A/N: Thank you to Siltor for adding The Prisoner and Early to Bed to the community "Exemplary Femslash." Also, thank you to everyone who has reviewed, favourited, and alerted, or silently read! Your readership and feedback are, as always, much appreciated!


Chapter 9 – The Loss

Briar Rose guessed that the coolness Maleficent had exhibited toward her that morning was to be expected. It always seemed to be one step forward, two steps back with her. Still, she hadn't reneged on her promise to take Rose with her to the Forbidden Mountains, which was a vast improvement upon the last time Rose had attempted to reach out emotionally.

Maleficent's library was, as promised, quite impressive; however, three quarters of Maleficent's entire collection was physically beyond her reach. Maleficent was quite a bit taller than Rose (indeed, she was quite a bit taller than most people), but the bookshelves seemed to go on forever above her head. Finally, after an embarrassingly long time of staring at a particular red book entitled Non-Aggressive Battle Magic, the answer finally occurred to her: there was no ladder because Maleficent didn't need a ladder. She had magic.

After another hour of trying to magically beckon the book down to her, Rose was ready to give up and ask Maleficent for the requisite incantation. She knew, however, that Maleficent was hard at work on her own project, one which dealt with the sensitive matter of her raven companion, and Rose was loath to disturb her. She tried to think through the small list of spells she knew and what they had in common. None of them were harmful, most of them were stronger when she said the incantation aloud, the length varied, but the ones in a language she could understand were all phrased as statements or commands. Stay back, Grow, Don't mind me…they were all commands!

Rose eyed the red book she wanted and held out her hand. She tried to remember what it was like to hold the magic power in her hand, to feel it coursing through her veins. "Come here!" she said firmly.

The book obeyed so quickly that Rose barely had time to catch it.

Now, with her options much less significantly limited, Rose set aside several other books she felt might be useful or interesting, replacing on lower shelves the ones she could barely understand. She was distracted from her perusal when she came across the biography of Mistress Joy, as written by Mistress Kinsale of the Valley. She sat down at Maleficent's writing desk and began to flip through it.

Joy was born to a Desert Land fairy named Mira. She was the second of six children, one sister and four brothers. She was described as a small person, both in height and stature, and was therefore not as powerful as the rest of her family, but she was very quick, both in body and in mind, and she had a unique talent for talking people into agreeing with her, particularly good fairies.

Though Kinsale did not state it explicitly, it seemed that some kind of crusade against wicked fairies like Maleficent had described had been going on during Joy's early childhood. The Desert Lands were far away from the true conflict, however, and since Joy's mother had young children and a husband who was still present, she was not disturbed.

When she was nearing maturity, Joy made a controversial friend: the good fairy Terra, originally of the Black Forest. "As is often the case when a good fairy and a wicked fairy decide to overlook their ancient enmity, Joy and Terra learned a great deal from one another. Terra learned the art of defensive magic and how to think quickly to outwit an opponent, and Joy learned how to manipulate nature to do her bidding, as well as that most complex art of reading good fairy spells."

When Joy reached maturity, she sensed two things: her father was ready to abandon the family, and her mother would fight Joy to the death to defend her claim on the land. Joy decided to avoid the confrontation, depart in secret along with her father, and to travel with him and with her older brother until she could find a place to call her own.

"Joy had, in the haste of her decision, neglected to tell her friend, Terra, of her plans. The news of her departure came as a great surprise to Terra. With what devastation Terra reacted to the news came as a surprise of equal measure to her family."

The description of Terra's devastation continued for several pages. She stopped eating, barely slept, and disappeared for long stretches of time. Kinsale did not even posit a suggestion as to the cause of Terra's behavior, and Rose got the sense that she was missing a large piece of information necessary to understanding it—probably one she would know if she were a fairy. She closed the book and set it aside in favour of Non-Aggressive Battle Magic.


And Yet So Far was a very popular and somewhat controversial romance novel by Mistress Konstanze of the Black Forest. She noted that it was based loosely upon a true story, and Mistress Joy of the Desert Lands was placed arbitrarily in a list of people Konstanze thanked for their contributions. This was for her own protection, in the case of unforeseen circumstances, and Joy had made certain that it would be absolutely impossible to trace the story back to the good fairy on whose romance the book was based. Perhaps Joy would get into a bit of trouble if her level of involvement were discerned, but that good fairy's life would be over—figuratively and, with things the way they were these days, perhaps even literally.

