. I kept this a secret. And now, the Fate Maker could use it against us if we aren’t careful. Aren’t you even going to yell at me?”

“Allie.” He grabbed my shoulders and turned me out toward the lake before he pointed in the direction of my now-ruined palace. “I can fight you or I can fight the horde of scary monsters that the Fate Maker has in his army. Which would you like to spend your time on? Us or scary monsters?”

“Scary monsters.”

“Right.” Winston spun me back around so that we were eye to eye. “So what are we going to do about the shard?”

“What I should have done in the first place.” I dropped the fragment of glass and lifted my boot to step on it.

“Wait!” Winston grabbed my arm.

I turned to look at him, my foot still raised. “What?”

“Did you have this the entire time? I mean, since we left the castle have you been carrying it?”

“No, Timbago came to me last night in a vision and gave it to me.”

“When? How?”

“In my dream. Last night, I fell asleep and he was in my dream and he gave me the mirror shard. I don’t know how he did it, but it’s here now.”

“Then don’t destroy it.” Winston pulled me away from the piece of glass.

“You just told me we needed to fix this.”

“That was before I knew that Timbago had given it to you—after he died. A dead goblin brought you a shard from the Mirror of Nerissette in a dream.”

“Yeah?”

“I think that’s a pretty big sign that you’re probably going to need that shard for something.”

“For what?”

“No idea, but if Timbago went to all the trouble of coming back from the dead to give you a shard of the mirror then you need to keep it.”

“Okay, but if it doesn’t work as a portal anymore, I don’t—” I sighed and turned over the mirror fragment in my hand. I knew Winston was right. “Okay. So we hang on to the shard just in case. Now we just have to wait for the Fate Maker to show up so that we can use it.”

Great. Just what I loved doing most in the world. Waiting around for someone else to make the first move.

“The good news is that most of the army has arrived, and the dragon scouts are watching the remaining stragglers. It looks like everyone will be here by dinner.”

“So we have an army?”

“We have an army,” he said. He picked up a stone and skipped it across the lake. “And now we just…wait.”

“That sounds like fun,” I huffed and picked up my own stone.

“We could play I Spy?”

I didn’t even answer, just rolled my eyes. Then I looked down at the shard of glass in my hand. “Do you want to see?”

“I don’t know.” His voice shook, and he kept his eyes fixed on the lake. “If I look—”

“I know.” I started to slip the mirror back in my pocket. “It’s hard.”

“Don’t.” He reached over and grabbed my hand, stopping me from putting the fragment away.

“Okay.” I passed him the mirror. “Who do you want to see?”

“My father.”

“Show me Major Carruthers.” I swept my fingers across the mirror’s surface, and it clouded. Winston’s memories of his father began to race across it. Leaning close to Winston, I looked into the mirror as it cleared, and an older, heavier version of my boyfriend appeared, his face tired as he rubbed his eyes.

“Dad.” Winston’s voice cracked, and he reached out a shaking finger to touch his father’s face.

The man in the mirror glanced up briefly, and I could have sworn that he was looking right at his son.

“I’m sorry,” Winston said quietly. “I’m so sorry for every time…”

I wrapped my arms around his waist, holding him tight.

“I’m sorry for every time I got angry at you for leaving us. I’m sorry that I didn’t understand. I just wanted”—he let out a long breath—“I just wanted a dad like everyone else’s. But I understand now. I promise.” He stopped and stared at his father’s face for a moment. “I wish you could be as proud of me as I am of you.”

“He is,” I said quietly in his ear.

“He doesn’t even know I exist.” Winston handed the mirror back and closed his eyes for a second.

“In his heart he does, even if he doesn’t know it.”

“Give it to me,” another voice said. Uh-oh. I turned to see John of Leavenwald standing next to us.

I swallowed, surprised that he’d somehow managed to sneak up on us without me hearing or without the guard raising an alarm. I looked around and noticed that the younger man was gone and remembered the bow he’d worn on his back—one of John’s men. No wonder he hadn’t warned us the other man had shown up.

“Why?” I asked, keeping my fingers tight around the shard.

“Please.” He held his hand out, palm up, and I handed the glass to him, trembling.

He sat beside me and held it up, staring into it. “Show me the Golden Rose.”

I touched the glass and bits of my mother’s life flitted across the mirror’s face before it cleared. Inside the reflection I could see my mother, still twitching in her sleep. Lost. I closed my eyes and felt all the cells turn inward as I fought against the urge to cry.

“Your life is a promise to the universe,” he whispered to her as he ran his fingers across her face in the mirror, ignoring me and Winston. “That’s what you told me once. Life is a promise to the universe that you believe good will triumph over evil. I believe that because of you, because of her. Because of our Allie.”

“John?” I looked over at the man whose attention was focused on my mother’s image.

“I’ll keep her safe for you.” He ran his hand over the glass again, ignoring me, and then closed his eyes.

“Take it.” He pushed the shard into my hand and stood, marching away from me, his back stiff. But then he stopped, turned back, and stomped toward us.

“Are you okay?” I asked, trembling at the anger I saw in his face.

“I will be.” He closed my fingers over the glass. “But first I have a promise to keep.”

“I know. So do I.”

“When the time comes, Your Majesty”—John kept his eyes locked on mine—“there can be no room for mercy.”

“I know.”

“Good.” He stalked away from me before turning around again, his face determined. “And you should eat.”

“I’m not really all that hungry.”

“It doesn’t matter if you’re hungry or not. You need to eat while you still have the chance.”

Chapter Twenty-One

“Your Majesty.” There was a hand on my shoulder, shaking me awake. “Your Majesty.”

I rolled over and blinked at Eamon. “What?”

“Your Majesty.” He shook my shoulder again and then pressed his fingers to his lips. “We need to go.”

“Go?” I blinked at him again. “Go where?”

“The army is on the move, Your Majesty.” Eamon picked up my boots and motioned for me to get up. “My father sent me to get you.”

“Right.” I nodded and pushed the blankets back, thankful I had decided to sleep in my trousers and my tunic rather than just using the shirt like a nightgown. Not that I thought Eamon would be weird about it, but I’d rather be fully clothed.

“Mercedes.” I took my boots from Eamon and slid the right one on, my other hand resting on his shoulder. “Kitsuna.”

