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Your queen?” Veronica said. “Why sir, does that make you a king?”

“My mother is a queen and my father is a king,” Shandor said.

“Then doesn’t that make you a prince or something?” She asked.

“They are buried nearby,” he said. “Hence my yearly pilgrimage to this place.”

“You said your mother is queen, not was,” Veronica said.

“Such distinctions have little relevance here, in my kingdom,” he said. “I should think you would understand that.”

“That’s true,” Veronica said. “We’re in-between, right? Not across the Pale but not in the Kingdoms either.”

“Yes,” Shandor said.

“Then no thank you,” Veronica replied. “I spent way too long here already. Looking back on it, it was not time well spent.”

He smiled. “Because you were not queen,” he said. “That can really make a difference, you know. Having power. Having someone who appreciates you—not for what you were, or might be, but for exactly what you are. Beautiful, independent, powerful, a woman to be reckoned with. A goddess. I hardly know you and I adore you already, Veronica.”

She stared at him, searching for some sign that he was having her on, but he sounded sincere. No one had ever quite looked at her the way Shandor did. She had been viewed through the gaze of lust, horror, disgust, pity, friendship—maybe love, although her last meeting with Errol had left her in doubt about that. Shandor seemed to see everything anyone else had ever seen, and more—and he appeared to like it all, together, completely.

“Goddess,” she repeated.

“A dark goddess,” he murmured. His voice was almost hypnotic. “A goddess of death, of the gateway to oblivion. When the mighty fall from the High and Faraway, it is here they land, before passing into the Reign of the Departed. My realm is not so vast as the Kingdoms, I grant you. But it has many charms. You are neither of the Kingdoms nor of the Ghost Country, Veronica. You are like me, both quick and dead. Immortal. Above life and death, right and wrong, good and bad. Be my queen, and I will love you as no other ever can.”

With every word he spoke, she wanted to shut her ears and hear no more; for every word he spoke she wanted a hundred more. Everything he said made sense. Before, she had been the Creek Man’s slave. But in the Kingdoms, she had felt her potential, the power she might have. She loved Errol, but he expected so much of her. So did Aster. She did not tell them the truth about the urges she had at night, the hungers that came upon her, the deeds she imagined.

Shandor already knew, and not only did not care, but shared those predilections. He only expected her to be herself, and for her to let him love her. Here, she could behave as she wanted, and no one would try to make her feel bad about it.

What was wrong with that?

Maybe nothing. Maybe everything. She didn’t know. But she did know something was holding her back, just as something had held her back in the Kingdoms, every time she was on the verge of losing herself to her power.

And there was something else. Shandor was perceptive enough, and earnest. But he was also smug and self-satisfied. She could tell from the look on his face he believed it was impossible for her to refuse him. And that was hard to abide. He did not know her as well as he thought he did.

“That’s a very kind offer,” she told him. “I’m sure it’s very flattering, and some other girl would eat it up. But not me. I must say no.”

Shandor leaned forward.

“You must understand, I am very determined. Since the moment I saw you by the creek, my yearning for you has been constant.”

“That’s, wow—a whole day,” she said.

He leaned back. “You will see,” he said. “There is no hurry.”

“Great,” she said. “But in the meantime, I have things to do, parties to attend, and so on. So, if you could point me toward my friend Aster, that would be lovely.”

He regarded her silently for a long time, long enough that she began to wonder if she would be able to kill him if it came to that. He had suggested he was like her, but in what way, exactly?

Finally, he turned to the girl who had returned to her place at the edge of the candlelight.

“Take her to her friend,” she said.

The girl came, took her hand, and lead her from the tent.

“You don’t mind your boyfriend gettin’ all flirty with strangers?” she asked, once they were outside.

“He is my brother,” the girl replied, leading her through the encamped caravan. “He has no mate. He has never courted one before. Only you.”

“I bet that’s what you tell all the girls,” she said.

Shandor’s sister didn’t reply. A few moments later they came to a black, horse-drawn carriage, complete with two horses.

Aster was inside, apparently asleep. Veronica leaned close, until she could feel her life pulsing.

“That’s it?” she said to the girl.

“My brother bids you take the carriage,” she said. “Tell the horses where you want to go.”

“Tell your brother he is very kind,” Veronica said.

The girl nodded. “You’ve made a mistake, you know,” she said.

“If so, it’s really not the first,” Veronica said. She opened the door to the carriage and nudged Aster.

“Wake up, Sleepy,” she said.

Aster stirred, but her eyes didn’t open.

“Some kind of spell on her?” she asked.

