Love was just plain terrifying.
Marjory smiled at her, looking a little skeptical. “I hope so, Your Majesty.”
For a moment, Aurora couldn’t recall what they’d been talking about. Then she remembered. Humans and faeries, getting along.
“They will,” she insisted. “They must.” She had to get something right.
For now, Aurora insisted on wearing a simple dress of gray wool that buttoned all the way from her neck to the floor, with pocket slits that showed the red lining.
“I will come back and put on my prettiest gown for the festival, but there’s so much still to do,” Aurora said, pulling it on.
“My lady, no one expects you to get dirty,” Marjory replied.
“But I mean to help out any way I can,” Aurora said, “and there’s no telling what that might entail. I promise to return.”
“See that you do,” Marjory chided. “Wouldn’t you be a shock to your people, dressed as you are.”
Moments later, Aurora was down the stairs and in the kitchens. Despite her head cook’s assurances that she wasn’t needed, she helped take pies out of the oven, climbed a ladder outside to stir enormous vats of soup, and even turned a spit to help cook a mess of fresh-caught fish. Feeding the whole village was an undertaking, and the kitchens were a buzzing hive of activity.
After a breakfast of a bowl of cream, which she shared with a castle cat, Aurora hastened out to the gardens, where servants were setting up long tables and benches for the hundreds of people expected to come. Soldiers were setting up stations to make sure no one brought weapons onto festival grounds. Ribbons and garlands of flowers were being strung from the trees.
Knotgrass, Flittle, and Thistlewit flew around, enchanting ever more ribbons and blooms. An abundance of flowers sprouted from the tops of poles. Ribbons wrapped themselves all the way around the supports of tents and the backs of chairs and occasionally the hilt of a guard’s sword, to his surprise and consternation.
“Isn’t it glorious?” asked Knotgrass. With a wave of her hand, more peonies rained down around a maypole, carpeting the grass in pink. “I do hope everyone behaves themselves.”
Aurora hoped so, too, although she saw Thistlewit turn several bouquets of peonies into daisies. Flittle, for her part, was sneaking off to add bluebells everywhere she could, but at least she wasn’t changing either of her sisters’ flowers. It did seem to Aurora that there were a lot of flowers and a lot of ribbons—and more all the time. The maypole was starting to look a little bit top-heavy, and the tents were sagging under the weight of the many flowers tied to their supports.
“Aunties,” Aurora said, “perhaps you’ve done enough decorating.”
The three pixies buzzed around, frowning. “Oh, no, my dear. There’s so much still to be done,” said Flittle.
“Though it does take a lot of our magic,” Knotgrass said. “Not that we begrudge it to you.”
“Oh, no,” said Thistlewit. “We would work our fingers to the bone to be the least help.”
“As we always have,” Flittle put in, not to be outdone. “The sacrifices that we’ve made—”
“I have an idea,” Aurora said, interrupting them before they got too far along with their protestations of abnegation. “The riddle contest will be the first event of the festival. Perhaps you three can be in charge of that.”
“Yes, of course!” Thistlewit said, drawing herself up with great self-importance. “It’s our pleasure to be helpful.”
Aurora watched them fly off with a heavy heart.
She’d once hoped Phillip would win the riddle contest—in fact, she’d chosen riddles as the sport because of him. But now her thoughts were tangled. She didn’t know what she wanted.
Marjory waved to get her attention, drawing her from her thoughts. Aurora was surprised to see her marching across the lawns of the castle. “The kitchen staff said that I would find you here,” the girl said sternly, putting her hands on her hips. “You must hasten! The first guests will be here soon, and you’re still in that old thing.”
Aurora glanced at the sun, which had dipped lower in the sky than she’d thought. Musicians and jugglers were setting up on the grass. Her stomach growled from a lack of food, and she recalled that she hadn’t eaten since breakfast.
“Very well,” Aurora said. “I’m hastening.”
In her rooms, her dress was spread out on her coverlet, along with smallclothes and dressings for her hair.
Marjory insisted that Aurora take a bath and be perfumed before being laced into a gown of deep blue with a tight bodice, puffed sleeves that narrowed at her upper arms and ran to her wrists, and a low neckline that revealed her finely woven white chemise. Down her arms ran embroidery of leaf-covered vines blooming with white and pink flowers. When she moved, her full skirt swirled around her.
As Aurora drank a cup of tea and ate a slice of bread with cheese, Marjory braided her hair loosely down her back with blue ribbon, then tucked sprays of white flowers into it.
“You look like you stepped out of a story,” said Marjory, pinching Aurora’s cheeks to bring up the color in them.
“Now you sit down,” Aurora said, rising, “and let me tie ribbons in your hair.”
Marjory blushed. “Your Majesty, that wouldn’t be proper.”
“Oh, it won’t take a moment,” Aurora said, “and we have so many that would go well with your dress.”
Marjory allowed herself to be convinced to sit and let Aurora weave ribbons through her hair. When they were done, Marjory looked into the queen’s mirror with a shy smile, turning her head back and forth.
“Do you have plans for the festival?” Aurora asked.
“My sisters are coming up from the mill,” Marjory said delightedly, “and we’re going to play all the games and listen to the musicians. I hear there’s a wonderful storyteller that has a tale of being turned into a magical cat!”
Aurora supposed it was a good sign that the man hadn’t fled the kingdom. Maybe her godmother was right, and the experience had taught him a lesson and not harmed him any.
She hoped that was the case, at least.
And yet it was with some trepidation about the day ahead that she lifted the golden flower-and-leaf crown that signaled her as queen of Perceforest and the Moors and placed it on her head. With one last smile at Marjory, she headed for the palace grounds.
Musicians were playing, and jugglers were tossing shining balls into the air. Guests had arrived. Courtiers walked along the grounds in groups, with pages and maids by their sides. Villagers wandered on the grass, giggling and pointing. Children ran in packs, getting their best clothes dirty. And she saw groups of faeries, too. Faeries made of moss and bark. Pixies and hobs. Foxkin and wallerbogs and hedgehog faeries. The humans gave them a wide berth, but they were there. All of them together, receiving pennies and cakes and cups of cider from palace servants.
The cooks had begun to set out the first course of entremets. These divertissements—like castles of spun sugar, and pies that released live doves into the sky, and swans that seemed to breathe real fire—caused spectators to gasp in surprise. The children, especially, many of whom had not so much as tasted sugar before and had never seen such things, were in transports of delight.
Lady Fiora walked up to Aurora, along with Lady Sybil. Lady Fiora’s black hair was braided up on her head, and she wore a gown of the palest pink. Lady Sybil wore yellow with matching ribbons and a hair caul of gold net.
“You look splendid, Your Majesty,” exclaimed Lady Sybil.
“As do you,” said Aurora, grinning. “Both of you.”