“Shhh.” Eamon put a finger up to his lips before I switched hands and pulled on my other boot. “My father said to leave them here.”

“What?” I looked around on the floor, searching for my sword. I spotted it underneath the edge of the blanket pile, and grabbed it quickly, buckling it low along my hips.

“He said not to wake them,” Eamon said. “We aren’t moving everyone yet; we’re scouting right now. He thought you’d want to join us.”

“Are you sure we shouldn’t wake them?” I asked as he ushered me out of the room.

He shook his head. “Dad and Tevian just wanted it to be you. According to the dragon scouts they saw the Fate Maker inside the cliffs. Maybe they want to capture him in secret?”

“Maybe.” An odd feeling prickled along the back of my spine, making the hairs on my neck stand up. “Are you sure this is a good idea?” I asked as Eamon led me out of the house.

The black dragon guards who had been watching the door were gone and in their place were four of Eamon’s woodsmen. “Where did the—”

“Don’t worry about them,” Eamon said. “We told them that we had things under control.”

“But who’s going to watch the house when we—”

Before I could finish my argument we were surrounded by woodsmen, and they were ushering me silently through the streets of Dramera. “You need to stay quiet, Your Majesty,” he whispered into my ear. “We don’t want to wake anyone up.”

“Why not?” I murmured. “Shouldn’t we want the army with us?”

“No.” Eamon shook his head. “Rhys and your consort said that it was one of those special missions where only a few people know about them. Control missions.”

“Commando missions?” I asked. “They want to do some sort of weird commando mission to capture the Fate Maker? That doesn’t seem like a very good idea.”

“You’ll have to trust us, Your Majesty,” Eamon said. The woodsmen navigated us out of the town center, and we started toward the lake. “We’ll hike around the side of the lake and then meet up with my father and the rest of your generals at the cliffs.”

I nodded and followed as we started to skirt the lake on the west side, keeping close to the forest. I listened to the sounds of the night birds and the crickets and the softly lapping water. Halfway around the lake the woodsmen at the front of our ranks stopped. The one closest to the lake jerked his head in the direction of the lake.

“What’s—” I started.

Eamon touched my arm. “Shhh.”

The woodsman who had stopped the group pointed toward the far side of the lake and held a finger to his lips. He motioned again, miming that he was going to go check something out. Rocks began to clatter, and the sound of something splashing in the waves followed. I looked between the darkness and Eamon.

“We need to go.” He motioned me into the underbrush, away from the lake, and I tried to keep up with the woodsmen racing along like silent shadows all around me.

We kept moving, hiking farther from the lake with every step, farther from the cliffs as we moved away from Dramera. “What are we doing? I thought we were supposed to be meeting your father and everyone else at the edge of the cliffs?”

“We’re looping around,” Eamon said. “We’ll be there soon. I promise. You just need to trust me. Between the two of us we’ll find a way to save this world from the chaos it’s sunken into.”

“What?”

“We’ll make Nerissette so powerful that no one will question us again. We’ll go over the White Mountains and wrestle your aunt’s throne from her. Then the woodsmen will control all of Bathune. We’ll have the forests there as our own.”

“Eamon.” I stopped. “What are you talking about?”

“We’re going to run this world like it’s supposed to be run. No more bowing to a girl. To a child. We’ll be so powerful that no one will stop us. We’ll harness the magic of this world and we’ll make it worthy again. A strong Nerissette run by a strong leader. No more Fate. No more Golden Rose.”

“You’re—” My stomach clenched as all the bad feelings suddenly came to a head. “Your father didn’t send you to get me, did he?”

“And now she’s figured it out.” Eamon rolled his eyes at me.

“There is no meeting of my generals. No commando mission.”

“Of course there isn’t,” he said. “Do you seriously think they would take you on a secret stealth mission to capture the Fate Maker? That he would have been stupid enough to come at the front of his army, without soldiers to guard him? My father—our father—wouldn’t risk it.”

“Our father?” I asked. “What are you talking about?”

“Our father.” Eamon sneered at me. “The man who is father to both of us.”

“Wait, what do you mean?”

“What do you think I mean?” He glared at me. “You and I have the same father. How difficult is that for you to figure out?”

“We don’t have the same father. Trust me, I wish John of Leavenwald was my father, but he’s not.”

“Well, then aren’t you going to be pleasantly surprised?” he hissed. “Because my dad is your dad.”

“No.” I shook my head at him. “He’s not.”

“And what makes you so sure?” Eamon asked.

“Because John of Leavenwald wasn’t my mother’s prince consort. The Fate Maker was. He’s my father. I know it’s screwed up since he and my aunt are apparently teaming up to kill me, but it’s the truth. The Fate Maker is my dad.”

“What?” One of the other guardsmen shifted and stared between us. “The Fate Maker is her father? I thought you said—”

“The Fate Maker isn’t her father,” Eamon snarled.

“Yes,” I argued. “He is. I know he is. He told me he is. We had our Darth Vader ‘Luke, I am your father’ moment. Sure he wasn’t wearing the creepy mask and breathing funny, but the effect was the same.”

“Did he?” Eamon said. “Did he look at you and say, ‘Princess Allie, I am your long-lost father’?”

“Well, no.” I swallowed. “But he was there when I was born. He said he came to the hospital, and he was my mother’s consort and—”

“He was in the hospital because he was trying to kill you,” Eamon said. “He wanted to kill you and your mother both, but he couldn’t manage it. He didn’t have the relics, so he couldn’t transport himself into your world as anything more than a reflection. An image. He could see you, but he couldn’t touch you. He couldn’t end your miserable life.”

“But—”

“Until he figured out how to scare your mother to death, that is.” Eamon grinned. “Too bad he couldn’t do the same to you. He’s not your father. My father is.”

I shook my head. “He’s not. My mother was always telling me stories about John of Leaven—”

I stopped. My mother had always told me stories about John of Leavenwald. Always. Always. Even though his stories were good, great even, they weren’t my favorites, but it seemed like every time I let my mother choose what story she was going to tell me it was always one about John of Leavenwald and his mouse, Eamon.

Handsome John of Leavenwald. The most handsome man in the World of Dreams. So fair that the birds all sang to make him smile, and the flowers would wilt when he walked by because they were jealous. The sun smiled just so that it could see him, and where John went no rain ever followed.

