t had been one of those days.

Much to my own surprise, I hadn’t felt like practicing magic today. I’d been pushing myself hard for the past three weeks and I’d woken up feeling totally drained.

This wasn’t only because of the physical exertion involved with channeling magic; another side effect of my increased practice was more nightmares. The amount of power I used directly correlated with the clarity and number of visions that filled my head. As a result, my sleep had been pretty eventful since coming home.

And yet . . . even this wasn’t the true cause of my exhaustion and stress.

By now I was more or less used to seeing the future in my dreams. And I’d been expecting the consequence of increased dreams with more magic. What I had not anticipated was being plagued with flashes of the past. It was those suffocating memories that caused me the most distress. Images of the magic hunters and their brutal attack continued seeping into my slumber. When they came back they short-circuited my visions of the future, eventually waking me up in fear and panic.

Like this morning. Everything was going fine in dreamland. I was having a stream of vision flashes that, like several previous nights, seemed connected by the theme of Neverland. I saw tiny fairies with multi-colored, flashing wings. Pirates milling around a dock. And—extremely on the nose—an alleyway that led to a storefront window with the sign “Neverland’s Best Souvenir Shop.” Then something peculiar happened. I was in a void and a man appeared.

The only person who’d ever spoken to me in a dream directly, not as a part of a vision, had been Liza. This was something new and therefore interesting. The man was about sixty and had a long, wispy, white beard. He wore a silver-and-dark-blue robe with a utility belt that held an assortment of leather pouches. In his hand was a crazy staff that ended in a ridged, twisted point like a mining drill.

“Finally,” he said. “I’ve been trying to reach you for an eternity, but this darn cave blocks my projection.”

“Sorry?” I said. “Who are you?”

“Not important, Crisanta. I’m here to talk to you about where you go next. You and your friends need to go to Never—”

I was flattened to the ground. All of a sudden my dream was overpowered by memories of the magic hunters. My body was on the floor of the barn with the hunters holding me down; I could feel the ache of the arrow wound I’d sustained. I struggled and looked up. Parker approached. The flames and shadows behind him were even more malicious than I remembered. I tried to escape the memory, but continued reliving flashes of it until leering images of Parker eventually woke me with a jolt of terror.

As I lay in bed, I realized the time had come to heed my mother’s advice and let someone in. It was a difficult decision to make, and I was reluctant to make it at all given the afterburn of Daniel pushing me away. But I desperately needed to talk to someone. If I didn’t, I knew soon enough my fears might cause me to crack.

By the afternoon I’d decided I would talk to Alex. His recent mood swings had been throwing me, but he had always been my friend, a good brother, and a kind of mentor. I trusted that when it mattered most he was someone I could put my trust in. Now I simply needed the right opportunity to do it.

“Crisanta?”

I lifted my head on hearing my mother’s voice on the other side of my bedroom door.

In lieu of doing some of the take home schoolwork Lady Agnue had assigned me, I’d been reading my Shadow Guardians book for the majority of the afternoon, swaddled up on my bed in a large wool sweater. I’d brought the book with me from Lady Agnue’s but had been concentrating so hard on my magic over the last few weeks that I had yet to touch it. Until today it’d been hidden in one of my desk drawers beneath a pile of miscellaneous letters, postcards, and receipts I’d collected over the years. Today there was a storm brewing outside, so it seemed like the right time to put a pin in my magic practice in favor of some reading.

I hadn’t found anything interesting in the Shadow Guardians book since that big discovery back at school. However, I did come across a picture of an actual Shadow. It was my first exposure to what the creatures looked like and—in a word—it was horrifying. The Shadow was black, jagged, and flat like an evil ink stain. It had a crooked, blood-red mouth and shining slit eyes. Just seeing it in the book made me shudder and I quickly turned the page.

When I heard my mom’s voice at the door my eyes immediately darted to the untouched pot of tea on the platter on my nightstand. Every day my ladies-in-waiting brought me afternoon tea at my mother’s request. She loved the stuff, and whenever I was home she tried to force me to drink it because she thought it was more ladylike than the coffee or hot chocolate I preferred. Despite her efforts, I avoided the beverage whenever possible. Both Pietro and I hated tea.

Not wanting to hurt my mother’s feelings, I launched myself from the bed and grabbed the pot—long grown cold—by the handle.

“Hold on a second, Mom!” I called.

I thrust open the balcony doors and dumped the contents over the side of the railing. Then I scurried back inside, latched the doors, and put the pot back on the platter.

