It took me a second to locate the embellished madman. I found Jolly Cheat in his pure white magician’s outfit, long coat, and wild bell-hat. He was looking directly at me, and he winked. I shifted in my seat. I hadn’t seen him since he’d shoved me into the Midnight Forest last year.

Jolly’s nickel gaze shifted to Zane. The madman reached to tug the hood off the woman beside him, brushing aside a handful of her pecan hair to whisper in her ear. My throat swelled at the woman’s pure white eyes and the black ashworm tattoo on her exposed neck. A slow, cherry-red smile found her face.

Zane was a sculpture of ice beside me.

“Season’s greetings.” The Queen of the Pines’s magnified voice carried over the clearing and I sat up straighter, straining to see as the shouting died down. The Crimson King’s copper suit of armour glistened in the sun, a bloodred cape rustling in the wind at his back.

He drew a long, golden sword. “Season’s greetings, Queen,” his airy voice responded, drifting over the ice from his side of the rink. “Is that fear I see in your eyes?”

The queen’s stone-cold gaze didn’t waver. “Fear is folly. I carry only a hunger to watch you turn to snow.”

Roars burned over the armies in red.

“Shall we see which of us meets that fate?” A beam of morning sunlight tore over the king’s blade when he raised it.

“I have no doubt you shall, King, but I petition an allowance for a substitution. However, I only offer the petition as a courtesy; my substitution will participate by rights of his heritage.”

The queen’s Axemen parted at her back, and out marched Edward Haid in the wooden armour of the Evergreen Host, a silver blade in his grip. Gasps erupted over the rink, and the Crimson King’s sword dropped to his side. “I give you the Prince of the Pines. And after he defeats you this midday, King, I will meet your sons in battle, and I will relish their deaths too.”

The Queen of the Pines extended a hand adorned with oval wood rings and nutshell-plates. “Shall we bind this substation allowance? Or do you fear my brother?”

A slow, wicked smile spread across the Crimson King’s face, his blackened plum eyes glowing. He smashed his copper gauntlet against the Queen of the Pines’s leather wristband. “Deal. It would be my pleasure to rid the snowglobe of your brother.”

The moment the Crimson King dropped the queen’s hand, he raised his gold sword and speared it into the ice as the Axemen abandoned Edward to the rink.

“It seems I’ve finally caught you, boy,” the king’s voice scratched. “How riddlesome, that after all your seasons of hiding from me, you would choose to evoke your kingship now.”