My mother’s stories were always super moony when it came to John. More moony, even, than I got over Winston.

My jaw dropped before I could stop it. “She was in love with him. My mother was in love with your father.”

“Duh.” Eamon threw his arms out to the side and bowed slightly, snarling. “Now you’re finally catching on.”

I looked around at the woodsmen. “So this is what? Sibling rivalry? You’re going to turn me over to the Fate Maker because you want to be an only child? Doesn’t that seem a bit psycho to you?”

“Not nearly as psycho as trusting our world to a child.” Eamon huffed and shook his head. The other guards started to shift, and I wondered how they felt about this whole thing. “And this has nothing to do with our shared family ties.”

“So then why—”

“I’m getting rid of you because you are destroying our world,” Eamon said. “I’m going to free this world from Fate, and the Fate Maker and from you.”

“Eamon,” one of the guardsmen said softly. “We’ve a long way to go tonight. If we don’t leave now we won’t make it to the meeting spot.”

“The meeting spot?” I asked. “Who are we meeting? The Fate Maker? My aunt?”

“None of your business,” Eamon said, and then turned his back on me. “Tie her up.”

I tried to back away as the rest of the woodsmen surrounded us. Before I could reach my sword they had me trapped between them, two of them grabbing my arms and another two lifting my feet. A fifth guard came forward with a length of rope and bound it first around my wrists, then around my ankles.

“What are you going to do to me?” I asked.

Eamon shoved a dirty rag in my mouth and tied a gag around it. “I’m going to sell you to the Fate Maker, and then my father and I will both be free of you and your mother’s memory.”

One of the woodsmen holding me up shifted me so that I was facing him and tossed me over his shoulder, my head hanging down to his waist.

“Let’s move,” Eamon said quickly. “We’ve got a long way to go and a wizard to meet who won’t tolerate delays.”

Chapter Twenty-Two

When we finally stopped, the sun was breaking over the trees. I was dizzy, sore, and more than a little ticked. My own half brother had sold me out.

For most of the time we’d been traveling, I’d tried to come up with new and creative punishments to make Eamon squirm. But then all I could think was what if John of Leavenwald was one of those dads who frowned upon exiling your own brother no matter what sort of creep he was? That thought had made me start to think about just what sort of dad he’d be with other stuff. Like curfews. Or whether or not I’d have chores. Did queens have chores?

The woodsman holding me on his shoulder dropped me and I hit the ground hard. “Ouch.”

“Shut up and drink this.” Eamon shoved a flask in front of my face.

I jerked my head away. “Get stuffed, dirtbag.”

“Fine.” He lifted the canteen up so that it was over my head and turned it over, letting the brackish water inside pour down on me. “Have it your way.”

“Why are you doing this?” I brought my bound hands up to wipe my face. “Why did you betray us?”

“Me betray you?” He laughed cruelly. “No one betrayed you. Your mother betrayed us all years ago, and you’re just like her. If we give you the chance, you’ll betray us the exact same way.”

“What? How did she betray you?”

“My father loved her. He would have fought for her. He’d have kept her, and all of us, safe. If she’d have just—”

“If she’d have stood up to the Fate Maker,” I finished softly.

“I remember seeing them together,” Eamon said, a sad expression crossing his face. “I was young, but I still remember her letting me sit on her knee and watch as that goblin who ran the palace did magic tricks for me. He used to make birds out of thin air that would come to life and sing me songs. He was—good. He was a good man. I’ll miss him.”

“What about your mom? Where is she?” I asked. I forced myself to keep my voice kind, hoping I could change his mind about wanting to kill me. There had to be some kind of brother-sister bond inside us somewhere I could appeal to, right?

“She died when I was born.” Eamon shrugged, still not looking at me, his eyes focused on the fire. “But it didn’t matter because the crown princess herself would let me sit on her lap and she’d read me stories. I thought—well, I thought a lot of things when I was a kid—but I thought they’d get married, and it would be okay because I’d finally have a mom.”

“What happened?”

“The old Rose died,” Eamon said, his voice flat and his eyes avoiding mine. “Then the Fate Maker looked into his magic sphere and declared that Fate had decreed him the new prince consort.”

“But your father—”

“Do you want to hear this story or not?” he snapped.

I nodded, giving him a small, forced smile. I had to stay on his good side—or, well, better side.

“Okay, then,” he said, his voice relaxing again. “Before the coronation was held he had my father kidnapped and ordered the two of us imprisoned in the Borderlands. After my father was out of the picture, the Fate Maker had your mother crowned Golden Rose and married her the very same night. Two months later she was gone. I never even got to say good-bye.”

“Did you know that I existed?” I asked, trying to keep my voice even.

“Yes.” Eamon crossed his arms over his chest and shifted his feet. When he turned to look at me, his eyes were red.

“You knew about us? He knew about me? Why didn’t he—”

“When I was ten, the Fate Maker decided to go to war with the trolls on the northern border. He called up his soldiers, but the men of the Leavenwald refused to fight. So he came to our castle and he brought the Mirror of Nerissette. That night, in my father’s banquet room, he had it brought in, and he forced the cat—”

“Esmeralda.” I glared at him.

“She opened the mirror,” Eamon said, “and there you were. Five years old, with freckles on your nose eating a chocolate ice cream cone with the queen. Then, when he was sure my father knew who you were…” He turned to look at me and stopped, jerking his head away again.

“What? What did he do?”

“The Fate Maker brought out a hammer and told my father that if the men of the Leavenwald ever shirked their duty to the throne again he would have the mirror destroyed. That he would break it into a million pieces and then grind those pieces into sand. All my father would have left would be a pile of dirt. The Fate Maker would leave you both there, in the World That Is, to rot.”

He was clenching his fists at his sides now, his whole body shaking from the strain. “I was ten years old, but I remember the look on my father’s face that day. That’s when I knew.”

“Knew what?”

“That our father would do anything for you. No matter how stupid you are, he’ll risk it all!” His voice rose. This wasn’t good.

“What are you—”

“He’s willing to die so that the rules no longer have to apply to you! So you can do whatever you want, even if the rest of us don’t get the same chance. Why should you get to be special?”

“I don’t want to be special,” I said, my voice bitter, rage clawing at my chest. “I just want to find a way to go home.”

“Liar. Gag her again,” he told his men. “We’ve got ten miles more to go before the sun is at its peak, and she’s going to be dead weight.”

