“They get wrinkly fast,” said Mr. Chanterelle, a mushroom faerie, “the way fingers do in water. But their faces, too!”
“That’s called getting old,” Aurora said.
The mushroom faerie nodded, seemingly pleased to be given a name for it.
“They hate us,” said Robin with a frown. “That’s what I dislike about them most.”
Aurora sighed. “The humans are afraid. They told me stories about stolen children and curses. Are any of those true?”
There were a few murmurs from around the glen. Diaval gave Robin a knowing look. The little faerie frowned. “Sometimes we come upon a child in the woods, unwanted and uncared for. Infants, even. We might take that child and raise it here in the Moors. Who can blame us for that? And sometimes we find a child who would be better off in the Moors. We might take that child, too.”
Aurora couldn’t dispute that some children weren’t cared for and that some parents weren’t kind. But she also knew that faeries might not agree with humans about which children would be better off stolen from their families.
“Sometimes,” Aurora allowed. “But what about the other times? And what about the curses?”
“We can’t deny that we have cursed humans,” said Robin. “We are a tricksy people, and the humans have given us plenty of cause. Do they not hunt us? Do they not try to trick us out of our own magic and steal what is ours? We are the ones who should be afraid. They want all we have and all we are—and they want us dead.”
“I am a human and I adore you,” Aurora said, kissing Robin on top of his head and making him blush. “I have heard stories that humans and faeries weren’t always at odds, that there was a time before King Henry when you lived with mutual respect.”
There was some mumbling and some reluctant nodding.
“For the humans that was a very long time ago,” Aurora went on, “but it can’t be so long for all of you.”
“Once, it was different,” the water faerie said grudgingly. “Then, if they wanted my rocks, they would trade for them.”
“And their children would play with us,” said one of the wallerbogs.
“And they would leave us treats,” said one of the hedgehog faeries. “And we would leave them presents in return.”
“Yes!” said Aurora. “And it can be like that again. I know it can. That’s why we’re going to have a festival. Games and dancing and feasting, with humans and faeries in attendance. And the treaty, finished and ready to be signed.”
The Fair Folk blinked at her with their inhuman eyes. There were a few murmurs around the glen.
“Please,” she said. “Please come.”
Maleficent swept into the clearing, holding a black cat in her arms. It butted its head against her dark gown. Her long nails swept down its spine, making it purr loudly. “Oh, my dear,” she said, “nothing could keep us away.”
Her arrival and declaration seemed to signal the meeting was over. The water faerie slipped back into her pool. The wallerbogs began to squabble with one another. A hedgehog faerie scuttled into a nest to take cover. Robin seated himself on a rock and began to carve the top of a long stick, turning it into a staff.
“Is that the—” Aurora began.
“Your storyteller,” Maleficent said, lifting the animal in her arms. “But he seems quite content being a cat. He didn’t seem nearly so happy as a human.”
“No one is,” said Diaval. “A dragon, however? That I wouldn’t mind doing again.”
“Turn him back,” Aurora said.
“I warn you,” said Maleficent, “I didn’t much care for his stories.”
“You astonish us,” Diaval returned. She gave him a sour but not entirely unamused look.
Maleficent let the cat half jump, half drop from her hands. It gave a yowl as it landed in the grass. Then it sniffed the air, as though it had caught hold of some particularly interesting smell.
Maleficent made a gesture with her hands as though flicking water from them. The cat began to grow, and the fur peeled back from a man dressed in traveling clothes. He looked around in confusion and then horror.
“You—you nightmare!” he said to Maleficent.
She gave him a wide smile, clearly delighted by his distress. “What a lovely thing to say! Now, mind, don’t annoy me again or there’s no telling what I might do. Perhaps you might like to try being a fish this time.”
Aurora knelt down beside him. “No, no, there’s nothing to worry about. She’s not really like that.” She slid a ring—gold, with a pearl—off her finger. “Here, take this for your troubles.”
Maleficent was obviously offended. “I am absolutely like that,” she muttered.
“Why don’t I show him the way out of the Moors?” interrupted Diaval, slinging an arm around the man’s shoulder and ignoring his attempt to pull free. “We can commiserate about being transformed. Come along now. There are so few people who really understand our troubles.”
Maleficent watched them go, then went to Aurora’s side. “Are you pleased?”
“Yes,” Aurora said, leaning her head against Maleficent’s shoulder.
The faerie absently stroked her golden hair, and Aurora sighed. “Do you think that I would have turned out horrible if I was raised in the palace? Would I have hated faeries?”
“I think you were born with a generous heart,” Maleficent said, “and no one could have made you otherwise.”
“Would I have been frightened, then?” Aurora continued, thinking of the girls her own age who had been among the townsfolk and the farmers.
“You were never afraid of anything. Even when you ought to have been.”
Aurora gave Maleficent a fond smile.
“Come,” her godmother said. “Eat with me.”
They dined inside the conjured palace of vines and moss, at a table of gnarled wood. Stacks of honey cakes, a pitcher of cream Aurora hoped wasn’t stolen, and duck eggs were all spread out on dishes and bowls of black clay.
When Aurora was full, she lay on her back on mossy cushions and looked up at the stars through a screen of vines.
“You must like this place,” Maleficent said, lifting a single brow, “a little.”
“Of course I do,” Aurora said, stretching out her arms. “I love it. And I love that you made it for me.”
Everything felt like it had before Aurora discovered whose daughter she was, what Maleficent had done, and what had been done to her.
She slanted a look at her godmother, who had come to rest on another cushion. She was different with wings. She took up more space yet also seemed to have a new lightness in her. Aurora had never realized how confined she must have felt, being forced to walk on the ground as Aurora did.
There were many things she hadn’t realized.
What had it been like to be so disastrously in love with Stefan and so horrifically betrayed? What had it been like to face him down? What was it like now, to try to trust humans enough to make a treaty with them?
Aurora thought of the meeting she’d had with the villagers that afternoon and Phillip’s strange expression. This was the day they were meant to go walking, but he’d never appeared to escort her out, so perhaps he was displeased in some way? The thought bothered her more than it should. She wished she could ask for Maleficent’s advice, but she was pretty sure she knew what her suggestion would be.
Cook his heart over a spit. Roast it well. Then discard it.
“Would you like me to make up your bed for you, as I used to when you were a child, beastie?” asked Maleficent.
Aurora grinned at the old nickname. “Yes.” It would be good to be away from the Perceforest castle, away from the smoke and the iron and the constant feeling that someone was waiting to corner her.