“Don’t tell her about the turnips. No one even knows what a butt plug is.”
“Which is what makes it funny. Besides, I’ve been talking to one of the metalsmiths about crafting me one so you can see.”
“If you tell the Queen of Qoksmere about how much I enjoy stuffing things into your hole, I will send you straight to Far End.”
“Is that a real place? Like you really named a place Far End?”
“Of course. It’s on the far end of Qoksmere. In Faraway County, past Hard Pass.”
Pip did the coughing thing he did when he was trying to hide a laugh. “Hard Pass? What’s it like there?”
“It is extraordinarily cold and the primary social activity is watching snow accumulate.”
“That does sound like a Hard Pass. Couldn’t wear shorts.”
“So you will be motivated to be entertaining. And do not mention turnips. Or my cock.”
As we paused in front of the door, Pip straightened his shoulders with the solemn gravity of someone accepting a sacred mission. “I will try my best to entertain the immortal monarch of this realm without referencing root vegetables or sex.”
“That is all I ask.” As the Queen’s footman slipped into the sitting room to announce us, I couldn’t resist a small kiss on the top ofhis head. Pip beamed up at me just as the doors flung open, and we turned to face the Queen. I wanted to give his hand a little squeeze, but that would likely draw the wrong sort of attention.
Queen Delsynarea was already seated when we arrived, a cup of something steaming in her hand and a stack of correspondence on the cushion beside her. She wore a simple dark red gown with no crown, her auburn hair pinned loosely at her neck. Her gold-amber eyes tracked us as we entered, and the firelight caught in them, shifting them briefly toward red.
“Commander,” she said. “Pip. Sit.”
We sat on the opposite settee. Pip folded his legs beneath him, perching as if the furniture might bite. The Queen’s mouth twitched.
“Report,” she said.
I gave it to her clean. We’d spent four days in the field, questioning citizens and traveling to different cities. There had been no confirmed sighting of a second twink in Stonedeep County or Clovermere. The Queen listened, her chin resting on her hand. I recognized the focus she reserved for piecing together a puzzle in her stillness and the slight narrowing of her eyes.
“Anything else?”
“Thyren the Darkwater met a fae trader at the Bogs Bridge garrison who had spent several years in Liminia. An academic. He’d been studying their dimensional theory.”
The Queen straightened, a subtle shift in her posture that told me I had her full attention. “Liminia?”
“This scholar told Thyren something that may be relevant. The Liminians have a portal that can move people to other realms.”
“Other realms?”
“The theory proposed, based on geographical similarities, was that there were many versions of our world. It’s not known why.”
Pip sat up straight. “The multiverse!”
“The what, now?” The Queen asked.
He blinked. “Oh, um. It’s a popular theory in like superhero movies, where I’m from. Distinct universes coexisting on parallel, where some crucial event happened differently, splitting the timeline. For example, if Superman’s spaceship never made it to Earth, or if there was never a mass-extinction event with the dinosaurs. Oh! Do you have dinosaurs?”
I stared at him. As usual, when he spoke of his home, only about half of what he said made sense.
“Do you think they have access to the same realm Pip comes from?” the Queen asked.
Pip, beside me, went completely still.
“I have never encountered the concept, Your Majesty, so I’m not sure. The Liminians have a ruling order—the Liminal Order—that has created objects to try and channel magic into transportation between worlds.”
“Objects like mirrors?” Pip asked.