“Emphasis on dead,” one of the men chuckled.

My heart began to pound. Whatever my older brother had planned I was pretty sure it was going to not end well—for either of us.

“No.” I tried to struggle, even though I was still bound. “Tell me. Explain it to me. If you’re going to kill me then at least you owe me that.”

“Explain what to you?”

“Why are you working with the Fate Maker? You said it yourself—he’s a bad guy. The bad guy, in fact, all capital letters: the BAD GUY.” I looked straight at Eamon. “He kills people and oppresses just about everyone else. He kept our parents apart even though they loved each other. He blackmailed your father into fighting for him. Why do you want to help this guy?”

Eamon shook his head and gave me a bitter smile. “Because he promised that if I brought you to him he’d get rid of you. He’ll prevent you from destroying this world.”

“Eamon, you know that our army is going to beat him. Our army will win and then what are you going to do? What do you think your father is going to say when he finds out you betrayed him? Not me, him.”

“It won’t matter. The Fate Maker will find the tear, and when he has it, he’ll trap you and your dying mother in the Bleak.”

“So that’s what you want? Me and my mother trapped in the space between worlds? Why? Do you really hate her that much?”

“Yes.” He grimaced. “I hate her. And you want to know why?”

“Why?”

“Because once upon a time I loved her and then she left us. Forget the rest of them. She left me. She left me here in this world, this nightmare, so she could go take care of you. But it will be okay now because the Fate Maker will fix it. He’ll wipe my and my father’s memories of you and your stupid mother, and we’ll finally be free.”

“Free from what?” I would’ve thrown my hands up in the air if they weren’t bound so tight they were cutting off my circulation.

“No more questions about what could have been ruining our lives together. No more listening to Dad talk about what will happen when my sister becomes the precious Golden Rose and Nerissette is free and happy again. No more listening to why we have to save the world for Allie.”

“So let me get this straight.” I shifted and brought my hands up to cover my neckline, making sure that the chain that held the tear was hidden under my shirt. “You want to doom an entire world to misery because you think our dad likes me more than you?”

“I want him to be free. I want all of us to be free. For us to have a chance at lives that aren’t ruled by an idiot girl.”

“No, this has nothing to do with our world or with our people. This is about you. You want our father all to yourself. You’re jealous. Jealous of a girl who didn’t even know who he was until a few hours ago.” I paused. “That’s pathetic. You know that, right? I mean, seriously. You’re jealous over the fact that you had a dad and I didn’t? That’s almost too backward for words.”

“Then quit talking,” a cold voice said. The Fate Maker flickered into existence in the middle of the clearing. “Otherwise I might be forced to gag you.”

He turned to Eamon and shook his head. “Yap, yap, yap.” He moved his hand like he was mimicking someone talking. “Just like her mother. She yaps away like some sort of annoying crow. Like that creature of Sullivan’s—the roc he’s got guarding his home in the north. Screech, shriek, yap, yap, yap. What I wouldn’t do for a reliable spell to make them both mute.”

“Tell me about it,” Eamon huffed. “You aren’t the one who’s spent three months having to listen to her and her stupid friends. Justice, free will, let’s all live in peace and harmony. It’s enough to make any true warrior sick.”

“I’m sure it was such a trial for a brave, valiant warrior like you,” the Fate Maker said.

“It was,” Eamon said, not catching the wizard’s sarcasm. “Thank the Pleiades that she was so ridiculously easy to trap, so stupidly trusting. She actually let me take her from a house with a dozen guards, and she didn’t even try to raise an alarm.”

“Good. And you’ve given her your speech? Revealed the truth about her father? Told her how much you hated her? Explained why you’re betraying her?”

“She knows everything,” Eamon said.

“Good. There’s nothing worse than hearing someone crying why over and over again as the end comes. It’s very annoying.”

“My army is going to stop you,” I said, trying to keep my voice from wavering. “No matter what you do to me, they won’t stop until you’re dead. They’ll find you and—if you’re lucky—they’ll banish you to the Bleak right beside me. It’ll be me and you, trapped in the void between worlds for all time. ”

“The Bleak?” The Fate Maker raised an eyebrow at me. “What makes you think that I’m going to sentence you to life in the Bleak?”

“I—” I looked first at him and then at Eamon.

“You may not believe this, my dear Allie.” The Fate Maker came closer and crouched in front of me. “But I don’t want you to suffer. I just want my throne back.”

“It’s not your throne,” I said. “It’s my mother’s. Or it was before you put her in a coma.”

“A technicality.” He shrugged and rested his elbows on his knees. “You want to know the truth?”

“No,” I spat.

“No?”

“You’re incapable of telling the truth. You twist things around to hurt people, and I don’t want to hear any more of your lies.”

The Fate Maker leaned close so that his mouth was near my ear. “I loved your mother,” he said quietly. “More than that idiot John of Leavenwald ever would have. All I wanted was to rule for her so that she could be happy. That’s all I ever wanted for either of you.”

“You wanted power.”

“It would have been a nice side benefit, but no, I really just wanted for both of you to be happy. In fact, I’ll prove it to you.”

“How?”

“I’ll give you everything you’ve ever wanted. That secret desire you never wanted to admit.” He brushed his hand against my forehead.

My eyes closed against my will, and I saw what he was offering me: a life in the world we’d left behind. Mom in the kitchen and a guy who looked like John sitting in front of the television. There were framed photos of me standing between them at swim meets and a picture of me in a formal dress next to Winston. My mother on the couch, snuggling into John’s side, smiling. He turned to me and opened his arms, inviting me to come join them.

I jerked my head away from the Fate Maker’s hands and opened my eyes, staring straight into his eyes. “No deal.”

“Really? I’m offering you the life you’ve always dreamed of and you’re just going to say no deal? Don’t you want to think about it?”

“That’s not my life, and those people weren’t my parents.”

“They could be.” He smiled at me but the warmth didn’t reach his eyes. “You’d never know the difference. All of this would be nothing more than some weird dream. You’d forget all about us by lunchtime.”

“What about my friends?”

“What about them? Fragments you’ll forget before you’re even completely awake. Side characters in a very realistic dream.”

“And Eamon?”

