Ursula had been following Jutta. She’d sneaked into the kingdom to dig potatoes in the farm district while everyone else huddled inside the cottage for warmth. It was freezing out, and soon the sun would set, turning the sky black and the air bitter.

She’d crept behind her quarry, glad for the noise of the forest to hide her footsteps, glad there was no wind to carry her scent. She had no desire to kill Jutta, but she would in an instant if the old mare threatened her people.

Every so often, Jutta crouched to pick something up. She seemed to be following a trail of sorts. Shortly after Jutta stopped and hid behind the enormous tree that had grown where Greta died, she flew into the air, bound tightly in branches. Then the tree devoured her. The speed took Ursula’s breath away. One moment, it had been Jutta in the tree. The next, there was only a heap of something on the frozen soil. Clothing, a knife, and a certain pair of boots. Everything else was gone.

Jutta. Ursula had never not known her. Blacksmith. Servant. Her brother’s confessor and collaborator. She’d been a mystery too, happy to betray her kind when Albrecht made his attack. Even so, no one deserved to die like that. The extent of the tree’s nature was becoming clear. Where Jutta’s knife had pierced its bark, it oozed something warm and red.

She put her palm to the trunk and whispered, “I’m sorry.”

The tree responded with music that sounded like weeping. This, Ursula knew, was a place of terrible suffering, suffering she was powerless to fix. Sabine still had not told her how Greta had died. She wondered if she ever would. Either way, the tree had something to do with it. It felt like a gravestone. A memorial. A crypt.

She got down on one knee and collected Jutta’s things. Her clothing. The knife. Her armor. Ursula was glad to have such fine gear. She was gladdest, though, to have one more pair of boots.

She put them on straightaway. They were finely made. Still warm. A perfect fit. She’d always known they would be.

Ursula had almost convinced herself that she’d stopped wanting Sabine. It didn’t hurt so much now. She felt as frozen as the soil. A thaw was as unimaginable as spring felt in the hardest-biting days of winter.

Spring would come again to the world, but Sabine was lost to her. Their kiss had been real. It had happened. She’d felt invincible afterward. Her blood was churning and wild, the sort of force that could carve canyons if given enough time. Now that had no place to go except her dreams, and even they had no loyalty to her. Over and over, they brought visions of Sabine. Waking up was brutal. It was remembering everything she’d lost all over again.

The night that Albrecht murdered Greta, Ursula found Sabine sobbing and covered in blood. She thought Sabine had been bleeding. That she might die. That whole night, she’d held Sabine. As much as she wanted to hear the story of what had happened, she didn’t press Sabine. She understood the essential part—that Greta was gone. That something had changed in the woods. When they woke up, still intertwined, Sabine pushed herself away.

They had not spoken since.

The day after Jutta died, Ursula was chopping wood with Hans. She swung the ax and cleaved a log. The wood itself was nearly as red as the bark. “Hans.”

He grunted at her. Not exactly the way a subject should treat a queen, but he wasn’t the only one. Nobody treated her like a queen anymore. People even called her Ursula. Sabine had started it. The rest of the camp followed her lead. Sometimes Ursula wondered what the world would be if queens were chosen and not born. Who would people choose? Probably not her. People rarely knew what was good for them. This was one of the first lessons Ursula had been taught. One of the reasons it was important to have a queen who knew how to make the right decisions.

Hans hadn’t stopped moving since that awful night. He filled his hours with activity and spoke to no one but Cappella, and even with her, he rarely said more than a word or two at a time. Ursula wanted him to know that Jutta was dead. It might help.

“Do you recognize the boots I’m wearing?”

He turned to look. She saw the moment he remembered them. “Where did you get those?”

“She’s dead.”

“Dead, how? Did you hunt her?” Hans threw logs on the pile. They’d have to clean that up later, but she understood his rage.

“I did not hunt her. The tree …” It felt so strange to say out loud. “The tree that grew after your sister passed … Jutta was standing by it, and then the tree swept her up. It ate her.”