Joy had met Mistress Fauna of the Eastern Kingdom nearly five hundred years ago. At the time, she had been Lady Fauna of the Land in the Plains. She had been too young to be mistress of anything, and the Four Kingdoms had not quite been established yet.

Fauna had two sisters. The older sister, Flora, believed that she was Mistress of Everything She Saw. The younger, Merryweather, was rude and spoiled, and seemed to take personal offense at everything and everyone she encountered. Fauna, whose light reddish-brown hair and freckles set her apart from her dark-haired sisters, compensated for her striking appearance by being exceedingly agreeable to everyone.

Joy had first encountered the three sisters and their elderly parents on a visit to the Kingdom by the Sea. She served as a personal advisor to the Fairy Queen Titania at the time, and had been investigating Mistress Sara's complaints regarding the wicked fairy Cordelia. (That was, of course, another story entirely.) Whilst contemplating the matter, Joy had settled herself on the beach to enjoy the sunny weather; however, she had found herself woefully unable to concentrate. A family of good fairies sat not a stone's throw away from her. The parents were probably close to a thousand years old, and their children were probably not even fifty. The two dark-haired children were outright screaming at one another about something—Joy had forgotten after all this time—but the conversation went something like this:

"You're so wrong, Flora! Don't you agree, Fauna?"

"Of course I agree, Merryweather."

"Merryweather, that's complete nonsense! Isn't that nonsense, Fauna?"

"I'm sure it is, Flora."

"Flora, you are such an idiot! I'm right, aren't I, Fauna?"

"You're right, Merryweather."

Back and forth, back and forth. With a sigh, Joy stood up, strode over to the family, and planted herself between the sunlight and the elderly good fairies. She was not a person of substantial size, but she easily dwarfed this entire family. The children were undeterred from their argument, but their parents looked up and abruptly tensed. Joy smirked.

"Good afternoon," she said. "Out of curiosity, do you have any intention of controlling your offspring?"

"Please," said the woman. "We don't want any trouble."

"And nor do I," Joy replied pleasantly. "Unfortunately, I cannot hear such peaceable thoughts over the screaming of your children."

"Flora, Merryweather, be quiet!" said the woman, but her voice was weak.

"Flora, Merryweather?" Joy echoed, and mercifully, their argument ceased. The three children looked up at her, and they had the good manners to look frightened. "Your mother told you to be quiet. If my mother had told me to be quiet and I had so gleefully disobeyed, she would have cursed me into next week. Have a pleasant day."

Later, when the sun was setting, Joy took off her shoes and walked along the shore, still torn over what to tell the Queen regarding the Cordelia problem. It was true that she was not a stable person, and she had caused considerable harm in a few isolated incidents, and it was very possible that what Sara feared—that she would snap and cause a large disaster—was a legitimate concern. The complication was that she had a young daughter of limited magical—and possibly mental—ability. Joy knew how these things played out: Sara would take Cordelia out at any cost, and Cordelia's innocent daughter would be blamed for any unforeseen consequences of Sara's actions.

Somewhere in the midst of her dilemma, Joy noticed that she was not alone. A short distance ahead of her, a petite redheaded fairy was walking barefoot, ankle-deep in the water, apparently also deep in thought. Joy recognized her as the agreeable sister from the family she had accosted earlier. What was her name? Fiona? Fyora? "Fauna?"

The girl flinched and whirled around to face Joy. She bowed her head and curtseyed. "Yes, Ma'am. I am very sorry that my sisters and I disturbed you earlier."

Joy waved her hand dismissively, "Think nothing of it. What brings you here?"

"A sort of vacation," Fauna replied. "Our parents plan to stay and retire here. We'll return to the Land in the Plains and assume our responsibilities there."

"You're a bit young for that," Joy remarked.

Fauna nodded, "But there are three of us. Most of the responsibility falls on Flora, anyway. Our mother is too tired to serve as counsel to all four of the emerging kingdoms. She wants to spend the rest of her life with Father."

"Hmm," Joy replied. She had never actually seen a fairy couple who had stayed together their entire lives. "I can't imagine. That's quite an accomplishment."

