Phillip hated this.

He should have convinced Briar to allow him to wait with the fairies outside the garden, armed and ready to help her, instead of being in the banquet room, uselessly glaring at Matilda of Bavaria. He’d even strapped the Sword of Truth to his waist, despite how much carrying that sword unsettled him. It was an undeniably powerful weapon regardless of his hesitation.

But one of the first things he had noticed about his wife was how she needed him not to press matters—it was a trait he shared with her, albeit an infuriating one when he found himself on the other side of it. She needed space to think through her plans, and he was usually glad to give it to her—except for now, when those plans put her in danger, and he had submitted too quickly to her plea that he serve as Austria’s presence at their impromptu parting banquet.

Which meant that now, she was out in the garden, meeting with Frieda, alone, quite possibly held at swordpoint by Bavarian soldiers—

“Flaying or drawn and quartered?”

Phillip rocked to face Ben with a startled frown. “Pardon?”

Ben nodded across the banquet room. Most of the Bavarian and Hessian contingents were present, and the Prince Electors, all milling about, minstrels playing a light tune from the corner. Frieda was not here, which boded well, and Phillip had counted and re-counted the number of soldiers around Matilda.

Four were missing, which could have merely meant they were off duty.

Or.

Or.

“You look like you’re trying to torture Matilda through the power of thought,” Ben explained. “So I was wondering what method you were hoping to magically visit upon her. Now, personally, I wouldn’t be opposed to a breaking wheel.”

Phillip had gotten used to sensational things coming out of his squire’s mouth, but they were always accompanied by a bright smile or at least that glint in his eye. This one, however, came with a tension around his mouth, and he was looking straight at Matilda, unsmiling.

It was remarkable that Ben had kept any of his levity after Frieda’s appearance. Remarkable and concerning, and Phillip had learned quickly, just as he had adapted to Briar’s needs, that Ben often said straight out what he was thinking, if one looked beneath the humor of his words.

“You still believe Matilda is pulling Frieda’s strings?” Phillip clarified.

Ben blinked at him, then rolled his eyes. “Heaven help me, it’s annoying how quickly you picked up on that.”

“Picked up on what?” He knew what.

“How I—” Ben waved his hand, encompassing something intangible. “Say things with far more flair than others. It took Bri years to figure out how to get to the root of my meanings so effectively. You’re infuriating.”

“Yes, communication is infamously the bane of your existence.”

“Let me have my brooding, sarcastic comments in peace, would you? You don’t adore talking about your feelings, either.” Ben poked Phillip’s rib cage in demonstration, still wickedly bruised from his fall during the joust, and Phillip bit down on a bark of pain.

His father might have said a better king would not allow a squire to treat him so familiarly.

He would be wrong.

Phillip rubbed his ribs. “That is precisely why we both should make a greater effort. Especially given our return to Austria.” He paused, eyeing Ben. “You won’t be all right leaving her.”

Ben held Phillip’s gaze, lips working, but he gave a resigned shrug. “I’ll have to be. And she’ll be empress, right? It’ll hardly be the first time an unsuitable match ended in heartache.”

“Unsuitable match. That is an oversimplification, and you know it.”

“What, you think she and Bri are making good right now? They’ll sweep in here, back to being the best of friends, and Frieda will apologize for…everything, and I’ll grovel a bit, and happily ever after, there we are. That’s what will happen. Right?”

Phillip didn’t dignify that with a response.

Ben sighed. “Look, I tried, all right? I tried to talk to her. I tried to sing to her. She asked to see Briar, not me. So that’s that, isn’t it? Even if they make up. I don’t know what else I could do, but she reached out to Briar, so yes, maybe—I don’t know. I don’t know. I don’t like any of this.”

And there it was, confirmation that this whole situation was wrong, and Phillip truly had no idea how Briar had any faith that Frieda would be there, alone, waiting for her to talk things over.

Köning appeared beside Phillip. “Everyone is gathered, Your Majesty. Would you care to open the banquet with a few remarks?”

An unspoken command was woven into the words; Phillip would need to formally apologize for Briar’s outburst. Over his dead body, honestly; she’d had every right to eviscerate the Prince Electors like that. He was damn proud of his wife.

But he gave Köning a cordial smile. “Of course.”

A prickle ran up the back of Phillip’s spine.

Instinct flared, shooting out to the tips of his fingers, and he was clutching his sword hilt before he even knew why, the surge of a threat cocooning painfully around his lungs. No, damn it, no—Breathe. Breathe fully.