“Come in,” I said.

The door handle turned and I had a mini panic attack when I saw the Shadow Guardians book still lying on my comforter. I thrust the text under the bed then hopped back on the mattress before the door opened.

My mother strode in smiling. “Studying hard, Pumpkin?”

“Yup, sure am,” I said, trying to look as casual as possible surrounded by the paperwork I’d been using to translate the Shadow Guardians book. Hopefully my mother thought it was part of my homework.

“Well, perhaps you can take a short break,” my mom continued. “You have mail.” She held out an envelope in her hand.

This got me excited. I had been corresponding with Blue and Jason during my stay at home. They’d kept me updated on the various happenings around school. More importantly, they’d given me updates about their Wonderland mapmaking progress. Naturally these messages were encoded. Jason had taken a code decryption course last year and had shown me and Blue some of the basics. I was easily able to translate the jumbled text in their letters for the news I sought.

“Who from?” I asked.

“Chance Darling,” she responded.

The eagerness in my expression sank. “Oh.” I took the envelope from my mother and noticed that the golden seal on the outside was broken. “You opened it.”

“I know how much trouble you have opening envelopes,” my mother replied.

I chose not to rebut this comment. She wasn’t wrong, but it sucked that this literally gave her a free pass to look at my mail. I took out the folded letter and read:

Dear Crisanta,

I wanted to come and visit you after I heard what happened the night of the fire at Lady Agnue’s. However, knowing how fond you are of my presence, I decided that you did not need to feel any worse.

Within this brief message, I cannot properly tell you how I felt when I learned what almost occurred. So I shall not attempt to. A fact for which I am sure you just released a huge sigh of relief.

Instead, I shall say this. Please be well, and know that you are missed. I will be thinking of you and hope that, even if it is for just a moment, this letter allows you to think of me too. In a non-irritated manner, that is.

Sincerely Yours,

Chance Darling

P.S. I have not forgotten my promise to prove my affections for you are genuine. By the time you return to school, I believe I will have finally found a way.

I felt my lips curve into a small smile as I folded the note. This was due in part to his relentlessness, and also in part to the gladness over being reminded of school and life outside this castle. The smile vanished when I looked up at my grinning mother.

“So . . .” she said, overly cheerfully.

“So . . .” I echoed back.

“You did not tell me that Chance Darling was courting you. He is a lovely boy, and the Darlings are a wonderful family. I always told his parents when we used to visit them up north that the two of you would make a lovely couple.”

“Mom!” I groaned. “What’s happening with Chance and me is my business. And anyway, we’re not a couple.”

“You mean he is not attempting to court you?” my mother asked, confused.

“No. He definitely is,” I responded.

“Then what is the problem?”

“The problem is that I don’t want him to. We’re too different. I could never actually,” I grimaced, “date someone like him. I don’t even know if I like him as a person, let alone as a boy.”

My mother nodded. “That is fair enough. Love at first sight is not a happenstance for every person like it was for your father and me. Some people attain true love through friendship that deepens over time. Perhaps that is the route you are meant to take.”

“Yeah, sure,” I said, scooting my mother out of the room before the conversation could get any more awkward. “That’s got to be it. Look, we’ll talk later, Mom. I have schoolwork to do.”

“All right, Pumpkin. I shall see you at dinner.”

“Yup, sounds good. Bye now.”

I closed the door behind her and locked it.

And I thought my conversation with Alex about dating had been uncomfortable.

Though I supposed the next conversation I needed to have with him would be even harder.

“When did you become such a good swimmer?”

I wiped away the water in my eyes with one hand as I held on to the edge of our indoor swimming pool with the other. Alex was looking down at me. He was dripping too, but with sweat. He must’ve been working out in the gym next door.

My brother’s face warbled in the reflection of the pool’s waters. The fluorescent pink lights at the bottom made his hair look blonder and his eyes seem paler.

“Last semester I had some aquatic-related adventures in Adelaide,” I explained. “I promised myself that I would try to get a pool installed at Lady Agnue’s after that. She said no, of course, and I never got a chance to try the one at Lord Channing’s. But that doesn’t mean I can’t make use of the one here. Figured I might as well add another skill to my repertoire, you know.”

Alex nodded and took a piece of paper out of his pocket—the note I’d slid under his door this morning.

“Care to explain?”

“I wanted to talk to you,” I said reluctantly. “Do you have a minute?”