Fauna nodded. "It seems impossible to me," she said sadly.

Joy chuckled. "You're also a bit young to be so cynical."

The young fairy turned upon her large, light brown eyes shimmering with tears. "Have you ever been in love?"

Joy frowned, feeling suddenly quite uncomfortable. "Have you?" she asked.

Fauna looked down at her feet and began tracing a patter in the sand with her toes. "It's impossible."

"How can you be so certain? Love is difficult, of course, but your parents managed it, didn't they?" Joy felt very strange, trying to cheer up a young good fairy with optimistic talk about a subject in which she had had miserable luck, herself.

"My family wouldn't approve. No one would."

Joy raised her eyebrows, "Why is that?" Fauna did not respond. "Nevermind, it doesn't matter," she amended. " It's my experience that someone is always going to disapprove of you even if you're exactly where you're supposed to be, keeping your mouth shut and causing no trouble. Perhaps chasing this impossible love of yours would be a difficult road, but you might find it more rewarding than spending the rest of your life telling your sisters that they're right about everything."

Fauna regarded her carefully for a moment, but then she shook her head. "I know they seem…difficult," she said. "But they're my sisters. I have a responsibility to help them. I have a responsibility to the Four Kingdoms. I have—"

"You also have a responsibility to yourself," Joy cut her off. She had no patience for good fairy drivel. "Not every fairy gets a chance to experience love. Not every person of any species gets a chance to experience true happiness. Are you going to let that slip away because your sisters told you to?"

Fauna frowned down at her clasped hands. "No," she said at last. "No, I'm not."

It was a shock to see Fauna and her sisters again after so long. Still more shocking was that, after all she knew at least one of them had gone through, they were exactly as they had been five hundred years ago. Felicity mostly spoke for all of them, much to Flora's obvious irritation. Flora, who had grown plump and whose hair had greyed, occasionally interjected unnecessary information, with which Merryweather (who had also grown plump and whose magically darkened hair was fooling no one) occasionally felt the need to argue. Fauna, who had aged far more gracefully than her sisters, remained still and silent, and kept eyeing Joy fearfully. It occurred to Joy that this woman probably had not done a very good job at having a clandestine romance, and she did her best to ignore Fauna as everyone else was doing.

She had honestly sort of forgotten about what was now the Land of Two or Three Kingdoms. The only wicked fairies who had ever bothered with it during her time as Queen 's Counsel had been nomadic males. She tried to think how long it had been—there were the three kingdoms after that war a couple of centuries back, but then the Eastern King's daughter was going to marry the Northern King's son and they were going to unite or something, but then something else happened.

She hadn't even realized that that something was Maleficent of the Dragon Country. My, my, those three little fairies were in over their heads! Joy wondered why they hadn't sought help sooner, but by the end of the meeting, she had her answer: Flora's pride. Apparently that had cost them dearly, for Maleficent was now too powerful to be imprisoned by a product of the Mountainland Fairies. She had, according to a combination of Felicity and Flora, enchanted the princess she cursed into setting her free and taken off with the girl.

Joy privately felt glad that her young friend had escaped death and was more powerful than ever, and also that she, herself, was no longer in the employ of the Fairy Queen. This way, she did not have to condemn Maleficent for her deeds, and if it became necessary, she could help her. Maleficent would need all the help she could get if the news of her power got to Mistress Sara.

Precisely two weeks after the visit from Mistress Felicity and company, Maleficent came to visit, and as it turned out, the events of her escape had been grossly exaggerated.

"So let me see if I understand you—you just talked her into freeing you?"

Maleficent nodded. "She's a very kind-hearted girl. She didn't want me to die." Joy had never seen Maleficent so calm…almost resigned. It was quite unnerving.

"Even though you wanted her to die?"

"Yes."

Joy laughed in an effort to dispel her discomfort at this new, icy demeanour of Maleficent's. "And now she's learning magic. Oh, that's funny!"

"Your sense of humour eludes me."

"What is it with the Land in the Plains and fairies falling in love with humans?" Joy mused. "There must be something in the water."

"What in Hell's name are you talking about?" Joy felt genuinely relieved that her goading had been successful—there was the Maleficent she remembered: irritable and defensive.