Ben’s focus caught at something behind Phillip, his face dropping into concern.

Phillip spun.

Frieda had entered the banquet room, walking calmly across to her mother. Unbothered. No look at Phillip or Ben—and no Briar with her, not even as Phillip waited, sword still sheathed, hilt gripped in his opposite hand.

The door to the banquet room remained empty.

Another long moment passed.

Briar did not follow her in.

Everything shifted in that moment.

Sharpened.

Like he’d emerged to the surface and scrubbed pond scum out of his eyes and could see more than grime. He saw one thing, and it was the only thing that had ever truly mattered to him.

Phillip started walking toward Frieda and Matilda, Ben with him.

Matilda was buoyant tonight. Phillip had yet to see her anything but furious, so to see her laughing with a Prince Elector and sipping wine only added to the sense of wrongness that thickened the air.

At Phillip’s approach, her smiling face took on a look of cutting malice. She threaded her arm through Frieda’s, pulling her daughter close, and raised her wine goblet to the room.

“Let us give a cheer,” she started, voice bellowing out. “To the next empress of the Holy Roman Empire.”

That made the Prince Electors, who had been enjoying yet another luxurious event in an endless series of luxurious events, straighten, moods shifting.

“What do you declare, Queen Matilda?” one asked.

Eckhardt of Hesse, who was awake and seated at a table, halfway through a plate of gravy and roast boar, glanced up with a frown.

Matilda grinned. “It is what you will declare, good sir. That my daughter is empress. Austria has withdrawn. We all know you will not vote in Eckhardt. Thus, Clara is our new empress, and you will announce it as such.”

Eckhardt scoffed and sputtered, wiping his hands insufficiently on a napkin. But when no one of import spared him a glance, he did not rise from the table, merely slouched in his chair and continued to grumble to himself.

The back of Phillip’s throat constricted.

Honestly, though, he didn’t care at all who was crowned.

Where was Briar?

He glared at Frieda until she looked at him in confusion.

“The election is not yet come to pass,” an Elector said. “Clara and Eckhardt are not the only remaining candidates. In fact…” He cast his gaze around the room, frowning, and landed on Phillip. “Where is the Austrian queen?”

“I was wondering that very thing myself,” he said. To Frieda.

Frieda’s confusion deepened, her lips parting.

Wait—what was the Elector saying?

“Her absence does not matter!” Matilda’s voice went a little shrill. “It further proves her ineptitude, that she could not even appear, to spare you a proper farewell and apology. You would do well not to linger on these last days out of ceremony. Clara is empress. Make it so.”

“The terms of Queen Aurora’s concession were only if we could not choose a leader through worth, merit, and heart,” recited one Elector, a quiet older man who leaned on a cane. “Given her impassioned speech, we are quite eager to keep her in the running. She has proven herself a thoughtful, competent candidate.”

Phillip gaped at Ben, brows lifted, not sure whether he should argue that Briar had withdrawn her candidacy, or agree and accept her continued nomination on her behalf, or—

Where was she?

Her absence beat into him, became as close as his pulse.

What has Bavaria done to her?

It beat, and beat, and Phillip opened his mouth to shout at Frieda and Matilda, when another beat, beat caught his attention so aggressively he felt grabbed by the throat.

He looked over his shoulder.

The flutter of wings. That was what had caught him.

The fairies dove into the banquet room—without Briar. Their faces were haggard and terrified.

Frieda was here, and so were the fairies, and Briar had not returned.

That was it.

Phillip closed the space between him and Matilda of Bavaria, towering before her, his vision entirely red. It centered him enough that he couldn’t be overcome by panic or anxiety—he was a being beyond himself, pushed out of his own shaking body to be wholly at Briar’s call.

“Where. Is my. Wife?” he snarled at Matilda.

The Bavarian queen wasn’t one to cower. She sneered up at him, the amusement in her eyes saying she was hoping for such a confrontation, either to be able to fight back or to prove even further Austria’s weakness.

“A king who cannot keep track of his own wife,” Matilda spat.

That redness spiked, overwhelming his vision, drowning him in single-minded focus.

A body moved next to Matilda—Frieda.

“What are you talking about?” Frieda asked in the demanding, level tone used in training yards to exact attention. “Why is she not here?”

He very nearly drew his sword.

He whirled on Frieda, and he would have held the Sword of Truth to her throat if Ben had not been suddenly between them, hands up, eyes wide.

“Whoa there, all right, let’s—Frieda, where is Briar?” Ben asked. He was only looking up at Phillip.

