To my great surprise, my face—my real face—was staring back at me from the door of a tavern. It was a drawing, but the features were unmistakably mine. Beneath it in script there was the word WANTED.
And beneath that was another solicitation with a likeness of South and the same offer of a reward. DEAD OR ALIVE! Among a plethora of drawings of thieves, South and I stood out on notices for treason.
I cursed under my breath and heard a low whistle that I recognized immediately.
“Man, would I love to get my hands on one of those . . .”
“Pardon me?” I said, but I knew the voice before I turned around.
I almost cursed again. Wasn’t there enough danger already? Did I really have to invite it in? Did I really have to walk right up and stand beside it?
I turned slowly and faced Tork. He was dressed even finer than usual, but he was the worse for wear. There were circles under his eyes, and his brownish-blond hair seemed lackluster. His handsome face wore an uncustomary frown. Obviously, after my attempt on the Queen, Linea and the rest of the Couterie would be livid, but somehow I had not imagined that would include Tork. Perhaps there was some other reason for his unhappy face.
He shot me one of his dimpled smiles the second he saw that I was looking at him.
“If I could nab one of those criminals, all my problems would be solved.”
“You don’t look like you are wanting for many comforts,” I quipped back.
He raised one of his eyebrows, scrutinizing me for a beat.
“You’d be surprised,” he said with a wink.
I wish enough drink to forget. But there isn’t enough in all the Hinter, he thought.
Tork held the door for me and, after I walked through, he followed me inside. I considered making a hasty exit. I was supposed to be testing my power, but it was too dangerous to do it on someone I knew. Still, I couldn’t help myself. I wanted to know what was wrong with Tork. As we made our way farther into the bar, I could hear the wishes of the other patrons, which seemed to be louder than even his own.
I wish to sleep.
I wish to leave.
I wish I had more money.
I wish to work.
I closed my eyes. I had to resist granting the small wishes to quiet them in my head. Because if I did so, I could be discovered.
“Hey, are you all right?” Tork asked gently.
“I’m fine,” I said as I opened my eyes and refocused on Tork.
I realized that my curiosity had led me into another mistake. Perhaps there were too many people and too many wants. I spotted a corner table and made a beeline for it. There, I could listen to Tork’s thoughts while I pretended to dine. Cinderella had given me a few of her precious coins from her stash back at the manse. I felt guilty using them, but it would have looked strange if I had only gotten a glass of water at a tavern. To my surprise, Tork sat across from me. He looked around for the waiter with a hint of desperation, which he never would have displayed back at the Couterie.
I wish I could stop thinking about her.
“My manners! Do you mind if I sit . . . ?” he began.
I knew what—or rather, who—he was thinking about. Lavendra. Always Lavendra. I felt a wave of guilt for my part in his plight. I remembered I wasn’t wearing my own face. My apology would not only be confusing; it could be dangerous as well. I nodded.
“I hate eating alone,” he said.
“So really, what would you use it for?” I asked, circling back to our initial conversation.
“What, the reward?” He laughed. “I was just jesting. I’m Couterie. I have everything, but one can never have enough of the finer things,” he retorted lightly.
I could still hear his heart above the din of all the other wants.
Money can’t solve what I did, but maybe it could take me to where she is. I want to know where she is. I want to go to where she is. I want to find her. I want to turn back the clock. I want to do it all differently. I want the moment back. The moment where I screwed it all up.
As my head filled with his wishes, I closed my eyes and grabbed the wand that was in my pocket. I held it tightly and whispered an incantation beneath my breath.
I could hear Tork reacting. “Mademoiselle, are you okay?”
But I continued.
Now that my magic has come to light,
Help me put this right.
Let me find what he’s lost and put true love back on course.
The image of Lavendra filled my vision, and at the exact same moment I knew where she was and everything that Tork had wanted to know. I opened my eyes and spoke to him.
“What if I told you that she made it to the Thirteenth Queendom? She’s working as a nanny in a manor. The family’s name is Lemarc. And no, she has not found another love.”
