A few minutes later I watched as Hecate added wrinkles to her face with her wand. Then she began to gray her jet-black hair with another stroke of her wand. Whenever we left the Reverie, we always took on new faces. It was imperative that our identities be kept secret from the royals.
“Why do you pick a skin that is so ancient?” I asked.
“We don’t value vanity in the Entente. It’s dangerous,” Hecate said as she touched another section of her hair. It became gray with a tinge of pale green. “And no one looks at an old woman.
“There,” she said, seemingly done. She got up and made room for me at the dressing table. Our reflections stared back at us in the mirror that sat atop it.
I started to reach for my wand but hesitated. This was what I did best. But after what had happened with South, I wasn’t sure if I could do it anymore.
“It’s okay to make mistakes, Farrow. But you can’t let the mistakes make you. In time, South will be fine. But you have to forgive yourself and use your gift.”
I picked up the wand and hesitated again. It was too much. The image of South and his wings and scrunched-up face stopped me.
She sighed. “Okay, just this once. But next time . . .”
I nodded and smiled at her, grateful for this small reprieve. “Can I have green eyes this time?”
She touched her wand to my temple and I closed my eyes. When I opened them, my gray eyes were now a piercing shade of green, matching the shade in my imagination perfectly.
“The idea is not to stand out, Farrow,” she said, tapping her wand against the side of my head again.
I pouted as my eyes dulled back to their usual shade of gray.
“But the Entente and the Queendom are friends,” I said. I had been told about the Entente’s connection to the palace and the royals my whole life.
“No. The Entente and the Queendom have a covenant,” Hecate corrected. “It means ‘agreement.’ And agreements are not always honored.”
When Hecate’s wand passed over my features, they changed too. She slimmed out my face, broadened my nose, and darkened my eyebrows and eyelashes to match the long dark hair she’d replaced my brown hair with. To finish, she raised my cheekbones and increased my pout. It never hurt when Hecate transformed my face.
“I know this feels like a game, Farrow. But it’s not. Picking up a wand should never be for your own satisfaction. It should be for good.” She bent to touch the hem of my dress.
I watched it change from the gray that we all wore every day to a pale shade of blue. I opened my mouth to ask for a pale shade of yellow, knowing I would be met with the same denial.
She took me in for a beat before touching the dress again. The yellow appeared.
“Why?” I asked as joy filled me. Was this pity because of my near tears? “I thought we couldn’t take the risk.”
“I know you think me hard, Farrow. But everything I have done is to give you the armor and tools you will need for what is to come.”
“What is to come?” I asked, knowing she would never tell me.
“Let’s take the long way,” she said, putting her hand over mine.
I was still surprised that Hecate had suggested I go with her. But I shouldn’t have been. She was a creature of the Future. She let go of the Past and even the Present easier than her sisters did.
“Hurry up—time won’t wait for us,” she said with a wry smile.
Hecate could be stern, but she was not without humor. She smiled at her own joke as I followed her out to the Veil.
The air flickered before Hecate could tap the magical Veil that shielded the Reverie from the world. Iolanta appeared, blocking Hecate’s wand and our way.
The Veil was created by Les Soeurs to protect us. No human could find it or us unless we wanted them to. Les Soeurs cast the Veil with the rise of the moon, and it lasted until the next moonrise. All three Les Soeurs had to be present to complete the spell. All of us could enter and exit at will with our wands. South had to be accompanied by one of us to enter or to exit. Looking at the shimmering air, I wondered for the first time how it must have felt for him not to be able to come and go from his home as he liked. Even if South truly had wanted to fly away from here, the Veil would have stopped him.
“Iolanta, what are you doing out of your room?” Hecate asked, her voice filled with concern. “Let me help get you back to bed.”
Iolanta never left her quarters. What would make her leave them now? Seeing her twice in as many days was more than unusual. It was unsettling.
“Don’t go. Please,” Iolanta said, her lids heavy, as if they were trying to shut out the light.
Galatea showed up beside Iolanta.
“Iolanta and I discussed it. I agree with her. You should not go,” Galatea said firmly.
Hecate looked from one Fate to the other. She and Galatea were usually on the same side.
“You know what we saw at the funeral,” Iolanta continued.
“Let’s give her some time,” offered Galatea gently.
“Time for what?” Hecate asked. “We know better than anyone that time is not the salve for what we saw in Magrit. She isn’t right. She lacks more than she is. Empathy and morality are necessities of the Crown and she is without them.”
“And you think that talk will be the answer?” Galatea countered.
“We have known many a heart to change,” Hecate said.
