Amantha, Bari, go to our sisters,” Galatea ordered.
Bari’s eyes flashed. She turned into a column of crows and flew away.
Amantha sighed and disappeared into a blur.
Galatea waved her wand and South fell to the ground, unconscious. I rushed out the door and to his side. I was relieved to see his chest rise and fall.
“What did you do?” I shouted. “Bring him back!”
“Why don’t you make a wish?” Galatea said bitterly before she raised her wand and disappeared.
“I wish Farrow, South, Prince Mather, and I were in the Enchanted Forest,” Cinderella said aloud.
With a wave of my wand, we were.
Cinderella knelt over South. I tried to wake him, but Galatea’s spell still held.
“I danced with you only briefly, didn’t I?” the prince asked Cinderella. “I danced with Farrow, right?”
I revealed my face to him. I wanted, needed him to see me.
“Yes,” I said, stepping in. “But Cinderella’s the one you want. She’s the person the Queendom needs. She’s good and true. Unlike me. She’s who you need,” I repeated.
“Don’t I get to decide that?”
“What we want doesn’t matter.”
“We? You feel the same way?”
There was hope in his voice, like my confirmation was all he wanted. I told myself that it was enough that he wanted it. I would always have that.
“I thought it was you every time because of your tell, but I didn’t know for sure until you kissed me.”
My heart felt like it was beating on the outside of my chest.
“It has always been you. You think I don’t know what magic is, what your kind can do, how you can change your appearance? I do. Your face may have changed, but your body is the same. The way you move. I always know you.”
My heart leapt. Once, Mather had suggested that he wished we could meet without our Pasts and just have our Presents and our Future. But here he was wanting me, loving me, knowing exactly who I was. And me knowing exactly who he was. I had spent a lifetime with limits on love. And yet here it was on my doorstep.
“But why? Why do all this? The ball? The Couterie?” he pressed on.
“At first it was for revenge. Your mother killed my Hecate . . . my mother . . . She was the Entente your mother burned in the square.”
The prince’s eyes widened, then filled with sadness.
“It was you in the hallway . . . Your mother froze the soldiers . . . and you refused to play with me. Oh, Farrow . . .”
“It was me . . .”
We held like that for a few seconds. The next part was harder to say.
“I was planning to kill both of you on the night of the Becoming . . .”
“You what?”
“I thought it was the best way to hurt her. To take from her as she’d taken from me. But then I got to know you. I couldn’t do it,” I admitted finally. I owed him the truth. But I hated seeing it reflected on his face. He had to be hurt. He had to think less of me. There was no way he couldn’t. I continued, the words tumbling out faster so that I could try and explain. Even though there was no excuse for what I’d wanted to do.
“Surely you must blame me for what I came to the palace to do. I almost killed you.” I waited for him to admonish me for what I had planned. I was sure that my words had changed his heart.
“And instead you woke me up. And it sounds like maybe I helped wake you up. So I’d say we are even,” he said with a smile.
“We’re far from that . . . But because of everything that’s happened, because of you, because of Cinderella, my mission has changed. And I guess, I’ve changed . . . I want to find peace between the Entente and the royals. That’s what’s best for Hinter and the Queendoms. And for the people, even if they don’t see it now. And to protect you. I realize that now. Galatea was right when she said there is more than just Queen Magrit that’s wrong with our Queendoms. For so long, all I wanted was to see Magrit dead. But revenge won’t end this war. And peace can’t happen if we don’t find a way to stop Galatea. She wants to have power over every person in the Hinter and beyond. Over everyone without magic.”
“Maybe we deserve it,” the prince said. “We’ve stood by while your people were persecuted. We did not stand up to my mother.”
“You were a child on the day of Hecate’s Burning. And there are millions of people in the Queendoms. They are not responsible for the Queen’s actions.”
“But they are responsible for their own fear. Fear I admit I shared. Fear and standing by,” he said resolutely.
“The Hinter can be better precisely because you acknowledge where the Queendoms have fallen short. You can rebuild the Queendoms and make them the world you described to me the night of our Becoming. One where Couterie and royalty and Entente and regular people all get along. All have a part . . .”
“You really believe that? How do we begin?”
“Galatea and the Entente are going to go after your mother. You have to be out of the line of fire and ready to take her place. I can’t save your mother, but I can spare the other Queendoms as much loss as possible.”