Tork looked at me with surprise, but he quickly chased it with suspicion.
“What do you mean? What are you talking about?”
“Lavendra. I’m telling you where she is. How she is.”
He gasped. “How did you know I wanted to see her? Who are you? What are you?” he demanded.
I could see his eyes narrow and his lips purse.
“I’m a witch, but one you can trust.”
“Entente?” he whispered.
I respected that he would never use the word “witch,” even though I just had.
I took Tork in. In some ways he was my first and only human friend. He’d shared his deepest secret with me. He’d tried to help me with the prince. And how had I repaid him? I’d endangered the Couterie and his station. I’d never shared my real truth with him. Sitting before him now, I felt like I needed to tell him. And knowing him as I hoped I did, I decided it was time.
“One that you know. It’s me, Farrow,” I whispered.
“This is a test, a trick . . . Did Madame Linea put you up to this?” he said accusingly.
“No one. I’m risking everything telling you this in public,” I countered in a whisper.
“I will not be ridiculed!” Tork began to stand up.
The woman behind the bar looked at him sharply. Some of the other patrons began to turn toward us too. I had to make him stop.
“ ‘I would forgo today if we could have forever.’ ” I repeated the line that he had composed to Lavendra when he wanted to ask her to be Shadows together.
His eyes widened in recognition.
“We don’t want trouble here, sir,” the bartender said from behind the bar.
“Neither do I. My friend and I were just remembering old times,” Tork said, and he sat back down.
“Apparently, we have a lot to catch up on,” he added. “How did you do this? No paint can do that. It’s really you, isn’t it? But how? There’s no such thing as Entente anymore . . .”
“Rumors of our demise were apparently greatly exaggerated . . . I am sorry I couldn’t tell you—but my secret was life and death.”
He shook his head like he always did when he was processing something.
“I’m risking everything to tell you this, Tork. One scream from you and my life is over.”
“I still could scream. You lied to me for years . . . about who you were . . . and then for months about what you planned.”
“But you won’t, because you are a lot of things, Tork, but cruel isn’t one of them,” I whispered.
“A lot has happened, Farrow . . . How do you know that I haven’t changed?”
“Because ‘there isn’t enough time in all the Queendoms to change the heart,’ ” I said, using his words against him again.
“Why now? Why not tell me when you were at the Couterie? I shared everything with you.”
“I wanted to. But I was scared of being found out.”
“And now? Why now? Why here? You escaped the Queen. They’re saying you tried to kill her . . . I didn’t want to believe that was true . . . But you are wearing someone else’s face. That’s magic. You have magic . . . Tell me what’s true . . .”
“You’re right I have magic—and the rest is a much longer story.”
“I have time. I’m all ears.”
“She took someone from me . . . my . . . mother. And everything I’ve done from the second she died was to punish her for that.”
Tork’s stern face melted a little. He and his twin brother had lost their mother in childbirth. The idea of the Queen taking mine seemingly struck a chord in him.
“You could have told me. I have no love lost for the Queen. Who knows? I could have helped you . . .”
“I couldn’t ask you. I couldn’t risk you . . . Tork, I should have left today when I saw you without you ever recognizing me. But when I saw you, I knew I couldn’t stay in the shadows forever. I owed you that. I owed both you and Lavendra.”
A crease formed in the center of his forehead.
“Lavendra? What are you talking about?”
“You and Lavendra deserve your Ever After. Especially since I’m the one who altered your Fate. If you want to scream now, go ahead and scream. I’ll understand, but please let me show you something first.”
“Why should I? Considering what you are . . .”
“What I am is your friend.”
Even though we were in public, even though it was risky, I slipped my wand into my hand and covered it with my sleeve. I reached for him and tapped the wand against his cheek. To outsiders, it would hopefully look like an intimate moment, not a magical one.