"First little Fauna had that disastrous affair with the boy in the Kingdom by the Sea, now you're mad about the damned Eastern Princess, of all people!"

Maleficent rolled her eyes. "Oh, I'm mad? That's the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard. Fauna had an affair with a human?"

Joy nodded. "Of course—haven't you read Konstanze's book about the good fairy and the human?"

"I'm not much for romance novels."

"Of course you wouldn't be. But you know the story, everyone does, and I swear to you it's about Fauna."

"How can you swear to something so absurd?" asked Maleficent, clearly losing her patience.

"I'm the one who told Konstanze the story, of course," said Joy with a wave of her hand. "Now, I know you got off topic to distract me from your passionate love for the princess—"

"Enough of that!" Maleficent snapped. "She is a child!"

Joy smirked. She honestly couldn't tell whether she was right or not, but at the very least, Maleficent was acting like her usual self. "What is she, sixteen or seventeen by now? A human would very much disagree with you, Maleficent," she replied. "Anyway, I'm sure you've figured out that if Felicity convinces anyone of importance that you're more powerful than the Mountainland Fairies, you'll be hunted like a dog. I'll contact Zenovia and see if she has any ideas, but please do be on your guard. This thing with Sara is bound to come to a head soon, anyway."

Maleficent nodded curtly and made to exit. "Thank you, Joy."

"Maleficent?"

"Yes?"

"She could do a lot worse than you, you know," said Joy with a teasing smile.

Maleficent shook her head. "The heat has addled your brain, Joy," she replied, and in a burst of green flame, she was gone.


"Briar Rose."

Rose jumped and dropped her book as she whirled around to face Maleficent.

"Perhaps you ought to read a book about getting caught off guard," she said. Rose knew it was meant as a joke, but something about Maleficent was decidedly sombre.

Rose blushed. "I didn't…" she swallowed and decided to change the subject. "Is your bird all right?"

"No," Maleficent replied evenly. "He's dead. He might have been dead all this time, or I might have killed him just now," she averted her eyes briefly, but nothing else about her demeanour changed. "His statue crumbled into dust."

"I'm so sorry," Rose whispered. Without thinking, she reached out and touched Maleficent's arm. Maleficent flinched away and her eyes flashed. She all but glared at the spot where Rose's hand had touched her. "I'm sorry," said Rose once more.

"It's over now," said Maleficent, but she did not take her eyes off of her arm. "Gather the books you want and we'll go. I owe you a challenge."

Rose's eyes widened. "Oh, that's not necessary, you've just—" Maleficent's eyes met hers and Rose stopped talking. Maleficent had just suffered yet another loss. There was no need to point it out.

Rose picked up the small pile of books she had assembled for herself and turned back to Maleficent, who was gazing at nothing in particular. Maleficent opened her arms to Rose and transported them back to the castle in the Dragon Country.

Once Rose had gotten over the feeling of being nowhere—and had, consequently, stopped clutching onto Maleficent for dear life, she placed the books next to the chair she had usually occupied, next to Maleficent's, before her many months of solitude.

"Are you ready?" asked Maleficent, her tone just as calm and hollow as it had been for two days.

Rose nodded silently.

Maleficent set aside her staff. "Very well. You know how to block spells, correct?"

"Yes."

"I'll begin with verbal incantations. Sisto!"

Long, thin streams of purple light burst from Maleficent's fingertips. Rose crossed her arms and cried, "Contego!" The streams of light bounced off of an invisible shield a breath away from her crossed arms.

Before Rose had time to relax her arms, Maleficent cried "Verto!"

"Contego!" The spell knocked her back a few steps, but her shield kicked in before it could do any real damage—not that Rose knew what either of those spells was meant to achieve.

"Very good," said Maleficent. She folded her arms and examined her fingernails on one hand. "But I wouldn't relax if I were you. This is a challenge, after all." The hand she had seemed to examine innocuously suddenly made a sweeping gesture, now holding some kind of ball of energy which came barreling toward Rose. Rose brought up her arms to shield herself, but she was too late. The energy ball hit her in the stomach and knocked her off her feet.

Rose winced when her backside hit the floor, but she realized shortly thereafter that the energy ball hadn't actually hurt her. She looked up at Maleficent, who was offering her hand.

