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Aurora was glad. She liked the solar. There was no throne for her to sit in, intimidating everyone who came to make a request of her. Instead, she sat in a cushioned chair and considered ways to find the groom. She would alert her castellan and have his soldiers sweep the land. Perhaps once she’d spoken to the family, she’d have more information about how to focus the search.

A few minutes later, three people entered: a man, holding his hat in his hand, and two older women. The man bowed low, and the women sank into deep curtsies.

“Your boy has gone missing?” Aurora asked.

One of the women stepped forward. She was thin enough that she might be blown over by a curl of smoke. A worn shift hung from her gaunt shoulders. “You must convince the faeries to give back our little Simon.”

“You believe faeries took him?” Aurora said, incredulous. “But why?”

“He had a charmed way with animals,” said the man, and Aurora realized he must be Simon’s father. “And he could play a reed pipe like no one you ever heard, though he’s barely fourteen. Why, even the ancients would be up on their feet and dancing. The Fair Folk are jealous of clever boys like that. They wanted him for themselves.”

This was exactly the reason the country needed a treaty, and exactly the reason one was so hard to negotiate. Aurora was certain that the Fair Folk hadn’t taken the boy—faeries were fond of pipers, sure, but not that fond of them—and she was equally certain that Simon’s family wouldn’t believe her without evidence.

“Could something else have happened to him?” she asked gently.

Lord Ortolan cleared his throat. “The boy was a thief.”

The second woman spoke. Her hair was white and pinned up into a large bun, and her voice shook a little with anger. “Whatever you’ve heard—those other stories, they’re false.”

“Other stories?” Aurora prompted them. “What was he accused of stealing?”

“One of your horses, Your Majesty,” said Lord Ortolan. “And a silver dish besides. The reason no one can find him is that he ran off.”

“That’s not true,” said the man. “He was a good boy. He liked his work. He had no sweetheart and he’d never so much as been to the next town.”

“I will see what I can discover,” Aurora promised.

“The faeries have him,” said the elderly woman with the bun. “Mark my words. Your Majesty, pardon my saying so, but they’re feeling emboldened with you on the throne. Why, just the other day—”

“The cat,” the man said knowingly, nodding.

“Cat?” Aurora asked, and almost instantly regretted the question.

They told her the tale of the storyteller and Maleficent, and though none of them had been present when it happened, Aurora didn’t doubt it was true. By the time they were ushered out, some twenty minutes later, Aurora was left with a heavy heart.

“If you will excuse me…” she said to Lord Ortolan, and began to rise.

“Your Majesty”—he cleared his throat—“you may recall that there was something I wanted to discuss with you earlier.”

“I recall that you didn’t want me to talk to Simon’s family,” she said sharply. Not for the first time, she considered dismissing Lord Ortolan. If only he didn’t have so much influence at court. If only he weren’t the person who understood how so many things in the kingdom worked. It was clear that King Stefan had allowed Lord Ortolan to manage all the practical aspects of Perceforest while he nursed his obsession with Maleficent and argued with her severed wings.

“I didn’t want you to have to waste time speaking with the rabble yourself. After all, it is my duty and privilege to protect you from such things as would naturally bring a young lady discomfort,” Lord Ortolan said smoothly. “But there is something else as well.”

Aurora thought of the breakfast she hadn’t had time to take more than a bite of and all the other things she ought to be doing. She thought of the missing boy and the villagers’ report that Maleficent had turned a storyteller into a cat. She thought of the treaty. She didn’t want to hear about something else that had gone wrong.

But she couldn’t say any of that aloud, especially to Lord Ortolan, who would love to take away all her problems and make all her decisions for her. “Very well,” she said instead. “So what is it?”

He cleared his throat. “Flowers, Your Majesty. A wall of flowers is growing, encircling Perceforest.”

“That sounds pretty…” she said, baffled by his grim tone.

Lord Ortolan frowned and went to a desk where a wooden box rested. “Yes, I can see why it might sound that way. But you will recall the wall of briars that surrounded the Moors, protecting it from humans.”

Aurora waited for him to explain the significance of the briars. “Is our kingdom cut off from the others? Is trade no longer possible?”

Lord Ortolan cleared his throat again, noisily. “It’s not that—not exactly. The roads are clear of flowers—well, the flowers have grown in an arch above the roads. One can still enter and exit Perceforest. But tradespeople are frightened. Many are turning back. And some of our people are afraid to leave for fear the passageways will close.”

He opened the wooden case. Inside was a length of vine with two large roses attached, both flowers the deep black of spilled ink. The outside of each petal shone like polished leather, while the insides had the thick dull nap of velvet. At the end of each petal was a spike like the stinger on the tip of a scorpion’s tail.

“Ah,” said Aurora. “I can see how those might be a little alarming.”

“A little?” Lord Ortolan choked on the words. “This must be your godmother’s doing, but what does she intend?”

“She means no harm to anyone in Perceforest,” Aurora said, stroking one of the black petals. It was extraordinarily soft, aside from the stinger, and very beautiful. Just like her godmother.

“Your Majesty, how can we know?” Lord Ortolan insisted.

“She’s being helpful,” Aurora said with a fond smile, “which means it will be much harder to convince her to stop.”

Chapter 4

When Maleficent had placed a crown on Aurora’s head, she hadn’t thought she was putting Aurora in danger. Making her queen of two kingdoms had seemed like a perfect plan. After all, Aurora had wanted to live in the Moors, and she was already the heir to Perceforest. She was a human the faeries loved, and humans would be predisposed to love her, too.

Maleficent believed she would make a wonderful queen.

And she was wonderful.

But the job turned out to be terrible. In the Moors, the only expectation of Queen Aurora was that she guard them from outside threats. But in Perceforest, danger came from all sides—and so did obligations; when her people didn’t want to trick her or cheat her or steal her throne, they wanted her to solve all their problems.

And since Maleficent was the one who had put Aurora in that position, she’d decided to help her—in small ways. Nothing too obvious.

A few seeds planted along the borders. Potions cooked up to guard Aurora against poison. The occasional criminal waking in the royal prisons, begging to confess. Lightning storms drawn from the clouds when it seemed as though Perceforest’s farmlands had gone too long without rain.

And if people looked up in fear when thunder crashed around Aurora, well, perhaps that was no bad thing, either. It was a good reminder that if the humans ever thought to move against her, there would be no one to hold Maleficent back.