Ursula and Sabine raced into the kingdom. Snow spiraled down and their breath was visible as they ran side by side in human form. Everyone else had remained behind, protecting one another. Their plan was simple: to save Hans and the children. If Ursula could kill Albrecht in the meantime, she would.

It had been the work of moments to dismantle the guards on the bridge, human hands around metal throats. Albrecht wasn’t a fool. Ursula knew metal men on the bridge meant he was saving the flesh-and-blood guards for Hans and the children.

It struck her as she entered the courtyard that she no longer thought of this castle as home. That her goal was no longer to get it back. She didn’t want the kingdom anymore. She wanted the well-being of her people. Together they would figure out what that meant.

She and Sabine stood before an empty cart filled with the remains of gingerbread and honey cakes. She could smell the children on them. She could smell Hans. Could smell her brother.

“I’m ready if you are,” Sabine said. “Do we do this as bears?”

“As bears,” Ursula said. “As ourselves.”

Sabine put a hand on her forearm. “Wait.”

Something in Sabine’s voice made Ursula’s heart pound. Then Sabine tugged her close. She took Ursula’s hand and ran it gently along the wound Ursula had once stitched. The scar gleamed in the moonlight, a reminder of pain. A reminder that bodies heal. Ursula could scarcely breathe. There was that look again, the intent one. This time, Sabine leaned toward her.

It was a wonderful thing to kiss the girl she loved. A girl who was a bear. A girl whose lips were keys that opened every good thing in Ursula. Sabine tasted of snow and tears. Her skin smelled like the woods. Ursula’s body was a river in a rainstorm, rushing, churning, wild, rising against banks, powerful enough to rip trees from the soil and lift houses off their foundations, but gentle enough to change course when it needed to. That strength, that give. It was everything. Sabine was everything.

Sabine pulled away.

“I thought …” Ursula said.

“I know,” Sabine said.

The look she gave Ursula said everything else—that this was a kiss given when there was no time for such things, a kiss given in case there would never again be such a time.

This was a kiss stolen from death.

Ursula burned with it.

The moon pulsed behind snow-filled clouds. Ursula had never felt so strong. Side by side, she and Sabine became their bear selves. Ursula was a large person, and she took up even more space as a bear. The more space she could take in the world, the better. That left less for her brother and anyone trying to hold her back. And to have Sabine beside her, strong, black, and beautiful: It was everything Ursula had ever wanted.

Ursula jerked her nose toward the kitchen door, the one used by everyone considered unimportant. That was how they’d enter this time. They traveled around a corner and encountered a single guard, human. From his expression, Ursula knew he wouldn’t fight.

They burst into the kitchen, where bakers thumped and shaped a few paltry loaves. Ursula stopped to shake snowflakes from her fur. Her brother’s bread ruined, she bounded into the main hall of the castle.

As they raced through the corridors, Ursula skidded and crashed into people too slow or stunned to get out of the way. Her claws weren’t meant for stone floors and woven rugs. They were meant for wide-open spaces and soil that yielded. She ran anyway, desperately seeking signs of Hans and the children.

Sabine ran beside her. Ursula was scared, but she was not alone. As long as she had Sabine, she would never be alone. She had always known this, but it was only now that she understood what it meant, that their bond was more important than anything else, including the queendom.

They came to something of a crossroads, and now they had a choice: to head up the tower or down into the dungeon. The smell of were came from both directions.

They decided with a glance. Ursula would follow the scent up the tower, where Albrecht was most likely to be. Sabine would go below in search of Hans and the children. As they parted, they touched noses, exactly as they had the day they met.

Life had been so different then. Ursula had slept in a cage without questioning it. She’d fought for her right to the throne, which she now knew was nothing but a larger cage with invisible bars. Ursula had never known freedom. She’d never had choices. She’d had only the story she’d told herself about her life, that if she was strong enough, that if she was willing to fight with words, fists, and claws, that if she could make herself like a man, then she would be worthy of ruling. Then her life would be good, and she could make life good for others.

She’d done all these things, and she’d still been deemed unworthy, first by her father, who split the kingdom, and then by her brother, who’d stolen it.

Even after that, she’d tried to lead. She’d tried without a queendom, without a castle, without guards or even always a roof over her head. She’d saved lives, yes. But they’d continued to survive not because of her but because of the labors of everyone. Survival wasn’t a matter of strength or force, birthright or gender. It took courage and love for others—two things her brother would never have, two things she had in abundance. Survival did not require a queen. It took a community.

The staircase wasn’t much wider than Ursula. Every so often as she ascended, she slammed against the stone walls. She felt no pain. Only the urge to climb and the desperate desire to find her brother and kill him. She caught a whiff of blood and roared. It was Hans’s, and it was coming from the direction of Albrecht’s chamber.

At the top, a guard blocked the way. He crouched, aiming his spear. She lowered her head and charged. The guard was quick. But Ursula was quicker, and she outweighed him by hundreds of pounds. He tried to jam his spear into her chest but ended up getting his wrist snapped in the process. His spear clattered down the steps, followed by the thud of his body.

The stairs opened onto a landing, with another guard before a thick door. He was huge, and all his vulnerable bits were covered in a thick, dark leather that gleamed in the torchlight. His eyes widened. But just as quickly they narrowed again.

He crouched and aimed his spear.

Ursula was tired. She’d run so far. So fast. Up such a staircase without so much as a pause. But she was close. She wasn’t going to rest now. She reared up and swung her paw at him, slicing the leather of his breastplate.

This guard was quicker than the last. His spear found a soft spot and slipped between her ribs. It burned. She jerked away, and the spear snapped in two, its tip deep in her chest. She made an involuntary sound, part bellow, part yelp.

The guard reached for his sword. Ursula stood on her hind legs, so the spear didn’t work its way in deeper. The guard’s eyes narrowed again.

She struck. This time, he crashed against the closed door, stunned. Ursula knocked him down the stairs. The noise was awful: meat and bones against stone.

Ursula heaved herself up. The spear in her side felt like an extra rib, one that didn’t fit and was made of fire. She bit at the broken end of the spear but couldn’t pull it out. She might live yet. That she remained in her bear form gave her hope the spear had missed everything vital.

She threw her shoulder against the locked door. Every blow was agony, but it was nothing compared to the fear of what she’d lose if she failed. Again and again she battered the door, until the wood splintered and burst, and she was in Albrecht’s enormous workshop.

Framed by the remains of his shattered window, Albrecht stood with his back to her. He held his hand by his face, the light glinting off a finger that split into twin blades. In front of him was a table. Beside him, one last metal man.

Faceup on the table, his hands and feet strapped in, was Hans.

Ursula charged.