Tork began to protest, but after a few seconds, I could see a vision of what he wanted most: Lavendra. And then I concentrated on her. What did she want most? What did she desire?
I tapped the wand against his temple like I had seen Hecate do to Magrit years ago. And like I had done to Sandrine. I wasn’t sure if it would work at a distance, after failing to reach any wishes past the vicinity of the Grays’ manor. But now I had Tork’s wish to hopefully traverse the distance.
“Lavendra?” he whispered.
He could see her. He was sharing my vision. When I opened my eyes, Tork’s cheeks had found some color. It was as if the sight of her had brought him back to life.
“Thank you for showing me that she’s okay, even though you are only doing it to assuage your own guilt. You really are Entente. That’s what you do, right? Mess with people’s fates without their permission,” he accused.
“I’m doing it so you can take Fate into your own hands. I can see what I’ve always seen even without magic. Your deepest desire is to be with Lavendra. And it’s hers as well. To this day.”
I saw his expression shift to disbelief mingled with hope. “It can’t be. She couldn’t really return my feelings . . .”
I put the wand up again. In the next vision, the image changed. Tork crossed the room to join Lavendra in the sitting room at the manor. She looked up, surprised. And then she smiled.
I removed the wand. “That’s Lavendra’s wish, not yours.”
“I don’t want to see any more,” he said a little too loudly, finally seeing that his love was requited after all.
All the eyes in the room turned our way again. I slid my wand into my sleeve, but the murmur of voices and the continued stolen glances made me wonder if I had been seen.
“I have to go.”
Tork stood with me protectively. “You’re right.”
“I am?” I said, blinking hard, surprised at the ease with which he accepted me with a different face and my meddling in his life.
“The thing is, it didn’t matter what you did. We would have ended up in the same place anyway. Apart. And not because of you. Because of me. Because I wasn’t even brave enough to tell her how I really felt about her . . . You know me, Farrow. This is who I am. I would have broken both our hearts eventually without your interference. I couldn’t have run away. I couldn’t have lived without all this.”
“It’s not who you have to be. Tork, if a little girl can go from witch to Shadow to Couterie and back again, you can cross Queendoms to be the man I know you want to be,” I declared.
I kissed him on the cheek, hoping that my words hit their mark.
He shook his head again. “I wish I had the strength, Farrow . . .”
I was tempted to grant his wish, to give their love the engine it needed with a wave of my wand. But I did not. I had meddled enough. The next step, if he ever took it, had to be entirely up to him.
“You should go, Farrow. There’s an exit in the back,” he said with sudden urgency, which he chased with a mischievous smile.
A smile I had missed. He was the first human I’d willingly told my secret to.
As I made it through the crowd, I felt all the eyes in the room turn toward the guard standing in the doorway.
It’s nothing, I thought, willing it to be so.
I mouthed a thank-you and began making my way to the rear of the room.
When I looked back, I saw Tork raise his glass.
“Another round, on me . . . Or rather, on Queen Papillion!” he announced.
A cheer went up and all eyes went in his direction.
I slipped through the back room of the pub, past a barback who was busy cleaning glasses. I spotted the exit and opened the door. I pulled my hood tighter around my face and went out into the cold air. I breathed a sigh of relief and then pulled out my wand and whispered:
Return me from whence I came,
Honor the wish in Cinderella’s name . . .
I waited.
But nothing happened. I was still standing in the exact same place, only voices and footsteps and wishes were growing louder.
The first soldier turned the corner and pointed at me.
“Halt there, witch!” the guard said.
I froze. Back in the tavern, somehow they knew it was magic. Somehow they knew the magic was from me. I thought I’d been careful. But someone must have seen. I had no choice. I had to run.
I ran as fast as I could, but I could feel the soldiers gaining on me. When I rounded the next corner, I saw a boy in a hood leaning against a building with a rucksack looped around him. He noticed the soldiers and offered his hand.
“Come with me,” he said.
