Smiling John went on. “A rider came to tell us that Lady Fiora turned in packets of letters between her brother and Lord Ortolan. We were very worried for you, Your Majesty.”

Aurora recalled Lady Fiora trying to prevent her from traveling with Count Alain. At the time, she had just thought Lady Fiora didn’t want her to leave the party, not that she was trying to save her from her brother’s schemes. “I would not have thought it of her,” she remarked softly to herself.

Smiling John’s people bustled about, trying to make Phillip more comfortable and telling him how fortunate he was that the wound hadn’t been deeper or in a different spot.

Phillip, for his part, was trying to prevent Diaval from being the one to hold Simon.

“Give me the mouse,” Phillip called, “right now. Aurora, make a royal proclamation that the mouse is for me to hold until your godmother turns him back.”

“You don’t trust me not to eat him?” Diaval asked with a raised brow, letting the rodent run up one arm and onto the other, his gaze following the movement with a disturbing fixedness.

“I do not,” Prince Phillip said.

“You are the one who ate a mouse heart, I should remind you,” said Diaval, bringing his head eye level with a terrified Simon, who stopped running. “He did, you know. Gobbled it right up.”

“It was one time,” Phillip protested.

Maleficent allowed the royal guard to take Lord Ortolan from her tree prison into the cart. With a wave of her hand and a whorl of glittering golden magic, both he and the cage of roots that held Count Alain the centipede were loosed from the tree. The guards walked around the cage in confusion as to how to move it without getting close to the thing inside.

“Well, my queen, since we don’t have your carriage, may we offer up our humble carts?” asked Smiling John. “I wish we had something more fitting, but we were moving too quickly to bring more.”

“Oh, no,” said Maleficent. “I will return them to the castle.”

She gestured toward Diaval, and gold sparked at her fingertips.

He threw up his hands as though he could block the magic. “Wait, what exactly are you planning on turning me into this time? You ought to ask my permission for these things. It had better not be a dog!”

“I doubt you’ll mislike this so very much.” She waved her hand, and he grew longer and larger until a black horse stood in his place. From the sides of his back, enormous shimmering raven wings unfurled. And from his mane, a mouse peeped out.

The guards sucked in their breath, perhaps thinking of the dragon she’d once turned him into, perhaps just awed by such magic. Maleficent smiled her widest and most sinister smile.