"I know," said Rose. "I relaxed."

"Well, yes, but the Contego is best as a long-term shield. For something like that, you could simply have caught it and thrown it back at me."

Rose frowned. "But then wouldn't it have hurt you?"

Maleficent raised one eyebrow. It was the most expressive her features had been all day. "It would hurt whoever failed to catch it. Would you like to try again?"

Rose nodded and Maleficent threw another energy ball at her. She wasn't an expert at catching things, but she was a great deal better than her three non-aunts. She used both of her hands to catch the ball, just to be safe. It felt strange to hold—it didn't really touch her hand, and yet she could feel it there all the same. Rose gazed at the ball of energy for a moment in wonder before she remembered her surroundings. She looked up at Maleficent, who gazed back stoically, and she realized that the only reason she felt all right about throwing a spell back at her was because she knew Maleficent would catch it.

Maleficent did not catch it so much as she struck it back in Rose's direction. Rose was caught by surprise, but she caught the ball with her right hand and threw it back. So it went back and forth several times until Maleficent hit the ball some odd way so that it spiraled, and Rose, caught off guard once more, froze and allowed the energy ball to knock her to the ground.

"You saw the spell coming and you saw that its path was unpredictable," said Maleficent as she helped Rose to her feet once more. "That might have been a good time to do what?"

Rose sighed. "Use a shield?"

Maleficent nodded.

"I'm hopeless."

"No, you're slow on your feet. You'll get better with practice. Once more."

They continued practicing with the harmless energy spell until Rose could think of an appropriate response to a handful of different techniques Maleficent used to cast the spell. Rose became increasingly frustrated that she had to be fed each of these responses by Maleficent after first being hit by the spell for lack of any reaction at all, but after several tries, her reaction time did seem to get a bit better.

As they practiced for perhaps the twentieth time, Rose noted that she felt hyper-alert. Her eyes were dry from not blinking enough and her heart rate was consistently faster and louder than normal. Maleficent was unnervingly calm, which Rose found irritating. What must it be like to be so far above her opponent's skill level that she needn't even break a sweat?

With a cry of frustration, Rose grabbed the energy ball with both hands and threw it hard at Maleficent's legs. Maleficent held out one hand and the energy ball disappeared into the air in front of her knees. She smiled. "Now you're beginning to think creatively. Are you tired?"

Rose, who was still wide-eyed and panting, holding her hands in front of her at the ready, shook her head.

"Very well. Let's continue."

Maleficent fired another glowing ball of energy at her, but this one was reddish and almost appeared to be on fire. Rose hit it back with the side of her arm, and the ball burned her skin. Rose gasped, less from the pain and more because Maleficent was raising the stakes. Maleficent caught the fireball, evidently without harm to herself, and blew upon it. Rose quickly raised the Contego shield before the flames could reach her and she kept it up for as long as she could while she waited for what Maleficent would try next.

Instead, Maleficent began walking toward her. This in itself would have been intimidating and caused Rose to back away in equal measure, for Maleficent's presence even when she was obviously in a good humour made no secret of the danger she posed. What was even more frightening, and it caused Rose's mouth to become dry and her heart to pound in her throat, was that the hollow, empty quality of her voice was now visible in her eyes. Black eyes which usually shone with depth and intelligence were flat, glazed over, emotionless. Rose shivered.

"Stay back," she croaked, but of course such a weak command accomplished nothing. Rose tried to ignore the terror in her heart as she gazed into Maleficent's eyes and she stood her ground. "Stay back!" she said again, firmly. The spell hit Maleficent, but it scarcely even knocked her back one step.

"Many people, particularly mortal men, believe that practitioners of magic can only fight at range," said Maleficent. She was still walking toward Rose, who was stumbling backward across the great hall, trying not to lose her footing on the uneven floor. "They will try to get close to you, not only because they believe they can overpower you, but because they believe they can frighten you."

Rose's heel hit a stone in the floor which stuck out slightly, and she flew back several steps to maintain her balance. Maleficent was undeterred in her steady approach. "They're correct," said Rose.

Maleficent shook her head. "They are incorrect. With magic in your veins, you are stronger than a dozen men. If you can believe in that, there's no reason to be frightened."