He pulled over a bench and sat. I leaned both arms against the edge of the pool and let my chin rest against them with a sigh. This was it. This was to be my first attempt at letting someone in on my vulnerabilities since Daniel. I bit back the uncertainty. It had to be done. I not only needed someone to trust; I needed to know that I could trust someone again.

“I’ve been having a lot of stressful dreams,” I admitted to Alex, finally voicing the truth. “Ever since the magic hunter attack, I can’t seem to make them stop. I think I’m suppressing a lot about that night and I really need someone to talk to. I need someone to listen and not judge me for it, or try to be overprotective, or make me feel weak and small. I need someone to just be there for me.” I glanced up at my brother. “Can I trust you to do that, Alex? If I let you in, can I count on you not to let me down?”

“Crisa, of course you can,” my brother said evenly. “You can trust me with anything. I would never betray your trust and I would never let you down. You know that.”

I gulped and steadied myself.

“All right then. Here’s the truth,” I said. “I know I act like nothing bothers me, but it’s not true.” I stared into the water as the memories came back and emotion welled up in my throat. “That night with the hunters was terrifying,” I said in a whisper. “It wasn’t only the fire and the arrows—the hunters also dosed me with a Poppy Potion. To be drugged like that was the scariest experience of my life because all of my strength, my weapons, my fighting skill, and my magic, didn’t matter. They weren’t enough to save me. If my friend Girtha hadn’t shown up when she did, I would have been killed. It’s not the first time I’ve had a brush with death—but before I didn’t have so much riding on me. I can’t go into it with you right now, but there are a lot of people relying on me these days. And that night makes me wonder . . . how can I possibly hope to protect others when I can’t even protect myself?”

There was a drawn out pause before Alex responded.

“Maybe you need to stop thinking about others.”

I perked up with a touch of indignation. “What?”

“Crisa, you’re young and you’ve only begun defining your story. If you keep worrying so much about how your destiny affects others, then you’re never going to be able to take care of yourself properly and give yourself what you need to survive.”

I genuinely didn’t know how to reply. Alex’s point wasn’t totally invalid, but it was definitely a lot colder than what I’d been expecting.

I knew I spent more time worrying about others than I did about myself. But I cared about others more than I cared about myself. My friends, Natalie Poole, my family, my realm—they mattered more than I did. How could I compare my one life to the importance of securing the well-being of an entire world? And how could I exist in a world where the people I loved had been destroyed by the plots entangling me?

The answer: I couldn’t.

“For what it’s worth,” Alex continued, “you don’t have to be scared here.”

“I know, I know,” I said as I heaved myself out of the pool. I covered my silvery bathing suit with a fluffy white robe and tried to get warm. “The magic hunters can’t get to me here. We have walls and guards and weapons coming out of our ears. That’s why Lady Agnue sent me home.”

“True,” Alex replied as he stood up. “But you also have me.”

Despite my sogginess, he gave me a solid hug. The last of the stress I’d been holding onto melted away and was replaced with warmth. Alex may have been acting odd lately, but it was good to know I could still count on him. While his advice hadn’t been the best, I appreciated him listening. And I appreciated him loving me too.

I think it was fair to say that I was beginning to develop an unnatural trepidation toward envelopes.

The one Lady Agnue handed me back at school had been the ultimate bearer of bad news, telling me I would have to return home. I hadn’t minded the letter Chance had sent me at first. However, the interest it caused my mother to take in my nonexistent love life made me super uncomfortable. And then there was the matter of the message I’d found on my bedroom floor this morning. Someone had slid it under my door during the night.

The envelope it came in was unmarked. A small note on the inside contained the following instructions:

Exit the courtyard through the stables. Grab a shovel. Take the Jacaranda path until you reach the twelfth tree on your right. Turn off the path and head down the hill. Find the wild jasper berry bushes growing near the back of the mausoleum. Careful; they’re poisonous.

Then dig.

You’ll know where.

Needless to say, I was both intrigued by and suspicious of the message.

I also couldn’t understand why the note-writer had insisted that I take such a convoluted path to the mausoleum. I had half a mind to ignore the instructions and use my own method of getting there through the hedge maze. I also had half a mind not to go at all. I mean, secret messages slipped in the dead of night beneath one’s bedroom door hardly screamed trustworthy.

Still, my curiosity tended to surpass precaution in situations like this, so I decided to skip breakfast, grab my wandpin, and head in pursuit of whatever I was meant to find on the outskirts of the grounds.

