I struggle out of Brünhilt’s arms and stand on fizzing, trembling legs. Her hand hovers at my back, ready to catch me, and I don’t trust myself enough to pull away. I blink around the tower room. There’s nothing but smooth flagstones and five sleeping beauties, their expressions reflecting five variations of “Now what, bitch?”

There’s no spinning wheel. Even the busted remains of the one Harold smashed are gone, neatly swept away by some fastidious guard. Shouldn’t it have magically reconstituted itself in our absence? My plan was to prick my finger on something and fall asleep and hope that was enough to send us back into the whirling multiverse—but what the hell am I going to do now?

Distantly, I hear the thudding of boots on the winding tower steps. We don’t have long, and if we’re captured there won’t be any secret pacts or miraculous escapes. I picture the ’90s heroine forced into skirts and deprived of her sword; Brünhilt in chains; the space princess peeled out of her chrome and silver armor, stuck forever on a single planet rather than sailing among the stars. Primrose, trapped in her silk sheets; Charm, unable to save her.

I wanted to save us all from our stories, but I should have known better than anybody: there are worse endings than sleeping for a hundred years.

Pain pops in my kneecaps, sharp and sudden. My teeth clack together. It’s only when I hear Charm swearing that I realize I’ve fallen to the floor. I feel her arm bracing my shoulders, Primrose kneeling at my other side. I want to tell them I’m sorry, that I tried my best, but the tightness in my chest is suffocating me. My pulse has lost its steady tick-tocking rhythm, thundering like hooves in my ears. Darkness nibbles at the edges of my vision.

The floor tilts toward me, or maybe I tilt toward the floor, and then my cheek is plastered against cold stone. I blink once, staring hazily at the boots and slippers and bare feet of the beauties around me. I guess I get a theatrical death after all, sprawled at the top of the tallest tower, pale and fragile as any Rackham princess, but a lot less lonely.

I see it in the half second before my eyes hinge shut: a slender shard lying on the floor. A single splinter of dark wood that might once have belonged to a spindle. It wasn’t a spinning wheel in the original version.

I feel my lips peeling back over my teeth in a bloodless smile. I’ve read enough fantasy novels to recognize a last chance when I see one. This is the part where I rally my final strength, calling on reserves of fortitude I didn’t know I had to reach my numb fingers for that splinter. With my dying breath I will prick my finger and pull us all into the space between stories, and all the beauties will weep with gratitude and admiration as they escape into whatever new narratives they choose, and I will fall into my final sleep knowing I’ve done something worthwhile—