She pulled the pearls from her pocket. “I found these on the ground. Jutta had been following a trail of them. They were my mother’s. My brother must have given them to your sister. They must have dropped as Sabine carried her. They’re quite valuable, as I understand it. They’re yours now.”

“Valuable? What am I supposed to do with these? Buy myself new boots?” He looked gutted. Ursula wanted to tell him it was all right to weep. She swung the ax instead, reducing a red log into halves and then quarters.

Hans kicked at the frozen ground. “Why did Jutta come here?”

“To find us again, I suppose. Perhaps to deliver another message from Albrecht.”

“She’s lucky the tree found her first,” Hans said.

If Jutta had come into the woods looking for them, more men would follow as soon as Albrecht missed her. They had to be ready to fight.

“Hans.” Ursula lowered the ax. He was once again looking at Cappella, who was singing softly to the werechildren who sat around her. Ursula was glad the girl had found a way to make herself useful.

“I wanted to kill Jutta myself,” he said, his voice anguished. “She lied to me. She told me if I went with her, that my sister would be safe.”

“You don’t mean that. Not about killing.” He was still a boy. Granted, not much younger than she, but she was queen, and it was her obligation to kill, by herself if need be, or through the armies and guards she commanded. To wield power was sometimes a matter of death. It was inescapable. She’d been raised to accept that.

“Weres are killers, are we not?”

“No,” she said. “We can if we must. But that is not our nature.”

He made a noise of disgust. “Then why did we sleep in cages every night? Why was that the law, even for a princess?”

The question stopped Ursula short. She’d slept in a cage because she was told to. Because she believed she needed to. It was a golden cage, softened by pillows. But it was a cage, nonetheless. She’d even missed it her first few nights sleeping in the woods.

“Because,” she said. “Because …”

But she did not finish her sentence. She couldn’t think of a reason for it other than she always had locked herself inside one.

Hans tidied the pile of wood, stealing glances at Cappella. The girl had overheard the whole exchange. It felt like a violation to be listened to, and the melody the girl was singing now made Ursula feel morose. She didn’t need that; it was the very thing she was trying not to feel.

“Tell her to be silent,” Ursula said. “Before long, soldiers will come. We have to be ready. And her music will call them like bees to blossoms.”

Hans looked as though he wanted to make a remark, but he did as she commanded. Cappella stopped, ran a hand through her pied hair, and looked at Ursula. It made Ursula uncomfortable, as though Cappella saw things Ursula didn’t know about herself. Making matters worse, the children groaned when she stopped singing. Ursula wasn’t really one for children, but nobody liked disappointing them. She regretted her order, but she could hardly reverse it now. It would make her look weak, and they needed her to look strong.

That was how a leader looked. Certainty was everything. If she was ever going to reclaim the kingdom, she’d have to play the part.

She went back to swinging the ax until every last bloodred log had been reduced to a fraction of its former self. Split like her kingdom, split like her heart, with nothing left to do but burn.

Ursula found Sabine inside the cottage, kneading dough for bread. This was what she did now that her broken arm was healed. Baked bread using potatoes she dried and ground every evening, late into the night. Grinding, kneading, punching. Weeks of silence put a growing wall between them.

Ursula missed the old Sabine. The one who was merry and easy to be with. The one who helped her find the strength she needed to break through the dungeon wall. This version of Sabine seemed much more like one of Albrecht’s windup devices, moving mechanically, without any spark of life behind her eyes. What Sabine needed was a good fight to let that energy out.

This silence had to end.

“Sabine.” Ursula used her most commanding voice because she was too afraid to show any softness.

Sabine looked up, her hands deep in light brown dough. Ursula’s heart caught.

“Let’s get out of here.”

There was no joy in Sabine’s face. No enthusiasm. If she came along it would be out of duty.

Sabine opened the window. “Nicola.”

The little weregoat who often joined Sabine in the kitchen trotted in.

“Wash your hands,” Sabine said. “I’ll need you to finish this bread for me.”