“Yes,” the girl said. “It will dissipate by sunrise.”

“Okay,” Veronica said. She climbed in and shut the door.

“Horses,” she said. “Take us out of here. Take us to Errol.”

The beasts shifted restlessly but did not move.

“You must name a place,” Shandor’s sister said. “Or at least a direction. They know much, these horses, but not the location of every person in the Kingdoms.”

“Oh,” she said. “Okay, then. Horses, take us out of here, into the nearest Kingdom.”

The carriage lurched into motion. Soon they were on the open road, beneath the stars, the lights of the camp and the town dwindling behind them.

Aster woke to unfamiliar motion. She found she was resting against the wooden frame of an open window. The dark trunks of gigantic trees passed by beyond, the deep orange light of the rising sun occasionally visible through them. Between the trees and the sunrise were more trees, morass, and occasional open water. A gigantic grey heron raised up its neck and turned its head to watch them pass by.

She remembered riding on the carousel, the change in motion as they moved in-between—then nothing, or at least very little.

She turned her head, slowly. The window was in a carriage with two seats upholstered in earth-toned paisley fabric. She was in one—Veronica lay on the other. She leaned out of her window and saw the vehicle was drawn by two horses but saw no driver. Through the other window were more trees and swamp.

Since nothing dramatic or terrifying seemed to be happening, she took a moment to open her backpack and check her possessions. Everything seemed to be there, including the little silver orb she’d found at the merry-go-round.

That settled, she nudged Veronica with her toe. When that didn’t get results, she pushed a bit harder.

Veronica cracked her eyes open.

“Beauty rest,” she mumbled.

“Just—what’s going on?”

Veronica closed her eyes again.

“We got waylaid by a cute guy named Shandor,” she murmured. “He offered to make me his queen and fulfill my e-ver-y wish. I told him to scat because I’ve got a boyfriend. He wept and pleaded, I very was strong—no sir, mister! Then he gave us this carriage. I told it to take us into the nearest Kingdom. The end. Now let me sleep.”

“Oh,” Aster said. “I see. So now we’re . . . ?”

“On a road in the middle of a big swamp,” Veronica said. “Unless we aren’t anymore. Now you know everything. Tell the horses where to find Errol, if you know, or to go somewhere we can ask someone if you don’t. Good night.”

“It’s morning.”

Veronica rolled over so she was facing the back of the seat.

Aster started to nudge her again and thought better of it. She wasn’t happy about being out of it; whoever this Shandor was, he must have been waiting for them, and he must be awfully powerful. But he must have also let them go, unless the carriage was taking them to a destination of his choosing. Veronica didn’t appear all that worried about it, and Aster was sure Veronica would fill in the details later.

One thing she felt in her bones: they were well beyond the Pale, and no longer in the Marches. They were in the Kingdoms again. She not only remembered her Whimsies, Adjurations, and Decrees, but also a number of Recondite Utterances, which she could never recall until there was enough elumiris present to pronounce them.

But the Kingdoms were fantastically large. They might be headed in absolutely the wrong directions.

She took out the sphere again.

“Pendí,” she told it.

It stirred and warmed in her palm. It rolled toward her middle finger, hesitated a moment, then moved back and over to her pointer, to her pinky, and again to her thumb.

The sphere came to her from her mother; there were other spheres, and they were supposed to be able to seek each other out. Unless she knew the names of the others, there was no way to make hers seek a specific one.

So, she had four choices. Any of them or none of them might bring her to Errol. She was assuming that whoever had left hers at the carousel had one, too—that it was a deliberate challenge for her to follow.

But that might not be true. The sphere might as easily be meant to mislead her to some distant doom.

She glanced back at Veronica for a moment. She was still asleep.

There was something else she could try now that they were in this deep.

She spoke a few soft words and lifted the sphere to her right eye, closing the left. She felt a slight push, and suddenly she was staring out from a height over a lush garden, waterfalls, a winding river, a city of pyramids.

At her command, the scene changed. A mountain, riddled with caves beneath a nighttime sky. Next, a seashore, seen from a height, and what was either a rising or a setting sun.

Then an arch of stone, and beyond it ruddy light. She felt a sort of tingle and, in her vision, turned to see a man on a throne of brass. He wore a robe and crown of gold and copper.

It was her father.

“There,” she whispered to the globe. “What is that place?”

And the globe, in its way, told her a name.

“Horses,” she said. “Take us to Ghartas Essenas.”

The horses tilted their heads to look back at her. A few moments later, they reached a crossroads, and the carriage turned northeast, leaving the swamp, moving uphill through a forest thick with brambles.