It clicks. Not the whole answer, but enough of one to make my bones hum. She believes that. Not because it’s true, but because she has been made to. Placed. Repeated. Reinforced.
And I… I am not where anyone intended me to be. The thought pours through me like hot honey and lightning.
The queen steps forward. “Kneel.”
We’re the ones on the face-eating horses. “No.” The word leaves my mouth, and the air changes. The torches sputter. The hedgehogs uncurl. The nearest card soldier freezes halfway through lifting his blade.
The queen’s eyes widen just a fraction.There it is.“You don’t get to refuse,” she snarls.
“Funny thing—I’m the one being who does.” I smile, and it feels a little wild around the edges.
Another card lunges toward Theo’s horse. The beast lashes out with both front hooves, smashing him flat. I wince. “Good horsey,” I praise.
Theo’s head leans against my back as he laughs. “Daphne.”
“I know. I’m having a moment.”
“A dangerous one.”
“Yes. Those are my best.” I pull on something I do not understand. Not with my hands. Not with my body. With the bit of me that listens when things change. When the slippers refused to fit. When the stories stuttered and looked at me like I might know what came next.
The realm answers. Soft at first, then all at once. The croquet hoops tremble. The flamingo mallet twists in the queen’s hands. The white roses planted in stiff little rows blush red, then white, then red again as if the color cannot decide who it belongs to.
The queen’s expression cracks. “Stop.”
That’s interesting. “I haven’t even begun,” I tell her.
The ground beneath the lawn ripples, and one of the arches lifts out of the earth and spins like a halo gone feral. A hedgehog unrolls, looks around, and marches straight off the pitch like he has better things to do.
The queen raises both hands. “Card guard!”
“Busy!” one shouts as Hart’s horse bites his shoulder and drags him from the saddle of a stolen mare.
I knew it. Face first, shoulder second. Horses are psychos with great hair.
I inhale sharply as power rushes through me. It doesn’t feel like wielding a sword or making a wish. It feels like being a door kicked off its hinges. Like something vast recognizing me and deciding to squeeze through.
I point at the field. “This game is stupid.”
The realm shudders.
Genie gasps. “Careful.”
No, not careful. I’m tired of careful.
The queen’s lips peel back from her teeth. “You insolent thing.”
Thing? Excuse her.
“I’m Daphne Stone,” I snap. “Get it right.”
The sky above us darkens, though I could swear there wasn’t a cloud a tempo ago.
The queen swings her mallet down, the force of it sending a red shimmer racing over the grass toward us like a blade. Theo jerks the horse hard. Nash’s horse slams sideways into ours, knocking the spell off course by a whisper. It slices through a line of rose bushes instead, chopping them clean in half.
“Do not throw magic at me,” I growl. “It’s aggressive.”
“Off with her head,” the queen screams.