The palace was busy today. Very busy. There was a big event going on in our ballroom that was keeping most of the staff occupied. People hustled and bustled around me with their own missions. And yet, someone still managed to take notice that I was up to something.

“Oh there you are, Pumpkin. I was looking for you,” my mother said.

I’d been about to slip through a side door that led out back when she came around the corner. “Have you had breakfast?” she asked me.

“Um, no. I wasn’t hungry.”

“Not hungry?” my mother’s brow furrowed with concern. “That is not like you. Are you sick? There is something going around the palace, you know.”

She tried to put the back of her hand on my forehead, but I stepped out of reach. “I’m fine. Did you need something, Mom?”

“Yes. I wanted to ask you to help me with the final arrangements for the banquet we are having for the King and Queen of Tunderly.”

“Mauvrey’s parents?”

My archenemy’s parents?

“Yes,” my mother replied. “You would know that if you came to any of the advisor forums or party planning committee meetings I invited you to in the last few weeks. But I digress. The point is that the Weatheralls are coming as a prelude to our kingdoms’ partnership for Vicennalia Aurora festivities next month. It is a grand celebration that happens every twenty-five years when—”

“Yeah, I know what it is,” I interjected. “But what does it have to do with me exactly?”

“Well, I thought it might be good practice for you,” my mother replied. “You have been back nearly a month and we have spent so little time together. We should see to your princess duties every now and then, do you not agree?”

“Fine, Mom,” I huffed. “When will the Weatheralls be here?”

“In three days. So I will need you to start assisting me tomorrow morning at eight o’clock sharp, all right?”

“Okay, but fair warning—arrival of the Weatheralls withstanding—my friends will also be arriving here in three days. Remember? They’re coming in for a visit.”

I couldn’t believe it’d almost been a month since I left Lady Agnue’s. It felt like another world ago. I was both excited and nervous about seeing my friends again. I missed them, but I missed the old versions of our friendships, not the fragile ones we had now. I’d left on such odd terms with each of them—SJ and me fighting, Daniel and I in a weird place post him pushing me away, Jason having learned that I foresaw his death, and me not being able to tell Blue about it. I didn’t know what it was going to be like reuniting with them.

“Lady Agnue and Lord Channing gave them permission to leave school?” my mother asked, surprised.

“Spring break starts next week.”

“Oh, yes. With you being home I had forgotten. I have been so busy lately. How many of your friends are we expecting again?”

“Four,” I responded. “SJ, Blue, and Jason—all of whom you’ve met—and the guy I mentioned a few weeks back, Daniel. They’re coming here for a couple days and then we’re going to go stay with Jason on his farm in Coventry for the rest of the break. I mentioned it over breakfast a couple weeks ago.”

Staying with Jason was a lie, but not even a professional interrogator would’ve been able to see through my veil of deception.

I felt bad lying to my mom, but it was necessary. Students were free to leave campus over spring break, so our headmasters wouldn’t know we were embarking on another quest—this time to find Paige Tomkins. However, my friends and I needed a cover for our parents.

Via encoded letter, we’d decided what we were going to tell them. Our parents knew that Blue lived in a cottage with her mother in Harzana and would not have room for four teenage houseguests. Involving my family or SJ’s in the lie was tricky because they were both royalty and could potentially talk to each other. And none of our families had met Daniel, so we doubted they would be okay with us staying with a stranger. Thus, Jason’s home was to be our alibi. Our families had met him and my friends and I had actually stayed at his farm once before. He came from a good family that lived on a large property, and his brother Jack was a protagonist.

We’d all told our respective families we were staying with him, and he’d told his family he was remaining at school during spring break to train for his Hero Finals, which plenty of male protagonists actually did.

“Very well,” my mother said, buying my lie. “I shall remind your father and ensure the staff prepare rooms and attire.” She began to stride down the corridor but then paused.

“Oh, and Crisanta,” she said over her shoulder. “I am still capable of detecting that look of mischief in your eyes. Whatever you are up to this morning, do stay out of trouble.”

I couldn’t help but smile. “Yes, Mom.”

She smiled slightly too. “I do hope that is not another hollow promise, Pumpkin. Your expression suggests otherwise.”

I felt a tad resentful for how easily my mother could read me, but truly grateful for how understanding she was of my nature.

Once outside, I walked east through the stone courtyard until I reached the stables. Following the note’s instructions, I entered. I was about halfway to the other side when I glanced around at the rafters, the horses, the hay—and realized something. I was not scared anymore.