“You want me to run away?”
“I want you to regroup with Cinderella. An alliance with a commoner will bring the people of Hinter new hope.”
“I could say the same about us. Imagine the message it would send to the Queendoms and Hinter if I married an Entente?” he reasoned.
“Marry . . .” I let the word sink in, and some part of me fluttered in response. I shook my head. “The Queendoms aren’t ready for that. The Entente are feared. And given what my sisters have been up to, that fear is more than warranted.”
“You are not your sisters,” he said. “What if I’d rather have you than the Queendom?”
I shook my head again. There was part of me that wanted this. To be more important than the world. To be more important than the Queendom. To be first in the eyes of someone. I had never been first with Hecate. Or my sisters. But here was a prince, my prince, choosing me above everything else.
I was tempted by the prospect. I was tempted by him. My time in the Couterie and my time with Cinderella had taught me that humans were no different from us except for the magic. And I had been both with and without it. It did not define me, even though I had missed it fiercely when I had been without it.
But in the end, in my heart of hearts, I knew there was only one answer. It wasn’t just about me. I had to pick my sisters. I had to pick the humans. I had to pick the Hinter. I could not pick me. I could not pick him.
“I’m sorry, Prince. You must go. Go with Cinderella. Find the Rookery.”
His face fell. He had just laid his heart out to me. Offered his hand despite his mother. Despite history. And I had turned him down.
“Farrow . . . it’s okay to choose us,” he offered, still waiting, hoping he could sway me.
I rolled on even though every word hurt me. I knew it was the right thing to say. I knew it was the right thing to do. I needed to explain it to him and to my own heart.
“South is certain that the Rooks will help us. He knows every Present, and in every one, they want us to live. You are our best hope to convince the other Queendoms that there is a place for magic and humans to coexist. We need help. Get to the edge of the Thirteenth Queendom and you will find it. We each have a path to take. This Fate, this Present, is not ours. This is where we must part,” I said, hoping my firm words did not betray how much I wanted to say the opposite.
Prince Mather held my gaze for a beat, defeat washing over him. He broke away and turned toward Cinderella. In those seconds, I felt a part of me sink.
“Cinderella, is this what you want?” Prince Mather asked quietly.
Cinderella looked from one of us to the other, seemingly taking in the tension between Mather and me.
“I will do what’s right for my friends and my land. We cannot go on like this, and if my fate is with you, then yes, that’s what I want,” Cinderella said finally. She threw her arms around me. “But what will you and South do? How will you end this war?”
“The best way for me to help is to stay close to Galatea,” I assured her. “I can’t have one dictator replacing another. I am in the unique position to stop her. I can’t do that if I am not by her side.”
“But if she is anything like Queen Magrit, there is no stopping her, Farrow,” Cinderella said, worried.
“I have an ally here in South. And there are others of us—other Entente spread out among the Queendoms. There is a chance to change their minds, to save them, and to save all of us, humans and Entente alike.”
“And if you can’t?”
“Then I will stop them,” I said resolutely. “And then I will come find you. Both of you.”
“What is it like? To have all that power?” Cinderella asked.
I looked at her, surprised. I had spent so much of my life without my magic. And now that my magic was back, it paled in comparison to that of my sisters.
“Once upon a time, it felt like magic could make anything possible. Now it feels like something else. A last opportunity to make things right so Hecate didn’t die in vain. I only hope that I am enough.”
“Does having magic feel like you’re filled up with stars and lightning and thunder? Like you’re about to burst?”
“When I was young, I could feel the magic inside. But I didn’t know what I could or would do next. Now it’s different. It takes a key to unlock my magic. It takes a wish. And when I grant that wish, it’s like all this pent-up magic is finally released for its exact purpose. And I feel a rush of something else. I think it might be peace.”
Cinderella hesitated, and then kissed me on the cheek.
Prince Mather leaned in so that his lips were a mere inch away from mine.
“I will go with Cinderella, but my heart remains with you,” he said.
And then, with the same wish from the prince and Cinderella, they were gone.
The spell had worked. I exhaled sharply. I had granted a wish, but none of us truly had what we wanted. My own heart ached.
They were safe for now. That was all that mattered, I told myself.