Rose tried to think Stand back! very hard inside of her head, to cast the spell without Maleficent's notice. Not only did the spell barely even move Maleficent one step back, Maleficent definitely noticed. She smiled mirthlessly. "You find me frightening now."

Rose nodded. She felt her eyes stinging and had to force herself to blink.

"It's about time," she said with a small flourish of her hand which made Rose flinch. "Suppose I am not magical. I am still strong, quick, and I know how to fight hand-to-hand. I think if I can get close enough to you, your magic will be useless to stop me."

Rose tried to take quicker steps backward, to put more distance between them, but to her horror, her hands hit the wall on the opposite side of the room from where they had begun.

"Suppose I have you cornered," said Maleficent with a tilt of her head. Rose began to tremble.

In one fluid motion which was almost too fast to fully comprehend, Maleficent was upon her. She held Rose's wrists above her head with one hand and pressed the other arm against her chest, just below her throat. "What are you going to do?" Maleficent whispered.

Rose could feel Maleficent's breath against her cheek. Her eyes darted nervously around her, but Maleficent was everywhere. She looked up into Maleficent's eyes and she considered for an instant the last time she had been this close to the wicked fairy. That time, Maleficent had been the one who was trapped. She had been the one whose eyes were overflowing with emotion, silently begging Rose to set her free.

"I don't know," Rose choked. She hadn't realized she was crying.

Maleficent's lip curled. "Push me away."

"What?"

"Push me away," Maleficent repeated, a breath away from Rose's face.

"What do you mean? I can't!" Rose stammered.

"Yes, you can."

"You're stronger than I am! You've p-proven that quite clearly."

"I'm not using any magic," Maleficent said. "I'm nothing more than a mortal who has trapped you."

But of course she was so much more. She was Maleficent, someone so impossibly immortal that the idea of her being just another person was absurd. She was Maleficent, for whom Rose had come to care so dearly in their short time together, in spite of Maleficent's unwillingness and even inability to understand that. She was Maleficent, whom Rose found she wanted so desperately to be close to that even this was somehow alluring to her.

"No, you're not," Rose replied through her tears. Her body now contracted with painful sobs, and she could not stop trembling.

"Push me away!" Maleficent cried, unphased.

"I can't!"

"You can't, or you won't?" she growled.

It struck Rose as quite twisted that Maleficent's question was not wholly ungrounded in truth. "Please, stop!" she sobbed.

"Do you think someone who wanted to hurt you would stop if you asked him to?"

"No, but I thought you would!" Rose shot back. She did finally succeed in pushing Maleficent's hands off of her, but it was because Maleficent let go. Rose crumpled into a heap against the wall and wiped at her eyes until she could see again. She curled herself into a ball and breathed deeply until she could convince herself that she was no longer in immediate danger. Her thoughts were a jumbled mess, and she could not quite grasp onto a tangible reason why she was out of harm's way, but she managed to calm her hysteria before she looked up to see that she was alone in the great hall of Maleficent's castle.

Rose lay back against the stone wall, exhausted and at a loss for what to do.

She wanted to leave, but she didn't really have anywhere to go. This had been her home for almost a year, and winter was approaching. She would not survive for long if left to her own devices. What was more, Maleficent felt that something must have very recently gone wrong in this land which had taken out most of the dragons and many of the humans. As demonstrated by what had just happened, Rose was not yet even nearly equipped to defend herself if she should run into any kind of trouble.

Suddenly it occurred to her that there was somewhere she could go, if only she knew how to get there. Kinsale would surely take her in, and what was more, she would probably have some insight on what had come over Maleficent to make her act that way. Empowered by her newfound hope, Rose stood up on shaking legs and made her way upstairs.

The door to Maleficent's room was closed. Rose supposed that solved the mystery of where she had gone. Rose's borrowed room was not exactly the way she had left it, however. One of the books on defensive magic which she had not yet read was sitting on her bed.

Rose had put this book aside because all of the spells seemed rather long and difficult, and she didn't yet feel up to the challenge. She couldn't imagine why Maleficent had left it out for her—she felt more exhausted than she ever had in her life, as though stores of energy she hadn't even known existed had been completely sapped. Still, she picked up the book and turned to the contents.