“Eamon?” The Fate Maker turned to look across the clearing at my jerky half brother, who was standing in a tight group with his men, all of them talking quietly and moving their hands in quick, angry gestures. “What about him?”

“What happens to Eamon?”

“The same thing that’s going to happen anyway.” The Fate Maker stood and glanced down at me, brushing his hands against the black velvet of his robe. “I have no place in my ranks for a man I can’t trust—especially one with his own group of soldiers.”

He raised his hand and a ball of energy crackled to life in his hand, swelling to the size of a bowling ball in less than a second.

“No!” I tried to thrust myself forward, going for the Fate Maker’s knees. But because of how I was trussed up I couldn’t get the leverage and only managed to slam into his ankles, knocking him off-balance. Eamon was a jerk, a traitor, but I couldn’t just sit and watch as the Fate Maker killed him. Even if he was a crap sibling.

Eamon spun around at the sound of my voice, and the swirling mass of dark magic hit him in the center of his chest. Our eyes met for a brief second before the space around him filled with light and he crumpled, lifeless, to the ground.

Getting my feet underneath me, I pushed myself up, hitting the Fate Maker with my shoulders. He stumbled and I dug my elbows into his stomach, tackling him to the ground.

“No.” I got up on my knees, pinning him underneath me, and started pummeling him with my bound fists. “Bring him back. I command you to bring him back. You give me my brother back.”

“No.” The Fate Maker smiled at me, his mouth bloody from where he’d bitten his own lip during our fall. “And besides, why would you want him back? He was a terrible sibling. He betrayed you.”

“Bring him back,” I shrieked as two of the woodsmen reached us and grabbed my arms, pulling me off him.

He shifted his weight so he could stand as I fought against the two men holding me. “I did you a favor. One last favor before you die.”

“Then do me a real favor and bring him back.”

“No. No more favors. I’m sick of you. I’m sick of your whining and I’m sick of your rule,” the Fate Maker said. “You will take me to the tear, and then I will end this silliness.”

“Then why don’t you untie me and make it a fair fight?”

“And why in the name of Fate would I want to do anything as stupid as that? Last time I ended up trapped. And let me tell you, young lady, you don’t want to know what sort of magic I had to do to find my way home.”

“Yeah?” I sneered at him. “Well, I hope you know some sort of magic that will bring you back to life because when I get out of these ropes I’m going to kill you.”

The Fate Maker cocked his head to the side. “That doesn’t really give me a reason to untie you, does it?”

“But if you don’t untie her,” John of Leavenwald said, his voice low, “I’m going to let the dragon eat you.”

I looked up to see him standing in the clearing, Winston, Rhys, Kitsuna, and Mercedes behind him.

The Fate Maker turned to stare at them. “What?”

“I said, untie her.”

“Men.” The Fate Maker flicked his gaze to the traitors who had joined him. “Seize them.”

Before any of them could obey, Mercedes had raised her hands and vines grew up around their ankles, tying them to the ground. “I don’t think so.”

The Fate Maker wiggled his fingers and the vines around him burst into flames, the fire licking at the grass around my boots. “Did you really think that would work on me?”

“I can come up with other things that might.” Winston stepped forward, his form wavering between teenage boy and black dragon.

I started to scoot closer to him, trying to ignore the way the flames on the vines were licking at my legs.

“How do you think you’ll rule this country if you kill her?” Kitsuna asked. “How do you think you’ll make them follow you?”

“I have an army.”

“But you don’t have the tear,” she pointed out. “You wanted it for a reason. If you kill her you’ll never find it. Never be able to use it.”

“Then all the better,” the Fate Maker said. “Without her, the relics will stay lost, and then the last of the great prophesies cannot be fulfilled and magic will flourish in Nerissette.”

I had gotten close enough that I could lean onto my hands and lift my legs. I pulled them into my chest and kicked them out at the back of the Fate Maker’s knees, pitching him forward. He rolled and brought a fist up, slamming it into my jaw and making my head jerk back. He sat up quickly, grabbing for my throat, and I brought my head forward, hard, slamming my forehead into his nose.

“You—” He flung an arm out, knocking me off him, and then started toward me on his knees. Before he could move any closer, though, Kitsuna threw herself onto him, pinning him while Mercedes held her hands out. Vines shot up from the ground to tie around him, lacing around him like a cocoon.

“Now, you.” John looked at the young woodsmen who had betrayed us. “When she unties you, you’re going to run away. And if I see any of you again your lives are over. Forevermore you are banished from the Leavenwald, your names stricken from the scrolls, and you will be forgotten.”

The vines dropped, and I watched as Eamon’s soldiers bolted for the trees, melting into the forest around them within seconds, leaving his body behind. They didn’t even look back. The cowards.

John was staring at Eamon’s body, his jaw tight. He swallowed and his shoulder tensed before he turned to me, his face betraying nothing. Like finding out his son had died while betraying him was nothing.

“Um, guys?” I tried to sit up from where I’d toppled over, staring up at the trees around us. “Can someone untie me please?”

“On it!” Kitsuna came over and took the knife from my belt, cutting my wrists free before moving to my ankles.

“Do you think this changes anything?” the Fate Maker asked. “Do you think that because you’ve captured me you’ve somehow won this world? You’re still not safe. Even if you kill me that won’t stop your aunt. Or the giants. The monsters. They’ll still come. What will you do then?”

Instead of answering I reached into my shirt and grabbed the necklace, letting it dangle in front of me. “Why did you want this so bad if you claim you weren’t going to send me to the Bleak?”

“The tear,” the Fate Maker breathed.

“Why have you been searching for it?” I asked, my voice hollow, as I dropped the chain against the front of my shirt. “You said something about a prophecy. About the end of magic. What does that have to do with me? Or the tear?”

“Isn’t that obvious? I want the tear so that I can keep you from having it.” He smiled up at me, and his dark eyes glittered. “I had to keep it from you because if you had it, one day you might grow enough of a spine to use it. The prophecy will be fulfilled, and the world of magic will die. Then where would I be?”

“The same place you’ll be when this is all over.” I leaned over so that we were face to face. “Inside the Bleak. Now what do you mean, a prophecy?”

“Are you really going to do it?” he asked. “Lock me inside the Bleak?”

I straightened and turned to walk away from him. “Of course.”

“Really? Are you so cold that you can sentence a man to the space between worlds? A place where there’s nothing? No beginning, no end, a place of eternal nothingness. Can you really condemn someone to that for all time?”

