She heard a soft knock on her door, put on a robe, and went to see who it could possibly be. It was one of the queen's courtiers. "The queen wishes to see you"

"Right now?" she rubbed her eyes, still half asleep.

"Well, you should get ready, of course, then go to the room with the crazy hat man" she told her then left. Margaret tried to get herself ready as quick as she could then hurried to room where the lady had told her to see what the queen had planned.

"Margaret, I could use your help. These idiots are useless" the queen motioned to the other courtiers, then sat down on a chair, and a hatter with messy orange hair started presenting some hats. "Which one do you like best?" She motioned toward a maroon fedora-like hat with ribbon across the top. The hatter placed her choice on the queen's head and her reaction was immediately eminent. "Oh, you have a wonderful taste in hats, dear. You can go" she said waving a hand to her courtiers.

"That hatter really has a talent" she muttered to herself then walked to the kitchen for breakfast, which she skipped not to keep the queen waiting too long. Most of the other courtiers went to the kitchen as well. She assumed they had missed breakfast too.

"She's gonna want to play croquet and she has all of us watch. It's so boring" she said then bit into a tart.

"Oh. When does she usually like to play?"

"Usually in the afternoon but now she likes to play two games. One in the mid-morning and the other in the afternoon" she said with a bored look on her face, loathing the croquet games.

"I think its time we head out there" said a male courtier with an enlarged forehead.

Anissa let out a sigh then took Margaret's hand, "Lets go". The game looked so different; instead of the actual props, she used a flamingo as a mallet and a porcupine as a ball. The queen took a swing and she could hear the flamingo say something. Once the flamingo hit the porcupine, all the courtiers knew to clap whether the shot was good or not. After several more hits and many more applauds, most fake, the courtiers were allowed to leave.

"Most boring thing I think I'll ever see" she said after watching the queen play croquet for the first time. "Does she have a library?"

"Yes, you see those doors" she said pointing to a set of dome-shaped double doors.

"Oh, those, thank you" she said then walking into the massive room which had some lounge chairs and many bookshelves with hundreds, maybe thousands, of books. She quickly found a book that raised interest, sat down on one of the red chairs and tried to read the book. "It is really hot in here. Is there a window in this place?" she asked herself looking around the room for a window, but to her dismay, no window.

"Sorry book, I will have to finish you tomorrow. I can't spend another minute in here" she put the book back on the shelf and walked out of the library to the garden, curious about the plants growing here. Luckily those annoying, talking flowers didn't grow here. To her surprise, she found plants like the ones in the above world. There were lots of red roses, a few tulips, and of course, the leaves cut into the shape of the queen's head. She felt someone behind her and quickly turned around. "Ilosovic, what are you doing here? Don't you have to be with the queen?"

"I have some free time, a rarity here" he said, rolling his eyes.

"I know what you mean. At least you don't have to watch those croquet games" she looked around to see if the queen was around.

"You're really red" he laughed, knowing why she was so flushed.

"Oh, the library was really hot" she lied. Even he knew the library couldn't make you that red. She became even redder at the fact that he raised a brow in question with what she said.

He bent down to her level and whispered in her ear, "Don't lie to me". She felt herself swooning from his closeness. What is going on? Why can't she remain calm in his presence? What is he doing to her? Fearing she might faint he put his hands behind her and laughed. "Are you all right?"

"No, not at all" she smiled and stroked his cheek. "It must be the heat"

"But it's not even hot" he reminded her, absolutely confident on what was making her act that way. Her eyes grew wide at his comment.

I think he knows by now what is wrong with me. Why am I feeling like this? I promised to myself I would never deceive Lowell and would try to fix him, but Stayne is making it so hard for me to resist.

"Maggie" he shook her gently. She fluttered her eyes open and found Stayne hovering over her.

"What happened? Did I faint?" she asked nervously looking to see where she was. He nodded with a grin on his face, trying his hardest to suppress his laughter. "What are you smiling about?"

"I don't think you fainted from the heat" he told and leaned down, resting his forehead on hers.

"Then what could have possibly been the cause?"

"Do you really want me to answer that?" he knew the answer but wanted her to figure it out on her own. Her eyes grew wide at the question, and she knew completely that he knew why she was behaving this way.

"No" she gave up on hiding her feelings, and decided to embrace them instead, leaning up and kissing him softly.

She had completely forgotten the reason she fell down that hole. To look for her sister.