I took his hand and followed him as he began zigging and zagging through the network of streets. I found myself in a neighborhood that I rarely frequented on my walks from the Couterie. This part of Vessie, the Hinter’s capital city, was in disrepair. Paint was peeling. Steps were broken. There was no Black Glass in sight. The Queen had clearly not gotten to rebuilding this part of town yet.
“I think we’re safe now. I think we can slow down,” I said to my hooded companion.
“That guard is relentless,” the stranger countered, and pulled me along for another couple of streets before we ducked inside an alleyway—that turned out to be a dead end.
I suddenly wondered if I had miscalculated. Had I left one danger for another? I did not know my savior. Perhaps he wasn’t one.
“In here,” he said, pointing to a hidden door.
I hesitated. “I can make my own way from here, kind sir,” I said with a bow.
But the sound of boots on the ground came from the next street over.
“On second thought,” I said.
He gave me a coy smile and extended a hand to help me inside. I ignored it and instantly regretted it as I felt myself falling rear first in the dark. I landed with a thump on the ground. A few seconds later the boy landed beside me.
“Are you all right?” he asked, helping me to my feet.
As he fumbled in the dark, I could hear him cursing under his breath and I could hear what he wanted most: light, and for them not to find us.
I made a decision. I didn’t know if I could grant a wish that affected multiple people, so wishing they wouldn’t find us didn’t seem feasible. But the other wish . . . He already knew I was running from the guards, so I extended my wand and granted his wish for light. The wand lit up and cast light around the room. The boy laughed in wonder and removed his hood.
It was Mather. Prince Mather had saved me.
It took me a second to remember that he wasn’t looking at my face. He was looking at the one I had made this morning: Cinderella’s mother’s.
“Yes,” I said finally as I heard the footsteps pick up behind me.
He led me down one hallway and then another. And finally we ducked into a dark room.
“Don’t be nervous,” he said. “We’re safe now.” He released my hand and gave me the strangest look, bordering on recognition.
I knew I must be imagining it.
“What is this place?”
“My mother thinks the secret to saving her throne is here,” he said, not really answering my question. He was too busy staring at me.
“You really are one of them?” he asked. “I wasn’t sure, but when I saw the wand and the guards . . .”
“You saw the wand? And you still helped me.”
“She has killed so many innocents. I try to help where I can.”
“But I am not innocent to you. I have magic.”
“You misunderstand me. You are just as innocent.”
I’ve scared her. She wants to go. I pray I can keep her safe. I don’t want what happened to the others to happen to her.
I could hear his heart. He was telling the truth.
“They’ll go house to house. But Mother insists on a late-night briefing at midnight. We should wait till then,” he said firmly.
I could have him wish me home. But then I would be telling him where my sisters were. Then he could find me again.
Suddenly, the prospect of another moment with Mather began to feel untenable. I wanted to be with him and I wanted to be away from him all at once. I was uncomfortable feeling so much of something other than rage and vengeance, but my heart seemed not to know that. It was beating double time.
I pushed the thought aside. It was one night. And I had been trying to kill him. Everything had been heightened and was still heightened now. I recalled the Ana and what it said about his escaping the palace. Was this where he went when he left? My fingers went to Hecate’s pouch for assurance. What were the chances that I would see Tork and the prince in a matter of hours? I had given up on Fate the day I’d lost Hecate. But everything that had happened since the night of the Becoming . . . finding South, Iolanta, my sisters . . . getting this new, strange power. I wondered if perhaps Fate had not given up on me.
“What is this place?” I asked again, taking in the acrid smell as we walked into another cavernous room.
“It’s where she makes it,” he said matter-of-factly.
“What?”
“The Black Glass,” he said, and as he did, I took in what it was—a Black Glass factory. There was a huge vat of black sand that extended all the way up to the ceiling—it funneled down like the top of an hourglass into a long chute. The chute led into another vat, but this one was sitting on top of a flame. Red-hot glass poured out of the vat to another long chute. This one had holes in it that poured into molds. The molds were shaped into bricks.