Mirror an Attack
Deflect an Attack onto Someone Else
Delay the Effects of Some Common Spells
Transport Yourself Elsewhere
Temporarily Separate your Limbs from your Body
Catch an Attack…

"Transport Yourself Elsewhere…" Rose whispered to herself as she flipped to the appropriate page.

The incantation was only one line, and part of it was describing the place you wanted to go. The book noted that the main problem was concentration. "If you do not concentrate completely upon being in your intended location, if even a small part of you is trapped where you are, you might find that small part of yourself rather painfully left behind."

Rose ran her finger over the incantation as she tried to remember every detail of Kinsale's homestead, a large, sprawling mansion surrounded by a high wall, in turn surrounded by the greenest valley she had ever seen.

I am not here. I am…

Rose curled herself into a ball on her bed. She did not know why exactly—somehow she felt it would be easier to concentrate on getting her entire body somewhere else if it was as small as possible.

"I am not here," Rose began to chant. "I am in the Valley Kingdom. I am not here. I am in the Valley Kingdom. I am not here…"

And indeed she was no longer there. Rose experienced that terrifying sensation of being nowhere, and for an instant, she panicked. What if she got stuck between places?

"I am not here. I am in the Valley Kingdom," she began again, squeezing her eyes shut and trying very hard to ignore the fact that she was not sitting on anything. She hugged her knees even closer to her body. She forgot about everything else that had happened that day and concentrated entirely on her image of the valley where Kinsale lived. "I am not here. I am in the Valley Kingdom. I am not here. I am in the…"

Rose felt solid ground beneath her and crisp autumn air on her face, and she opened her eyes. She sat atop a hill, looking down into a valley where a sprawling mansion sat amid colourful flowers and falling leaves. She smiled and collapsed upon the ground, shivering with how good it felt to be somewhere—she had done it.


Ever since that most unpleasant visit from the good fairies of the Eastern Kingdom, Kinsale had played host to a never-ending stream of unfriendly visitors tossing about lofty threats, and today was no exception. Mistress Zalia of the Desert Lands had never been a warm and fuzzy sort of person, nor had anyone in her family, but something had changed in her since last they had spoken. There was something in her eyes which bothered Kinsale—some emptiness, some loss which had caused her to seem, instead of calm and stoic, frantic and somewhat deranged.

"You don't seem to grasp the seriousness of what I'm trying to tell you," said Zalia at present.

"You're trying to tell me that Mistress Sara intends to hunt down and destroy my kin, am I correct?"

The good fairy nodded.

"That isn't news to me, Zalia," said Kinsale, suddenly feeling very tired.

Zalia frowned, and the wild look in her eyes grew more pronounced. "You don't understand—I found a wicked fairy masquerading as a human in the Desert Lands. I told my sister about it, she reported it to Sara, and Sara sent her to capture the fairy immediately. She'd been hiding for almost a century."

"Who was she?" Kinsale asked, her brow furrowed.

Zalia shrugged. "Confidential. Doesn't matter now."

"I suppose not. Still, I'd say Sara will need more resources before she takes on an entire species."

Zalia sighed and stood. "Very well. Don't say I never warned you."

As if to emphasize Zalia's point, Kinsale's alarm sounded. Kinsale waved it off and pressed her fingers to her throat. "WHO GOES THERE?"

"M…Mistress Kinsale?" a most familiar voice called. Kinsale frowned. "It's Br…it's Aurora."

"Aurora?" murmured Zalia, and then her eyes snapped up to meet Kinsale's. "I might have known."

Kinsale stood and held out her hand for her staff, which she held across her body. "She's obviously alone." But why? Something must have happened. Was Maleficent all right? Was Aurora all right?

"You have such faith in your friend," Zalia sneered, drawing her wand. "Are you so stupid that you'd let Maleficent kill you before Sara even tries?"

"You know nothing of what you're saying," Kinsale replied coolly. "This matter is none of your business. Now, I'm going to let the girl in, and you are going to show yourself out. Is that clear?"

"Very well," Zalia replied. She began walking backwards to the front door, wand still drawn. Kinsale raised one hand to open the wall for Aurora, but she kept her staff at the ready.

Aurora pulled open one of Kinsale's front doors and hesitantly stepped inside. Zalia spun around, wrapped one arm around Aurora's waist, and pointed her wand at the girl's throat.