Ursula brought Sabine to the place they’d first met. “Do you remember this?”

Sabine smelled of yeast and rising bread, things that reminded Ursula of potential. She rolled her eyes. “You used to wear much prettier shoes.”

Ursula looked at Sabine’s boots. “You’re not one to talk.”

“They look better on me,” Sabine said. “I’m tired of this. Tired of potatoes. Of not having enough food for the children. I overheard them talking to one another about honey cakes and what they’d give for one. It made me want to cry.”

Ursula took a deep breath. “There is honey in the woods. There are bees—”

“That’s not the point. This is no sort of life. Of sitting here and waiting for men we’ve never harmed to attack us.”

“What do you think we should do?” Ursula hated even asking. She was supposed to have the answers. “Should we attack first? Albrecht is wounded. Only in the face, so it’s nothing vital, but—”

Sabine burst out laughing. “Only in the face. Didn’t you tell me he was the vainest person you’d ever met?”

“Yes, but I meant—”

“I know what you meant. Let me laugh at your evil brother’s stupid face.” Then her face grew serious. “Did you know that’s the first time you’ve asked me what I thought we should do? This is your weakness, Ursula. Your conceit. You haven’t once asked any of us what we want. You haven’t asked any one of us for our opinions and ideas. You’ve taken control. You’ve trained us to fight. But all you want is for things to be as they were before, except with you in charge.”

“That isn’t true,” Ursula said. “I’m going to make everything better.”

“You don’t make things better by keeping the system of power the same,” Sabine said.

“I’m not the system of power. I’m a person. I’m the one responsible for ruling. I never asked for it. I’m doing my best.” Even as she said the words, she felt the hollowness of them. She might not have asked for it, but she’d wanted it. And it was true she hadn’t asked her people what they wanted. What did that matter? She knew what they needed, which was more important.

Sabine turned away. “I don’t want to argue with you.”

“What do you want, then? Tell me and I’ll give it to you. I’ll give you anything.”

“Ursula.” Sabine’s voice was quiet. “We’ve been having this fight since the day we met.”

“It wasn’t a fight,” Ursula said. “It was a good day. The best day. You’re not remembering it right. Don’t rewrite the past. Don’t erase our history.”

Sabine’s expression became wistful, and Ursula understood she was suffering too.

“I do remember one part,” Sabine said. “I remember what an incredibly slow runner you were.”

“What?” Ursula wanted to protest. That hadn’t been the case. But Sabine had already shed her clothes and taken her bear form. Ursula understood. She undressed herself, reveling in the moment it took her to become a bear. Sabine was giving her a gift. She’d take it.

Ursula shot off, but Sabine was the swifter one now. Try as she might, Ursula could not keep up. They ran, turning the woods into a blur, Ursula’s senses gorging themselves until they reached another clearing, where Sabine stopped. Turned. Reared up. Waited.

Ursula crashed into her. On her hind legs, she was taller than Sabine, but Sabine held her own. They stood, paws on each other’s shoulders. They snarled, and there was heat and spit and the rich musk of bear fur. It might have looked like a fight, this exchange. But it was a game, a game where they’d make up the rules as they went, both playing to win.

Ursula had no words as a bear, but she didn’t need them. Unlike human silence, this form was bliss. She’d never been happier than when she wrestled wordlessly with Sabine. Because it made them stronger. Because they belonged to each other. Because every time they did, they grew closer. And even if they could not have each other, that fact would never change. They were equals. Two halves of a whole. A pair.

Ursula tried her hardest to knock Sabine off her feet. She knew she wouldn’t be able to. That was one of the things she loved best about her: her steadfastness. It wasn’t true that Ursula could only rely on herself. She could be sure of Sabine too. It didn’t mean she could have her, but that certainty was everything. Their paws slipped and they were grappling, and either one could have cut the other with teeth, with claws. But they didn’t. Because that’s what love was: being close enough to hurt, and careful enough not to.