When Rika stepped back, she said, “You look healthier.”

Donia shrugged delicately. “Ruling suits me better than . . . the other. Carrying the curse of Keenan’s mistakes was unpleasant.”

Rika shook her head. “We both survived though.”

“And Beira didn’t.” Donia felt the storms fill her eyes and knew that they were snow white. A gust of icy air radiated from her skin, causing the trees to shiver and snow to fall from their branches in a brief flurried snowfall. Being around the other former Winter Girls stirred memories and emotions that they’d all rather forget. She suspected that was why they so rarely saw each other. Beira’s curse had made so many people suffer, and it was harder to deny those memories when the person in front of you had similar ones.

“I’m glad she’s dead.” Rika shivered again.

Donia tried to keep her own chill reined in as she said, “She won’t ever hurt any of us again. I’m the queen now.”

“Was it horrible? Her death?”

Truthfully, Donia hadn’t expected that question, but she wasn’t surprised. Beira had devastated a lot of lives, and few faeries mourned her passing. No one had sought Donia out for details, and few faeries would be so bold as to ask for details from the reigning queen.

“It was,” Donia said softly. She had lived for almost a century, but the day Beira had died and Donia had become Winter Queen was one of the memories that she still dreamed about more often than she’d like. Sometimes in the remembering, it felt like the moment was trapped forever in the now, as if—like the day when Donia had lost her mortality—it would never be an experience that she could relegate to memories.

The floor is already covered in spikes of ice; the furniture is well past broken. In the midst of the destruction, Beira stands like a beautiful nightmare. Despite the horror she has inflicted, Beira has always been lovely, dark hair and shocking red lips contrasting with the extreme pallor of ice.

She tilts her head inquiringly. “Do you think they’ll be more upset if you’re dead or still suffering?”

Donia is bleeding and exhausted, trying to rescue Seth—the mortal that the new Summer Queen loves. The boy is a strange one, brave in the face of the embodiment of Winter even after he’s had one of his facial piercings ripped out. His dark hair falls over his face, hiding his expression in the moment.

“Decision, decisions,” Beira murmurs as she walks over blades of ice, slowly and gracefully, as if she were entering the theater. She looks at Donia and Seth, trying to decide whom to torture next.