had been when they first met. Her eyes were wide, full of amusement, but it was the untainted joy in her laughter that convinced Talia to lower her weapon. “This is Arathea.”
Snow shrugged. “We had to leave in such a hurry the last time. We didn’t even have time for a proper tour of your homeland. This is the palace where you grew up, isn’t it?”
Talia turned about. The last time she was here, she had fought a fairy army. As if conjured by the thought, the sound of hoofbeats chilled her skin. Her sword snapped into a guard position. Howling filled the air, followed by screams. “The Wild Hunt?”
“They’re dreams, nothing more.”
Talia tried to calm her breathing, fighting memories of the destruction the Hunt had left in its wake. They were victims of an ancient fairy curse, twisted into the very embodiment of chaos and death. “So they can’t hurt us.”
“I never said that.” Snow’s lips quirked. “Dreams have power. You should know this.”
Talia snorted. “And you should know it’s been a while since I’ve dreamed.”
Snow acknowledged the point with a tilt of her head. “It’s a shame, really.” She stepped closer, sliding a hand up Talia’s arm. “Dreams can be quite… invigorating.”
Talia shivered. She was dressed similarly to Snow, in a jade robe and matching head scarf. Her red cape was gone, and with it her best hope of fighting the Wild Hunt.
“Don’t worry,” Snow said, tugging Talia’s scarf free. Real head scarves were thick, woven to protect the wearer from the desert sun. This one floated away like silk. “They’re not coming for you this time.”
Talia forced herself to pull away. “Are you real? Or is this some trick, an illusion cast by the demon?”
“If so, then you’re already lost,” Snow said matter-of-factly. “You might as well enjoy it.”
The Hunt was closer now. Talia could see the growing dust storm that marked their approach. “You said they weren’t coming for me. Who-?”
Snow gestured past Talia, to where Danielle and Gerta sat upon a crumbled wall, sharing some kind of green melon. Talia tried to shout a warning, but no words emerged. She started to run. Her feet sank into the sand, deeper with each step.
“You can’t protect us all,” said Snow.
“Watch me.” Talia snarled and turned to face the Wild Hunt. Dream or no, she still owed the Hunt for the things they had done in Arathea.
Lips brushed her cheek, but when she spun around, Snow was gone. The thunder of the Wild Hunt fell silent. Light faded, and cold air embraced her. She took a step, and the sand beneath her feet changed to wood.
Magic jolted her body, so sharp she felt as though her heart momentarily stopped beating. She found herself in a small, finely furnished sitting room. The floor was patterned wood tiles, alternating triangles of light- and dark-stained oak that made the shapes appear to rise from the floor. Gerta was already here, sitting in one of the blue high-backed chairs spread around a low table. There were no windows, though the painted vines and trees on the wall gave the illusion of being in the woods.
“Danielle should arrive shortly,” Gerta said.
“Thank you.” Talia was unsurprised to see only unbroken wall behind her. There was only a single door on the opposite side of the room. She tried the handle and found it locked. She heard nothing beyond. “That dream. What was it?”
“You think the king would allow strangers into his home without first examining their minds and motives?”
“He saw that, did he?” Talia retained both her weapons and the red cape. She pulled the latter tight, feeling exposed. “What happens if he doesn’t like what he sees?”
“In my mother’s day, they said you would emerge… elsewhere. Some say she had hundreds of rooms built into the foundation of the palace, coffin-sized chambers with no light and no way out. Nothing but darkness, too cramped even to move as you slowly starved to death.” She cocked her head. “Though I don’t know if my mother would trap you somewhere she couldn’t question you. Somewhere she couldn’t listen to your screams.”
Talia studied the portraits on the walls while she tried to squelch the need to tear out the throat of the king of Allesandria. A central painting in an arched, gold frame showed King Laurence and Queen Odelia. Smaller paintings to either side depicted their two children. The girl looked about five years old. The boy was closer to Jakob’s age. Both children were painted in the stiff, full-body pose that was popular these days.
She wondered how the king and queen had kept their children still long enough for the artist to paint them. She still remembered the trouble Danielle and Armand had gone to. In the end, Danielle had simply dressed a tailor’s dummy in Jakob’s clothes. The artist had added Jakob’s face and hands later.
Danielle emerged then, stumbling through an opening in the wall that vanished as quickly as it had appeared. She clutched her sword in both hands, swinging downward at an unreal foe. The tip gouged the floor.
Talia darted forward and caught Danielle’s wrist, tugging the sword from her hand.
“I’m sorry,” said Danielle. She crouched to run a finger over the damage to the wooden tile. “Glasspaper should smooth out the damage, but it will need to be restained.” Her hands shook, giving the lie to her calm words.
Slowly and deliberately, Talia rested the tip of Danielle’s sword on the floor and leaned on the hilt.
“We’re guests here,” Danielle reminded her.
“You don’t greet ‘guests’ with visions of-” Talia swallowed, then handed the sword back to Danielle. “Are you all right?”
“We were back at the palace,” Danielle said. “Jakob was playing another of his hiding games. Armand and Snow were both there. Beatrice too, I think. But we couldn’t find him.”
“The king will be here soon,” said Gerta. “I can feel him studying me.” She pointed to the stained wood trim along the walls, like an intricately carved chair rail, only at chest height. “That runs unbroken through the entire palace, allowing the king and queen magical access to every room. My mother ordered it made, to better spy on her guests and servants.”
She seemed calm, almost bored, making Talia wonder what she had seen as she entered the room.
“I was running,” Gerta said, answering Talia’s unspoken question. “I couldn’t see whether it was Snow chasing me or something else, but then I recognized the dream magic.”
“What did you do?” asked Talia.
Gerta smiled, but it didn’t reach her eyes. “I stopped playing.”
The door opened, and a man in his late twenties entered. “She tried to pull me into the dream with her.”
“King Laurence.” Danielle’s nod was rather less than the formal greeting of one noble to another, but the king didn’t appear to notice.
He was a heavyset man with pale skin and jet-black hair too perfect to be natural. A gold sash crossed his formal, thigh-length white jacket. Gleaming black boots came to the middle of his shins. He carried a scepter, a gold rod slightly shorter than a cane, topped with a simple circle of gold. He spoke the language of Lorindar with only the slightest accent. “Welcome to Allesandria, Princess Whiteshore. I hope you’ll forgive my intrusion into your minds.”
“You can hope,” Talia muttered.
Danielle shot a warning glare at Talia. “I trust you saw enough to confirm our identities, Your Majesty?”
“I saw that, and more.” He turned his attention to Gerta. “Forssel relayed your actions at the wall. Combined with your attempt to disrupt my dreamspell-”
“Attempt?” Gerta repeated.
The king seemed tired, but his wry smile reminded Talia a little of Snow. “It’s not every day a cousin I’ve never met enters the palace, accompanied by the Princess of Lorindar and the Lady of the Red Hood.”
“Talia’s not-” Danielle began.
“Here to kill anyone,” Talia finished. If he wanted to believe she was a legendary assassin, who was she to argue with a king? Laurence had certainly prepared as if she were the Lady of the Red Hood. Talia could smell the protective spells that encased him like dwarf-forged mail.
“You’re not the one I was worried about, Talia.” Laurence watched Gerta closely. “Everything I saw in your