“She thinks if she covers the whole Queendom with it, she’ll be safe. This is a new recipe, a version she says will help her hunt Entente.”
I gasped and stepped back from the glass. I couldn’t let the prince see what I saw: my real reflection in the Black Glass.
He suddenly realized what he’d done.
“It didn’t hurt you, did it?” He put a hand on my shoulder, looking at me, concerned.
“No, I am not affected at all,” I murmured. But I was affected by Mather’s hand on my arm. I felt my heart double its pace again.
I looked away from his intense stare.
“Good. I wouldn’t want anything to happen to you,” he whispered. “Also, I don’t think it really works. She’s just using it as an excuse to burn girls and scare the people into submission.”
“How’s that?”
“Depends on the day. She has a Witch Finder, a gruesome hooded truth tester. People say he filled a girl’s pockets with Black Glass and sent her into the river. If she floated up, she was a witch. If she stayed down, she’d passed the test. The girl passed the test, but by the time the guards got to her, she had already drowned.”
“It would be clever if it weren’t maniacal,” I said, remembering the Challenge between me and Lavendra. She did not kill either Lavendra or me, but then, like now, the Queen enjoyed playing with life and death.
Suddenly one of the vats in the corner began to tip over and liquid glass poured down a chute toward another vat. My head began to hurt from the fumes. The pain was piercing and left me breathless for a couple of seconds.
“What is that?”
“Don’t worry, no one’s here. When the vat fills, it turns over automatically.”
I took a step backward, needing to put distance between myself and the acrid, dangerous glass. I turned from the prince. I could feel my face, my real face, return and then be replaced by the disguise again. It was too soon for the spell to fade; it must be the Black Glass.
“Hey, are you okay?” he asked.
I felt better once I’d walked a few paces away from the heat of the glowing glass.
“Miss?” he asked again.
“I’m fine,” I said, remembering him. I knocked something over. It was the prince’s bag, which he’d slung over his shoulder when we’d run.
“Just leave it,” he said quickly.
I moved to pick it up, and the prince whispered in protest, “No, don’t.”
But it was too late. A bottle dropped out and onto the floor, crashing into pieces. I was surprised by the smell of accelerant.
I tried to make sense of why the prince would have it. Was he going to set something on fire?
“What are you doing here, Your Highness? How did you know about this place really?”
“My mother plans on using this glass to continue her pursuit of the Entente. Until tonight, I thought you were gone.”
“Then why do this? You were going to burn this place to the ground? You were going to risk your life for the Entente?” I asked, but I already knew the answer.
I wish I could kill my mother. But I can’t, so I have to stop her. I can’t let her kill another soul. Entente or human.
“A lot of girls have died in the name of the Entente. In the name of her war on magic. I can’t stop her until I can sit on the throne myself. But I can slow her down. I thought about running away, but a friend told me to fight,” he admitted.
“A friend?”
“I don’t know what she was really. She’s gone. But what she said stayed with me. I can’t sit by anymore, and I can’t run away.” He ran his hand through his hair as he said this. There was a faraway look in his eyes as if a part of him was in that moment. And it was. I could still hear what he was thinking about his Couterie. About me.
I wish I could see her again. I wish I could talk to her. I wish I could ask her what really happened that night. I wish she had not run away.
“So when you saved me today, I ruined your plans?”
“Helping you today makes me know that maybe what I’m doing isn’t in vain,” he said with fresh certainty.
He had no idea it was me, Farrow, who he was saving, but I felt my cheeks warm all the same. And I felt my heart pick up its pace yet again.
It wasn’t supposed to matter. But I cared that the night had meant something to him. And that I mattered to him. We never Became. But it seemed we were both changed by the hours we’d spent alone together.
“No need to be nervous. We’re safe here . . . ,” he said, a quizzical smile on his face.
Suddenly whatever he was thinking was drowned out by a soldier’s thoughts a few blocks away.
