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“Oh, I have given them a new assignment,” he said.

I frowned, suspicious. “What new assignment?”

He laughed. “Nothing terrible, I promise. Not that they wouldn’t deserve it, the little beasts. Now, shall we—” He stopped, his gaze drifting back to the Grove.

A woman of the courtly fae had stepped out of the trees, ignoring the still-lengthy queue, the foremost members of which grumbled and glared at her. Her eyes were much too wide-set and her nose too large for her face, but she was beautiful, the unusual, arresting variety of beauty that many of the Folk possess. Her hair was a spill of dark feathers, her dress a dozen shades of black. I remembered her immediately—she had been one of the more disturbing members of our audience last night.

“Your Highnesses,” she said, bowing at us both, before rising with a malicious smile. She carried a sword at her side.

“You again,” Wendell said, frowning. “You will have no luck here, Lady. I advise you to put your sword down and return to the trees uninjured.”

“But I have waited an age,” the woman replied in a voice much older than her face. “My hunger for vengeance grows like ivy, strangling my heart with each passing season. I thought your stepmother had denied me my chance.”

“Very well,” Wendell said. “I would lift your curse, if I could—but I can see no way through my father’s magics.”

“I want nothing from you,” she spat. “Only your blood on my sword.”

I had no idea what was going on, but this faerie looked every bit as unhinged and dangerous as she sounded. “Please tell me you are not going to fight her,” I said in disbelief.

“Don’t worry, Em,” he said, for naturally this was exactly what he was about to do. “This poor wretch will not trouble us long.”

Sighing, he stood and picked up his sword. He and the raven-haired faerie circled each other for a few moments—Wendell did not seem enthusiastic about another swordfight. Eventually, she charged, sword flashing. The Folk in the queue, as well as the various courtiers who had gathered in the forest shadows to watch the proceedings, cheered and clapped.

The woman was more skilled than any other Wendell had fought that day—she ducked and wove like a dancer, her midnight skirts twirling about her. There was a pause in the fight, and Wendell heaved another sigh. I realized he had been hoping to win without exerting himself particularly. When the woman charged him again, he met her with an impossible series of parries, and then—I did not perceive the moment he disarmed her—her sword was sailing over our heads and into the forest. Two courtiers ran after it, giggling. Wendell put his hand on the raven-haired faerie’s shoulder as if in commiseration. Then, with his other hand, he drove his sword into her chest.

A strangled sound escaped me. Wendell had angled the sword slightly upwards, the motion calculated and precise, and I realized with a shudder that it must have been to ensure that the woman did not linger. He murmured briefly in her ear and stepped back.

The woman’s face was twisted in a peevish sort of scowl, as if he had done nothing worse than beat her at a hand of cards. She collapsed against the moss, and her body began to contort, bones snapping and shrinking and feathers bursting through her fine silks. A heartbeat later, a crow hunched in her place, and then it launched itself into the air, flapping at Wendell’s head before Razkarden chased it into the forest.

As I stared in mute silence at the place where the woman had lain, Wendell plucked a feather from his hair and fell back into his throne.

“She will remain that way for as long as my reign lasts,” he said, twirling the feather idly between his fingers. “It is her curse, placed upon her by my father long before I was born. The magic releases her from her crow form only briefly to challenge each of my father’s descendants when they ascend the throne. To break the curse, she must slay one of us, else she is returned to the treetops.”

Good Lord. It was nonsensical even by the standards of Faerie. “And what was her crime, that your father doomed her thus?”

“Oh, I don’t know,” Wendell said. “It was so long ago that most Folk have forgotten. I suppose her fate must have made sense to him; he enjoyed constructing elaborate punishments for those who angered him. I remember him of an evening, chuckling to himself by the fire. Poor thing!”

“I see,” I said noncommittally—the fate of the vengeful faerie woman was appalling, but I could summon little sympathy for her. I found I had trouble focusing my thoughts. It was as if I had been holding my composure in place by a thread, and this final bizarre incident had snapped it.

“What a wearying day!” Wendell exclaimed, though he’d spent most of it lounging upon his throne, sipping an array of coffees supplied by the eager red-faced servants, who seemed to be having a private competition over which blend he would prefer. He waved away the next petitioner, a faerie woman who pouted prettily at him. “I’d almost rather be in a lecture hall,” he said. “Well, I refuse to exert myself further. I look forward to having all of this”—he waved a hand vaguely—“sorted out, so that I can spend most of my days at leisure, as one should.”

“Your stepmother kept herself busy starting wars,” I pointed out.

“Ah, but that was merely her way of amusing herself. My father enjoyed receiving supplicants, but that was because he always liked holding court. He very rarely resolved anything, and often made the situation worse.”

I mulled this over. Kaur has theorized that most faerie monarchs rule through a sort of capricious neglect, and that their true role is as an animus for the magics of their realm, rather than a head of state in the human sense.[*2]

He stood and offered me his hand. “Let’s go home.”

“You wanted a picnic.”

“That can wait. Come—the servants will see the rest of these Folk off.”

As soon as we left the Grove, Wendell led me off the path and through a screen of tall ferns, which thickened behind us, growing so tall they blocked even the lantern light.

“Where on earth are we going?” I groused.

Wendell turned and clasped my hands between his. He looked so anxious and dejected that it brought me up short—I’m not certain I’ve ever seen such an expression on his face before.