Frieda shook her head. “Why would I know?”

Phillip’s body went cold.

It had been a lie.

But Matilda was here. Most of the Bavarians. The Hessians.

Who…

Who sent the letter?

“You sent her a letter,” Ben said. “You asked her to meet you in the gardens.”

Matilda gave her daughter a fierce glare, but Frieda was believably confused.

“That is what we came to tell you!” Merryweather cried. “The gardens—something has happened in the gardens. They swallowed her up!”

“What did?” Phillip’s voice was like sand in his throat.

Merryweather’s face fell. “Vines. Magic. Dark magic.”

That coldness filling his body transformed into pure ice, freezing him in place.

Frieda flicked her gaze to her mother. “What did you do?”

Matilda scoffed. “Nothing! Why would I have gone after someone who conceded?”

Frieda heard something else in Matilda’s words. Something that turned her a bit green. “You have targeted candidates, though.”

It was not a question.

Matilda stared at Frieda, narrowed her eyes, and snorted. “Do not get righteous with me, child. We are nearly to the end. Be grateful.”

“Grateful?” Frieda’s voice rose, her face set in a furious scowl. “Grateful that you ordered an attack on a child? That was you, wasn’t it, who targeted Mecklenburg?”

Matilda put her hands on Frieda’s shoulders, her whole bearing shifting with skillful ease. “Sweetheart,” she said, voice suddenly gentle and prodding. “I forgive you for not understanding our ways. Do not be so cross now, darling. Do not be so—”

There was a moment where Frieda might have melted into her mother’s act. And Phillip could see the effect it was having, had been having, on Frieda. A softness in her eyes, yearning for exactly what Matilda offered.

But Frieda dropped a boundary over her own emotions, shutting down her reaction with a harsh glare.

Matilda didn’t let more than a beat pass of Frieda’s expression before she rounded on the Prince Electors, back to her rigid, callous self.

“My daughter is empress,” she stated. “Declare it. Now.”

Things were unspooling. Here, there. The whole of the room felt events beginning to fall apart—or maybe that was just Phillip. He was both unspooling and frozen, forced to stand there motionless and watch himself disintegrate.

His hands shook. Vibrations in his arms, in his lungs. He couldn’t breathe, and his vision was going spotty, narrowing—

No, damn it, no, Briar needed him—not now, please—

In the corner, one of the banners cast a shadow.

But it wasn’t a shadow.

And as Phillip stared, it became the only thing he could see.

That shadow took flight, the force and weight of its movements shaking the banner in a ripple.

The bird banked and dove out into the hall.

A raven.

Dark magic in the garden.

No. No, no—

He’d killed that witch.

It couldn’t be her.

Phillip started walking, then running.

There was a bare sword in his hand. When had he drawn it?

He was near the door when Ben gripped his arm. He heard Ben’s words through the muffled fog of his own fervent barrier.

“Phillip—wait—”

“Maleficent.”

The name was knives and hooks, and it ripped pieces of his soul out as it came from his mouth so that he held a hand to his neck, sure it would come away covered in blood.

Ben went white. “Here? How?”

Phillip didn’t have time to explain. Briar had been gone for too long as it was.

“It’s Maleficent,” Phillip hissed at him. “It’s her. Again. Somehow.”

“All right. But you’re not going into this alone. This is not like last time. I’m coming, too.”

Phillip tasted the burn of green fire on the air. Felt the bite of a thorn that had ripped through his shoulder.

The whole kingdom had been dead. Briar had been cursed. It was on him, wholly on him.

“Phillip,” Ben said again, harder. “I’m with you. I’m still hopeless with a sword, but I’m with you.”

“Me too.”

Phillip twisted, the oddity of the voice jerking him around, a pause long enough that his vision centered.

Frieda stood behind him. Eyes ablaze.

Farther back, Matilda was shouting at the Electors, caught so wholly in their argument over the passing of the crown that none had even noticed that Phillip, Ben, and Frieda were at the door.

The fairies were hovering over Frieda’s shoulder. Merryweather nodded at Phillip and held up her wand in a sad offer of whatever help they could manage.

“Can you fight?” was the first question that came out of Ben’s mouth.

Frieda’s gaze turned to his. She paused for a moment, then smiled, but her eyes were still hard. “Yes, I can fight.”

Ben’s face went red. He bit his lip and looked to Phillip, his gaze weighted and fearful but determined.

Phillip adjusted his grip on the Sword of Truth and didn’t recoil from its density in his hand.

“Come on, then” was all he managed to say, and he shot off into the hall.