Being in here before had filled me with PTSD-level panic. Now I felt nothing. In fact, now that I thought about it, last night had been the first night in a while that I hadn’t dreamed of the magic hunter attack. Relief flowed through me.

The anxiety was gone. Talking with Alex really had helped. While I was still concerned about the hunters and the threat they posed, I was no longer crippled by the fear. I’d let the memory go. By letting someone in, I’d let that night go.

At the end of the stables, I grabbed a shovel from an unlocked supply shed and pushed through the exit. The Jacaranda trees were blooming and I took in their pale purple grandeur in the light of the spring day. When I reached the twelfth tree in the row, I strode off the path to the right and looked down. Leaning my free hand against the bark of the tree, I gazed at the slope.

A good portion of our castle’s perimeter was natural forest that had never been developed. I had always been grateful for this. Living in a compound so unnaturally rigid and architecturally flawless, I’d always enjoyed having unruly wild life encircling us.

As I stared into the forest’s depths, I began to question this endeavor. I didn’t know who had sent that note. I didn’t know what I was going to find down this path. Yet, I was driven onward by my interest to see the mission through and discover what lay at its conclusion.

I moved down the hill, my knowledge of the grounds guiding me in the direction of the mausoleum. It must have been ten minutes before I eventually saw it peeking through the trees.

I headed round back. A number of jasper berry bushes grew here, the likes of which I had long been warned to be careful around.

As my mother had keenly pointed out, I did like to eat. So when I was younger it had been necessary to repeatedly tell me not to go eating whatever wild berries I came across on the palace grounds. Many plants (like the nearly translucent white berries on these bushes) were incredibly poisonous.

With this logic in mind, the mud around these bushes should’ve been undisturbed. The only person who had the impulse to wander around the outskirts of the palace was me, and I had been trained since my toddler princess days to avoid playing near toxic plants. However, as I studied the ground, I was surprised to discover footprints in the dirt. The leaves were flatter in these spots, the earth scattered in a way that seemed unnatural. I knelt and looked closer.

Yup, someone’s definitely been through here. More than once by the looks of it.

I followed the prints as best I could through the domain of jasper berry bushes, the occasional gagecho darting over my path.

The note said that I would know when to dig. After a minute, I realized it was right. Beneath the threshold of an overbearing bush to my left, I found a patch of disturbed ground.

I bent down to inspect further. The pungent scent of jasper berries filled my nose and for a moment I allowed myself to breathe it in. Despite the toxic nature of the berries, their sweet yet sharp, wintery fragrance had always seemed quite lovely to me.

I analyzed the area beneath the bushes. The dirt was loose, and seemed to have been patted into a mound. Someone had buried something here.

Shovel in hand, I began to dig. It did not take me long to hit something. I leaned over to see what’d I’d uncovered. Lying in the earth was a wooden box. It was no bigger than a jewelry chest and latched shut with a small lock.

I put down the shovel and reached for it. As I did, the lid began to rumble. I jumped back slightly and stared into the hole. The box was jiggling as if something were trapped inside, something tiny and angry that very much wanted to get out.

Lapellius.

Placing my wand on the ground at the ready—I pulled the box out of the hole. The thing only jerked around more upon my touch. I set it on a pile of leaves as I picked up my wand.

Knife.

I held up my unbreakable blade, ready to slice the lock and possibly stab at whatever came out of the box if necessary. With a swift motion I chopped off the lock. The lid flew upward instantly as a shiny something shot out of the box. Actually, a whole lot of shiny somethings.

A cluster of tiny glass shards flew into the air. They swarmed around like a small, but loyal team of mosquitoes, whirring furiously, but with purpose. I watched as the pieces grouped together and began to take a more specific shape—slowly going from a flying squad of glass particles to an actual figure.

I squinted as I tried to make out the shape.

A dog?

A dragon?

A horse?

No. It couldn’t be.

The pieces of glass locked together and I saw what it truly was.

A glass Pegasus.

I couldn’t believe that SJ’s glass Pegasus figurine that I’d sent after Mauvrey was flying around me. It’d been gone so long that I’d started to think it had gotten lost or destroyed. But it turned out I’d only been partially right. It had been destroyed, but it hadn’t lost its way. It’d been trapped here, buried beneath the ground of my home in Midveil no less.

Realization struck. The understanding felt like acid coursing through my veins. If this glass creature was here, then that meant that Mauvrey had been here. And if this trail of footprints ran true, that meant she’d been in the castle.