“Then what is your real name?”
I smiled, letting it go sharp at the edges. “Wouldn’t you like to know?” I straightened, studying her. Her clothes were wrong for this realm. Too familiar. The kind of thing I might have worn once, in a life I barely remembered. “I have to admit, this is new—even for the queen. Are you one of her servants?”
“What are you talking about? I don’t work for any queen.”
“Why don’t I believe you?”
Movement in the tree above caught my eye. Chester Knave lounged on a branch. Golden eyes that tracked every movement, dark hair falling across a sharp-angled face. That grin—always that grin, stretched across his face like it had been carved there.Chester always looked like he was playing a game only he knew the rules to.
“Well, well,” he said. “New blood in the Forgotten Forest.”
Then he began to fade. His feet first, disappearing into nothing, then his legs, his chest. His face lingered a moment longer, still grinning. Then only the grin remained, suspended in the air like a threat.
And then—nothing.
“Who is she?” Chester appeared beside Alice, circling her like a predator.
Alice screamed, stumbling back. “How did you—you weren’t there a second ago!”
“Wasn’t I?” He vanished mid-step and reappeared next to me, hands in his pockets.
Alice scrambled to her feet and pressed her back against a tree. “What are you? Witch? Warlock?” Her voice dropped. “Demon?”
Chester’s grin widened. “Nothing so interesting. I’m just me.”
I gestured toward him. “Meet Chester Knave. We call him Grin.”
Alice’s face went white, fear bright in those blue eyes—too clear, too innocent for a place like this. “This place is…is… impossible.”
“An impossible nightmare,” I said. The dungeon walls closed in around me for a moment—stone, darkness, the queen’s laughter echoing. I shoved the memory down. “It can make you mad.” I stepped closer to her. “Mad like me.”
“Stay away from me. Both of you.” She edged around the tree as if looking for an escape route that didn’t exist.
I grinned. “Oh, I think not.”
Behind her, shadows merged. The twins stepped out—Flint with his scarred knuckles, Steel with that cold, calculating stare. They flanked her, cutting off any path she might’ve taken.
Alice bolted—or tried to. She feinted left, looking for a gap between the twins, but Steel was already there, moving like smoke. She spun right, and Flint blocked her path, scarred knuckles flexing.
“Get away from me.” She shoved past him, desperate.
Flint caught her before she made it three steps, one hand clamping around her arm. “Going somewhere, spy?”
She twisted, tried to wrench free. “Let go of me!”
Steel grabbed her other arm, his grip just as unyielding. “We don’t trust agents of the queen.”
She held her chin high. “I told you I’m not with any queen. I just want to go back home.” She looked at each of us, and the wide-eyed innocence from before had cracked—replaced by something sharper. Frustration. Maybe even anger. “Why doesn’t anyone believe me?”
Chester’s grin seemed to float closer, his face following a beat later, like his body had to catch up. “If you’re not with the queen, then why are you here?”
She swallowed hard. “It was an accident. I heard… I heard a voice.”
My pulse kicked. The queen had enchanted mirrors, cursed compasses—a dozen relics that could lure someone here.
I stepped closer. “The queen’s voice?”
“No.” She shook her head. “A man’s.” Her brows drew together. “It sounded…”