“I think you’d be surprised about what I’m capable of, especially where you’re concerned.”

“So what will you do?” the Fate Maker asked.

“Your Majesty,” John of Leavenwald said, his voice throwing me back to what the Fate Maker had shown to me. John had been sitting on the couch, watching a baseball game in a green T-shirt, with his arms open to me. In the fantasy I’d been offered, we’d never been apart. He’d never missed a birthday and he’d brought me chocolate ice cream the day after they took my tonsils out. He’d let me cry when we put my dog to sleep, and he’d sneaked me cookies when I was sick.

I blinked, and the man from my fantasy was gone. Instead I was face-to-face with a man covered in dirt, his eyes red-rimmed and tired, with his arm bandaged and a nasty bruise turning black on his left cheek.

“No mercy,” I said quietly. “There can be no more mercy. But whatever we do, it needs to be done in public. Where everyone can see.”

“Then follow me,” John said. “I know the quickest route between here and Dramera.”

Chapter Twenty-Three

I followed John and Mercedes out of the trees as the sun reached its highest point in the sky, the others following behind us. Winston carrying Eamon’s body draped over his back and Rhys dragging the Fate Maker along behind him. John of Leavenwald’s head was still held high but I could see his shoulders trembling every so often, and every so often Mercedes would reach over and touch his arm. I wanted to go to him, to say something, anything, but I wasn’t sure there was anything I could say that wouldn’t make it worse. When we came to the grassy knoll next to Lake Dramera, I found myself staring at a group of stunned dryads. All of them sat on the ground, their hands buried in the roots of the trees at the edge of the forest as they crooned songs in a language I didn’t understand. They were dirty and tired, but from what I could see they weren’t hurt.

“What? Where?” I tried to take in what I was seeing as soldiers began crowding together along the side of the lake. “How?”

“Queen Allie?” Darinda’s face was covered in smoke, and she had a long, bright-red gash on her arm. Instead of bleeding, though, the cut leaked tree sap and she pressed a pile of leaves against it like a bandage. “Thank the trees you’re alive.”

“I’m fine.” I moved forward to hug her, resting in her strong, branchlike arms. “We’re all fine. What happened here?”

“Nothing. They stayed on the other end of the lake. The wizards…”

“What?” I pressed. “What did they do?”

“They threw balls of dark magic at us all night. I don’t think they were even trying to hit us—they kept throwing them at the trees and blowing holes in the side of the cliff. And now they’re gone.”

“Gone?” I asked. “They just left?”

“The Fate Maker’s army disappeared about an hour ago. One minute they’re throwing magic at us shaking their clubs in the air, then nothing. Just poof! It was like they had never been there. We don’t know what happened.”

“They must have realized that he had failed,” I said quietly. “Someone on their side was watching him, and when he didn’t manage to kill me they ran and left him behind. They chose to run rather than fight to get him back.”

“Cowards.” Darinda wrinkled her soot-covered nose. “But you, Your Majesty, are now in possession of both the Fate Maker and the tear.”

“Yes.” I nodded and licked my lips.

“What will you do now?” she asked.

“I’m going to keep us all safe. No matter what it takes. It’s time for something more permanent,” I said. “Something he can’t come back from.”

“The Nymphiad will support your decision.”

“More permanent?” Tevian asked as people began to crowd around us. Rhys dragged the Fate Maker into a small cleared-out area at the front of the crowd, just behind me. He let go of him and stepped into the crowd to face me.

Winston put my half brother’s body down and joined the rest of the crowd. I watched as the woodsmen stared at the limp form in front of me, and I swallowed as I met my father’s red-rimmed eyes, his face still a blank, emotionless mask.

“Eamon of Leavenwald died saving me,” I lied, my eyes never leaving my father’s gray ones. “He died defending our people. However you honor your dead, know that I will never forget his sacrifice for me.”

All of the woodsmen, except for John, bowed low, their hands pressed together, palm to palm, and they brought them to their chests. Two of the younger woodsmen moved forward, lifting Eamon’s body and disappearing into the forest with it, others trailing behind them.

“Your Majesty?” Darinda stood to one side of the crowd, the rest of the Nymphiad beside her, while Tevian and the Dragos Council stood on the other side of the group, their dark eyes fixed on me, their faces covered in smoke, unreadable.

My father stood with the rest of his men between the dragons and the Nymphiad, a head taller than any other man standing near him. His face was tight and his jaw clenched. My heart skipped a beat when I recognized the gesture as the same one I always used to keep myself from crying.

“No mercy.” I lifted my head, trying my best to look like a queen was supposed to, and I turned to the Fate Maker, keeping my eyes fixed on his.

“Last chance,” the Fate Maker said, his voice barely more than a whisper as I closed in on him. “It’ll be so real that you’ll never question it. The perfect life. I’ll even give you your brother back. I’ll snap my fingers, and he’ll wake up. How can you resist? ”

“Because no matter how perfect it is, it’s not real. It’s not the life I was meant to live.” I pulled the tear over my head, holding the crystal tight in my hands. “That’s not what Fate has in store for me.”

“Aren’t you the one who always says that each person should choose their own fate?” he asked, his eyes twinkling. “That there is no goddess of destiny for you to worship?”

“Who says I haven’t chosen this?” I forced my fingers to brush over his forehead, and I immediately felt my soul contract, pulling away from the bleakness that surrounded the two of us. Instead of panicking I opened my eyes. Our gazes locked, and he paled, his eyes wide as they darted from person to person. He licked his lower lip once before he focused on me, panting like he’d just run a marathon.

The world around us melted, and everyone else disappeared, leaving just the two of us staring at each other. Everything around us was gray and wherever we were, there was no one there. There was nothing, thousands of millions of miles of nothingness in every direction.

“I want you to know,” I said, keeping my eyes on his, “that when this is over I will pass a law that will prevent anyone from ever saying your name again. If it’s the last thing I do I’ll make sure you’re forgotten.”

“You can’t do this,” he said as I pulled my hand from his forehead. “Please.”

“Yes, I can. And because of what you did to my mother and my brother and the rest of my family, I’m going to enjoy every single second of it.” I closed my eyes and tried to remember Winston’s face. The darkness around me began to swirl, the air pressing in on me like I’d been caught inside a whirlpool. Warm light caressed my skin. But this time I knew the light wasn’t an illusion. This time it was the way home. I concentrated on sealing the wall between the World of Dreams and the Bleak, leaving the Fate Maker behind.

