Felicia didn’t really mean it. She was the Queen, after all. She couldn’t just run off with a pixie and a giant dog in the middle of the night.

All the same, the words seemed to hang in the air in front of her.

As if she had meant it.

As if it was a real possibility …

But it wasn’t.

It definitely wasn’t.

For a start, Aunt Delilah would be furious if Felicia disappeared. She’d stomp up and down the corridors of the palace, shouting at people. She’d narrow her eyes and blame the ladies-in-waiting and the guards and anyone else who crossed her path.

But I wouldn’t be here to see it, thought Felicia.

The fizzing in her tummy was back. It felt like a window. Or maybe a door, where she hadn’t even known there was one.

And it was ajar. Just the tiniest little bit …

If I find the dragon, I might learn what happened to my parents, she thought. It’s the sort of thing a queen should know.

She looked at the pixie, who only came up to her knee. She looked at the dog, who was pitch-black and enormous, with ears like black flags and paws as big as the royal dinner plates (the special ones that were only used at banquets).

‘I want to go with you,’ she said again.

And this time she meant it.

The pixie shook her head. ‘Definitely not.’

‘Three might be better than two, Flax,’ said the dog. ‘Don’t you think? Huh? Huh?’

‘No,’ said the pixie.

‘But I could help,’ said Felicia. ‘I’m good at—’

What was she good at? Signing official letters she wasn’t allowed to read. Walking around her bedchamber with The History of Hallow in Five Volumes on her head. Smiling at ambassadors and prime ministers when she was tired and bored.

None of those things seemed likely to change the pixie’s mind.

But perhaps—

‘If you’re from far, far away,’ she said, ‘you probably don’t know much about Hallow.’

The pixie crossed her arms. ‘We know enough.’

‘We don’t, Flax,’ said the dog (who looked awfully like the big black dog on the tapestry that had disappeared).

‘We do,’ snapped Flax.

‘But I know heaps of things,’ Felicia said desperately. ‘I know how many bales of wool we produce every year, and where the stone is mined for public buildings, and where the best grapes grow for wine … ’

She stopped. Even to her, it did not sound like a useful list.

‘Can you fight a dragon?’ demanded Flax.

‘I – I don’t think so,’ Felicia said in a small voice.

‘Then you’re no use to us. Not unless the dragon asks for grapes, or stone. Which isn’t very likely.’

Felicia’s shoulders drooped. Of course they didn’t want her. No one wanted her, not for anything important or useful.

Even when the ambassadors and prime ministers pretended to smile at her, they were really smiling at Aunt Delilah. She held the power in Hallow. She wrote the letters that Felicia signed. She made the decisions.

With a sigh, Felicia turned back towards the palace. Tonight had been more interesting than the past hundred days put together. And for a moment, she had thought her life might change.

But it hadn’t.

And it wouldn’t.

‘Goodbye then,’ she said over her shoulder. At least she could still be polite. ‘Good luck with the dragon.’

Behind her, the giant dog was arguing with the pixie.

‘No,’ said the pixie. ‘No no no!’

‘Yup,’ said the dog. ‘Otherwise we’ll never mumble mumble mumble.’

A tiny leaf of hope sprouted in Felicia’s heart.

She half turned, just as the dog raised his voice and said, ‘I don’t suppose you know where the dragon lives?’