“Not one as stubborn as this,” Iolanta added. “I can see the new Queen’s heart and it is dark.”
“That’s the beauty of the heart,” Hecate said. “It can change from moment to moment and from one day to the next. Besides, tomorrow is my concern, sister. Today is yours.”
“Hecate.” Iolanta grabbed her arm again. “Her heart will not change. Usually, in a moment, I see the flickers . . . flickers of doubt . . . the seeds of change. There is no change in her.” Iolanta sounded clearer and more certain than ever.
“We did not see any tears, but we also didn’t feel them,” Galatea agreed. “Not in her Past, Present, or Future.”
“She is not the first daughter to fail to honor her mother,” Hecate countered. “Perhaps this lack of sentimentality will make her a better ruler.”
“That would be easier to believe if she’d shown compassion for a single person in her entire life,” Galatea argued. “She did not cry when her own husband expired after returning from the war with the Thirteenth Queendom. She did not cry at the birth of little Prince Mather. Even when he was the first male heir born to any Queen in any Queendom in all recorded time. And she did not cry when her mother fell ill or when she died.”
“I would think that her defense of her son would be a point in her favor. Or at the very least a glimmer of hope,” Hecate countered.
“Unless she sees her son as a possession, not a flesh-and-blood love. When she was small, she loved her dolls to death and would let no one else play with them. That did not stop her from beheading them all.”
Galatea knew everything about every royal, every indiscretion, and that knowledge of every bad thing had left her skeptical of what good lay in their Futures.
“She was a child. They were dolls. You cannot make that the standard.”
“Why not? We judge our own by the highest of codes. Why should humans be different? I have measured every moment of Magrit’s life, and she has yet to show us something other than selfishness.”
“Then what do you suggest?” Hecate asked.
“If the Crown has changed, then perhaps we must change to meet the Crown,” Galatea offered. “If she scares us all this much, then let’s find another way to deal with her.”
“And what way would that be?” Hecate pressed, sounding genuinely curious.
“You think that they can change. But you don’t allow for us to, Hecate,” Galatea corrected. “I hope that isn’t the death of us.”
“You worry too much, sisters. We all have a part to play, and I know better than anyone that this is mine . . .”
“Hecate . . . Please . . .” Iolanta’s face contorted as if she was fighting tears.
“Know this, we are always together, sisters. Even if we are far apart,” Hecate said, resolute.
“Then take this with you.” Galatea surprised all of us by giving her a kiss on the forehead.
Hecate looked at her sharply. The mark where Galatea had kissed her lit up like the glow of the moon and then washed over the rest of her skin with white light. Was it a protection spell?
“What did you do, sister?” Hecate demanded.
Galatea smiled. “Just making sure that you come back to me.”
Hecate and I walked the short distance to town in silence. In the week since Queen Meena’s death, the Queendom had been under a constant state of reconstruction. Workers were tearing down the white stone face of the palace.
I pulled at Hecate’s hand. “What are they doing?”
“The new Queen is replacing the stone with Black Glass,” Hecate said.
Black Glass was the black metal found only in the Hinter, the First Queendom. It was stronger than any metal known to man or to the Entente. It was the reason the Hinter was considered the most powerful of the Queendoms. The guards’ weapons were forged with Black Glass, and so were the walls that fortified the Queendom.
“It is so very ugly,” I commented.
Before we could move on, Hecate whispered a warning. “Avoid the glass; do not look upon it in the company of humans.”
“Why? Will it hurt us?”
“The Queen thinks it can hurt our bodies, but she is wrong. But there is more than one way to hurt.”
I cocked my head. I didn’t understand. We had magic. Hecate and Galatea seemed invincible. Iolanta was another story. But the cause was not humankind; it was her gift itself.
“How can we be hurt by it?”
“It can reveal our faces.”
The impulse to do the opposite of Hecate’s directive seized me. I wanted to see how the glass worked up close. I wanted to see my face transform back to itself. But Hecate’s stern look stilled me as it always did. The elaborate act of disguise had seemed like a game to me that the Entente played with the Queens, not something more sinister—until now.
“This is not pretend for the sake of pretending—as delightful as it can be to wear a dress of yellow or the face of someone else. It is a protection just as much as the Veil—know that and remember it.” She looked at me intently, deflating our adventure just a bit.
“Yes, Hecate,” I said dutifully.
But Hecate, seemingly responding to my shift in mood, added, “The Queen is not erecting the glass with us in mind. She has another objective.”
“What objective?”
“The glass is strong. She is making a fortress,” Hecate assessed.
“What do we need a fortress for?”
Hecate looked solemn. “War.”