I opened my eyes and found myself looking directly into Winston’s dark ones. “He’s gone. He can’t hurt us ever again.”

“I love you.” He pulled me close and wrapped his arms around me.

“I love you, too.” I buried my head in his chest and tried not to cry. “And thank you for coming to save me.”

“You’d have done the same for me.”

I heard a cough and lifted my head. John of Leavenwald coughed again, and I stepped back from Winston and wiped my hands on my trousers. John wouldn’t meet my eyes. “John?”

He sprinted the few steps between us and wrapped his arms around me so tightly that ribs creaked as he buried his head against the top of my head. “Thank the stars I didn’t lose you too,” he murmured. “I don’t know what I’d have done if I lost both of you.”

“You’ll never lose me again,” I promised.

“We’ve got so much time to make up,” he whispered. “So many things for me to make up to you.”

“Then it’s a good thing I’ve got nowhere else to go.”

Chapter Twenty-Four

I stood on the Cliffs of Fesir, looking out over Dramera Lake, and watched the sunset, staring at the crown that I’d finally managed to go back into the forest and retrieve. It didn’t feel right to wear it. Not now. Not with everything we’d lost today.

“So, John of Leavenwald is your dad, huh?” Winston sauntered toward me, his hands in his pockets. “That’s got to be weird.”

“A bit.” I smiled as he sat down beside me and took my hand in his. “It’s a good weird, though. Better than having a psycho, homicidal wizard for a father.”

“True.” He nudged me with his shoulder.

“He might make the whole prince consort thing a nightmare for you, though. You know, being my dad and all.”

“He’s already threatened to wire my jaws shut if he ever sees us kissing again.”

“Ouch.” I wrinkled my nose, and we both laughed.

“I think we’ve got a few days before he actually does it though,” he said quietly, his voice becoming serious. “Since he’s leaving with the rest of his woodsmen in a few hours.”

“He’s leaving?” I asked, stunned. What did he mean my father was leaving? We’d just gotten each other back.

“The woodsmen do their funerals at dawn,” Winston said. “They’re going to…”

“Bury Eamon.” I nodded. “They’re going to bury my brother.”

“And then they’ll be back,” Winston said. “Your father made sure to tell me that. They’re going to take care of Eamon and then they’re coming back. He’s coming back.”

“Good.” I sniffed and tried to ignore the sudden relief I felt. “That’s good.”

“Allie?” Winston asked. “I’m curious about something. Something besides what happened with Eamon.”

“What?”

“What did the Fate Maker offer you earlier?”

I turned back to the lake and tangled my fingers in the grass to keep from fidgeting. I couldn’t tell him the Fate Maker had given me a chance to go home and I’d refused it. That I hadn’t bargained for a way to get us all home. I couldn’t tell him that I’d had that chance and had let it go to get revenge instead.

“Before you sent him to the Bleak, he told you it was your last chance. What did he mean by that? Your last chance for what?”

“Nothing that I want. Or at least nothing I want enough to give up what I already have,” I said, deciding that the truth was always a better than lie, even if it didn’t really answer his question.

“So what are you going to do with it?” He touched the Dragon’s Tear still hanging around my neck.

“Timbago said that when I needed to destroy the tear, I would know how. So I’ll keep it safe until that happens.”

“What are we going to do about your aunt? Her army is still massed at the borders, and several of our warriors said they’d seen her at the palace. She took part in the attack.”

“I know.” I yanked up a tuft of grass and tossed it angrily at the lake. “I saw her, too.”

“She will come for us at some point,” Winston said. “What do we do then?”

I didn’t meet his eyes. “Then we fight. Just like we’ve fought every other time. We fight until we win or we die. We don’t have any other choice.”

“When that day comes, no matter what happens, I’ll be right by your side.”

“Together,” I said and smiled at him.

“Always.”

“Always.” I pressed my lips against his and let the world around us slip away. Tomorrow was soon enough to start worrying about what lay ahead.

Chapter Twenty-Five

I struggled to find a comfortable position to sleep in that night, twisting inside my blankets. I rolled onto my side, facing the window, and then shifted again so that I was facing the rest of the room, my back pressed against the wall.

Mercedes had pulled the blankets over her head, and nothing but her dark hair visible. I watched as she kicked and jerked in her sleep, murmuring under her breath. Kitsuna had fallen asleep on top of her blankets, clutching her sword and still wearing her boots, ready to fight.

I sat up and shook my head, pushing bits of hair that had escaped my braid out of my face. Outside the window a large, bloodred moon hung over Dramera Lake, and I gazed at it for a moment before retrieving the bit of the mirror that I had from my trouser pocket.

“Show me my mother. Show me the last Golden Rose,” I said while touching it.

The mirror went hazy, and my mother’s memories began to play out over the shard. Pink flowers shone and then the mirror cleared, and I could see my mother in her hospital bed.

“I’m sorry.” I traced my hand over her cheek. “I’m so sorry I left you. And I’m sorry that I’ll never be coming back.”

I lifted my eyes from the mirror and glanced up at the moon again. “But don’t worry, Mom. I’ve gotten rid of the Fate Maker, and he’ll never hurt any of us again. I promise you, no matter what, you’ll be safe. He’ll never get near you again.”

I saw her jerk and then still, her head turning toward me, like she was somehow soothed by the sound of my voice. I ran my finger over the glass one last time and put it back in my pocket before lying back and trying to sleep. Tomorrow we were heading back toward Neris to start rebuilding the city and the palace, and I needed all the sleep I could get. We had a lot to do before our home would be livable again.

“One tiny dragon jumping over a fence,” I said quietly. “Two tiny dragons jumping over a fence. Three tiny dragons jumping over a fence and setting the field on fire. Four tiny dragons—” I yawned and let my eyes drift shut.

The world around me was hazy as I slipped into sleep, and I tried not to groan. Not another vision, another nightmare. Not tonight. I really needed a full night’s sleep.

“Allie?” my mother’s soft voice called. What was she doing here? If this was a vision—and it certainly felt like a vision—then it was a vision about something bad, and I didn’t want my mother here for that.

