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“Where is the king?” I asked.

They stared at me, mouths agape. Then, “The Grove,” one said in a tremulous voice. The other fled.

“Oh dear,” Arna said, though she did not look displeased.

“Shall—shall I send for him?” said the remaining servant.

“No,” Arna answered in her calm, imperious manner. “We shall seek him there. It is fitting that I should abdicate power at the foot of my old throne.”

Now, the fact that I refrained from pointing out that power would not be abdicated on her say-so, for she had been thoroughly overthrown already, or that, as the present queen of the realm, it was my opinion of the situation that mattered, represented a remarkable display of high-mindedness on my part, I believe. I was mollified somewhat by the hesitation of the servant, whose gaze darted in my direction. I nodded.

My first priority, of course, was Shadow, and so after summoning a servant to fetch him his favourite victuals, I took him to our bedroom and helped him hop up on the bed, which ordinarily he can manage without assistance. He was asleep almost immediately, but I stayed at his side another moment, gently rubbing faerie salve into his joints—it is a new concoction made by one of the castle brownies, and has proven remarkably effective. He twitched with pleasure when I did his knees.

Arna and I continued through the castle. Many Folk fled at the first sight of her, including the poor tailors in the dressing room, who launched their handiwork and needles into the air with a flurry of squeaks and pushed and shoved at one another in their haste to be gone. Yet just as many mastered themselves enough to return, following behind us at a safe distance and muttering amongst themselves. We accumulated Folk as we went, both servants and courtiers, courtly and common fae. In fact, once we alighted at the foot of the staircase, it seemed as if everyone in the castle were trailing after us. The stairs were clogged with a long river of Folk, some elbowing others aside to achieve the best vantage.

“Good grief,” I murmured. I’d had more than enough of feeling like the heroine in a stage performance. Yet perhaps it was better this way—the more onlookers, the greater the likelihood the events of the day would be accurately remembered and retold.

Once we gained the forest path, our audience had swelled to such an extent that Folk began clambering into the trees to keep us in sight. Two young women in elaborate court dresses giggled and shoved at each other from the canopy, their skirts hiked to their thighs. Another man slipped and fell to the ground, landing on the path before us, where he screamed and scrambled aside as if we might blast him to cinders where he lay. I had never seen so many Folk assembled in one place, and was so unnerved I only barely kept my countenance; they seemed to tangle together like a forest within the forest, a vast conglomeration of leaf and moss and fine silk, beauty and monstrousness. Snowbell materialized out of the chaos, snapping his teeth at one of his brethren who had attempted to follow him.

“What an adventure!” he crowed, leaping onto my shoulder and preening, as if he too had returned from a perilous quest in a haunted otherland. Well, at least somebody was enjoying the attention, I suppose.

One would think Arna noticed none of them, for her stride remained purposeful and unhurried, her gaze never straying from the path. And perhaps she did not, for she had served as sole monarch for more than a decade, and as queen longer than that, and was doubtless used to the ridiculous habits of her subjects.

And then we had come to the Monarchs’ Grove.

It had not been spared the queen’s poison. The mist was gone, but the trees were blackened, as if from wildfire, and yet their leaves remained, dark and tattered, so that the grove seemed to have more shadow in it than it had before. The towering oak whose roots made up our thrones had not been touched, however. It was whole and quite healthy.

Wendell was seated upon his throne, one hand resting on the arm as he leaned forward with a frown, doubtless having heard the approaching tide of Folk. Razkarden perched on the back of his throne, hideous legs unfurled, watching me with his unfathomable gaze. Orga was in Wendell’s lap, and he had his other hand on her back, which was arched slightly, as if she were prepared to pounce on whatever threats might be drawing nigh. Snowbell gave a little start at the sight of her and leapt to the ground to hide behind my ankle, though he bared his teeth all the while. As I do not generally prefer the beast to be within close range of my extremities, I found this behaviour distracting, and only just restrained myself from kicking him away. Behind Wendell stood Niamh and several guards, and before him knelt a courtier, who must have been in the middle of seeking some favour, and who now stared in our direction with a terrified expression. Other courtiers crowded together at the opposite side of the grove, and I caught flashes of green disappearing into the forest—brownies fleeing from the tumult, I assume.

Wendell wore his possessed cloak, which gave a grumble into the silence that had fallen, and a crown of silvered rhododendrons in his hair. Against the backdrop of greenery and blasted stumps, he was as arresting as ever, but very pale—I could tell at a glance that he had not been sleeping.

As the eyes of the assembled Folk fell upon me, I realized that I had forgotten to change back into my queenly attire. I still had on my old shift and winter wellies, as if I were returned from fieldwork in the countryside. I was even more dishevelled than usual from my adventure, for I had lost a bootlace somewhere along the way, and I did not even want to imagine what my hair looked like. My journal poked out of one pocket, my notebook another, and my fingertips were smudged with ink. I looked every inch a scholar, a none-too-reputable one at that, and not one millimetre a queen.

And yet, somehow, this seemed barely to register on my audience. The Folk stared at me as much as Arna, with an avidity they had never displayed before. Perhaps it was the contrast I made with themselves, perhaps something else. The Folk respect power above most things, after all, and perhaps there was power in abandoning my fumbling attempts to please them, as if I were above it all, even if I did not feel that way.

In any case, I was not used to commanding their attention, and on the whole was not certain I preferred it.

Nevertheless, I pretended as if none of these thoughts existed, and drew my shoulders back. I had prepared my speech, and practiced it mentally several times. “Forgive me,” I said to Wendell. “I have gone against your wishes. I do not believe I had the right to do so in this case, as she is your stepmother and it was your family she took from you—not to mention your kingdom. Yet I cannot abide the thought of losing you, either now or in future. I know you will wish to send her back to the Veil. But I can only ask that you listen first to—”

He closed the distance between us and wrapped me in his arms, and I could not speak.

“I was terrified you would not return,” he mumbled into my hair. “Will you go away again? Please say no.”

I touched his face, which I realized was wet. I drew back to look at him.

“I will not,” I said. “I’m sorry.”

He only pulled me to him again, gripping me so tightly I suspected he did not believe me. Someone started strumming a harp, some romantic ballad, but was almost immediately shushed by at least a dozen voices. I wanted to suggest we continue the conversation in private, but naturally, none of the other protagonists in our impromptu stage drama paid any heed to the innumerable eyes upon them.

Arna, at my side, fidgeted with impatience. “Your wife is not the only one come with apologies, Your Highness.” She went down on one knee, bowing her head low. “I surrender myself to your judgment. I am cured of my desire for a throne—indeed, for anything that is not the humblest mode of existence, as nothing could please me more than the sunlight upon my skin or the birdsong in these trees.”

Wendell drew back, swiping his sleeve over his eyes, and squinted at her irritably, as if she were another self-important musician inserting herself where she wasn’t needed.

“How in God’s name did you get her out?” he said, looking at me with such bafflement that it teetered on the edge of amusement.

“You don’t wish to know why first?” I said, unable to stop smiling. It seemed highly inappropriate, given the circumstances. Yet Wendell was gazing at me with such an expression of delight, awe, and relief, and showing not the slightest indication of flying into one of his fits of temper, nor any evidence that such a tendency could exist in one so light of heart, that I almost wished to laugh.

“Oh, I know why,” he said. “Some scholarly tome told you that you must rescue her, did it not? And so you have trusted in that, rather than the evidence of your own eyes, which proved my stepmother deserving of every punishment a mind could invent.”