I wish I could find her. Where did she go? We can’t go back empty-handed.
“I’m not nervous,” I said.
“Tell that to your fingers,” Mather said, still smiling.
I looked down. I was tapping my fingers against my wand. I stopped.
“Well, I guess I’m a little nervous,” I admitted.
“But that’s not all you are,” he said.
“Pardon?” I said.
Before I could concentrate and look inside his wishes, they were drowned out by the sound of the soldiers changing course. They were coming nearer. I put my finger to my lips, and Mather silently steered me out of the way of the windows. He pressed me against the wall just in time, as the guard came into view through the panes of glass.
I wish we could find her already so we could get back to the palace. I wish we were anywhere but here. I wish I was eating. I wish I was with my wife. I wish all witches would die.
I gasped at the last. I knew that some humans hated us, but it was different hearing it, feeling it, directly from their hearts.
The prince looked at me, concerned, and put a finger in front of his lips to remind me to be quiet. I could feel how concerned he was for me, and I marveled at how much he was risking for a stranger—and a witch.
I had made the right choice in choosing not to kill him. He would be a good king.
“I think we have to stay till midnight,” he whispered. He was close enough for me to feel the warmth of his breath.
My sisters would be worried. And they would be suspicious. What if they came looking for me? Worse than that, what if Galatea looked in my immediate Past and saw the prince with me?
I had spared him. Had I now, just by being here, put him back in harm’s way?
“She won’t hurt me,” he said boldly.
I realized then that he was worried about me. Not himself.
This was a new Mather. He had been teetering on the edge of action for years, but after our night together he had begun putting his principles in motion. Looking at his profile, feeling the warmth of his arm against mine, I wondered what another night would mean to him and to me, even though he didn’t know who I really was.
“You know, our throne wasn’t always tyranny,” Mather said. “My grandmother Meena wasn’t like that. At least, I don’t think she was. I don’t know if I really remember her that way or if it’s something I just made up.”
“What?”
“Her kindness.”
“I never met her, but she was always a friend to the Entente. My sisters spoke so highly of her.”
He seemed heartened by this, and he continued. “I picked the room I have at the palace for a reason.”
To get away from your maniacal mother, I thought.
“It has a secret passageway.”
“You had it built?” I wondered.
“My grandmother did. She used to sneak out at night and mingle with the people.”
“Wasn’t she recognized?”
“She wore a disguise. She took me with her sometimes. I thought it was a game at first. But she told me that it was more. It was a duty. ‘We do not rule. We help. These are our people,’ she’d say.
“When I started sneaking out, I didn’t do what she did. I just wanted to enjoy a night or two without anyone knowing who I was.”
“So, what changed? When did you start doing this?”
“I’m ashamed I didn’t do it sooner. When I saw the people, I saw their freedom, which I envied. I didn’t see the rest. How many people were hurting. How many people were afraid. And all because of the Crown. All because of my mother.”
“Did your mother ever go with Meena to see the people?”
“My grandmother said Mother came sometimes, but her heart wasn’t in it.”
“Was she always like this?” I asked, surprising myself by the question. I didn’t want to hear an excuse for how Magrit was the way she was. Knowing would not bring Hecate back. But I paused; maybe knowing her better might tell me how to kill her.
Just as he opened his mouth to say something, light began to pour in through the windows. We could hear the guards getting closer again.
“Whatever happens, stay behind me. I’ll handle it.”
I could hear his wish. He was wishing me safe.
If I granted it, I perhaps could be home in seconds. But at the same time, I would be revealing the secrets of my magic. It was enough that he knew I was Entente.
“They’re heading back toward the palace. This is our window to escape. I’ll get them to go. You stay here,” he whispered, his lips accidentally grazing my ear.
The sensation sent an involuntary shiver down my spine.
“Thank you,” I whispered back, meaning it. It was nonsensical, but I didn’t like watching him leave.
A few minutes later, I began the long way home. I had to walk. There was no wish to take me.