“Allie, sweetheart?”

I rolled onto my back and saw my mother at the foot of the dirty pallet I was using as a bed, dressed as she had been the morning before her accident. I pulled myself up, and she sat down beside me, her hand brushing along the side of my face and trailing into my tangled hair. “Mom?”

She wrapped her arms around me and squeezed. “Oh, Allie.”

“Is it really you?” I asked.

“Does it matter?”

“Not really,” I admitted, sinking into her embrace, happy to have my mother again, even if she was just a hallucination brought on by one of my visions.

“Mom?”

She lifted her head and stared at me. “The end is coming,” she whispered, her eyes wide and filled with tears.

“And then what happens?” I asked. “When the end comes, what happens?”

“We’ll find a way to be together again.” She kissed my cheek and then unraveled her arms from around me, fading slowly from sight.

“Mom?” I grabbed for her hand, trying to keep her with me. “Don’t go.”

“We’ll be together again soon,” she said before she disappeared.

“Your time is coming, Your Majesty.” Esmeralda’s voice found my ears, and I turned to see her sitting behind me, my heart breaking at the sight of her. She was a vision, too, just like my mother. A dream that I could only see when my world was getting ready to turn upside down again. A warning signal for the crap that was about to come.

“And when it does, if you are brave and we are triumphant, one day soon the end will come. We will all truly be free. Even you.”

“I’m already free,” I said.

“No, you’re not.” She licked one of her paws and kept her eyes on me. “But, soon, you will be. One way or another.”

“Yeah.” I nodded as she started to fade away, my stomach flip-flopping with dread. “It’s the ‘one way or another’ part that always seems to end up getting people hurt. Usually the people I care about the most.”

Acknowledgments

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again—no one ever writes a book alone. There are so many people to thank but the first has to be my lovely daughter Ainsley for asking me to write something that she would be able to read. Here is something for you to read. I hope it meets your expectations.

Thank you as well to my editors at Entangled Teen, Libby Murphy and Danielle Rose Poiesz, as well as all the other hardworking editors, cover artists, publicists, and writers who make every single day that I work with Entangled Publishing a good one. Without all of you I’d still be doing a job I hated instead of one I love.

And finally thank you to my family for putting up with the pixies, the dragons, the wizards, and the frozen pizzas that come with having a mother who spends her days writing stories and living inside her own head instead of doing more interesting things. I love all of you.

Turn the page

for a special look

at the third and final book in

the

Chronicles of Nerissette

trilogy

Infinity

by

Andria Buchanan

Prologue

I was sitting in front of the mirror at the dressing table in the Queen’s Tower. That’s how I knew it was a dream. My Tower had been burnt during the Fate Maker’s last attack against the palace but right now, in my dream, it was still perfectly fine. It looked the same as it did the first time I’d ever set foot inside of it.

“The end is coming,” my reflection announced, and my eyes widened as I stared back at the girl in the mirror.

“What?”

“I said,” my reflection said, “the end is coming. The Last Rose is on her throne, the relics have been found, and the land is free of the Fate Maker. The time of the Prophesies has come.”

“Wait. What? No.” I shook my head and the girl in the mirror arched an eyebrow at me. “No, that’s not true. I don’t have all the relics. We’re searching for the last relic but I haven’t found it yet.”

“You have found it,” the girl in the mirror argued. “The First Leaf was never lost. It’s always been with you. Because of it life flows through you. The ability to keep this world—and its people—alive.”

“I don’t—”

“The Last Great Rose is on her throne and the relics have been found. The dead will rise, the lost will be found, and our world will be free again. The Prophesies command it.”

The girl in the mirror in front of me dissolved and when I looked into the mirror nothing stared back at me. The room behind me was reflected as if I wasn’t even there. “Wait.”

“She’s right,” Esmeralda said and I gaped at the sorceress, still trapped inside the body of a small, black and white housecat sitting on the reflection of my bed in the mirror. I glanced over my shoulder and saw that she wasn’t actually there, and even in my dream she was just an illusion. “The time of the Prophesies has come.”

“But the Prophesies are made up. Make believe. You should know, you’re the one who made them up.”

“The things I wrote, I never meant for them to come true. But they have now. Fate, or whatever it is that truly guides us, has made the nightmares I wrote about come true and you’re the only one who can save us. Save our world, Allie. Save us. Before it’s too late.”

“Save you from what? The Fate Maker is trapped in the Bleak. I’m signing a peace treaty with Bavasama in the morning. Our world is safe.”

“Death is coming, my queen. A world of death and nightmares, and if you’re not prepared they will destroy us all. The nightmares that I unleashed upon this world will destroy us all.”

“I don’t know how,” I said. “I don’t know what to do. Tell me what to do.”

“When the time comes you’ll know,” Esmeralda said, her brilliant green eyes meeting mine in the mirror.

“No, I won’t.”

“There’s only one thing that can defeat nightmares,” Esmeralda said. “Only one thing stronger than fear.”

“What?” I asked.

Instead of answering the cat in the mirror began to fade away.

“No!” I slapped my hand against the mirror. “No, don’t leave. You have to tell me it is I need to do to keep us safe. What I need to keep us safe from. You can’t leave me.”

The cat disappeared, her eyes the last thing to fade away, as I stood there, watching her. “Don’t leave me,” I whispered. “Please don’t leave me. I can’t do this alone.”

About the Author

Andria Buchanan is the pen name for Patricia Eimer, a small-town girl who was blessed with a large tree in the backyard that was a perfect spot for reading on summer days. After a stint of “thinking practically” in her twenties she earned degrees in business and economics and worked for a software firm in southwestern Germany, but her passion has always been a good book.

She currently lives in Pittsburgh with her two wonderful kids and a husband that learned the gourmet art of frozen pizzas to give her more time to write. When she’s not writing she can be found fencing and arguing with her dogs about plot points. Most days the Beagle wins but the Dalmatian is in close second. She’s a distant third.

http://www.andriabuchanan.com/

Content

Evanescent
The Chronicles of Nerissette - 2
by
Andria Buchanan

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-Two

Chapter Twenty-Three

Chapter Twenty-Four

Chapter Twenty-Five

Acknowledgments

Turn the page for a special look at the third and final book in the Chronicles of Nerissette trilogy Infinity by Andria Buchanan

Prologue

About the Author