The palace cook sent up no fruit or vegetable that wasn’t thoroughly stewed or braised or baked into a pie. Aurora had previously supposed that was to show off the skills of the kitchen, not that the nobles believed that eating fruits and vegetables raw would do them harm. Aurora had spent her childhood devouring raw berries, often going home with her hands and mouth stained by them, and no harm had come to her.

She popped the blackberries into her mouth, to the astonishment of her companions.

“Someday soon I hope to convince you to visit my family estates,” Count Alain said, recovering from the shock. “I can see that you have a great appreciation for the outdoors, and my own little corner of Perceforest is quite rustic.”

“You must miss being home,” Aurora said to Count Alain, but it was of Phillip she was really thinking.

“And yet it is hard for me to tear myself from your side,” he said with a smile. “The only solution is for us to go together. There are rivers choked with fish. Woods ripe with game. And, of course, iron mines—the richest in all Perceforest.”

Aurora repressed a shudder. It wasn’t Count Alain’s fault that his part of the kingdom produced iron, which was poisonous to faeries. Iron was useful in other ways. Pots and wagons and barrels all had iron.

“Those mines are the source of my family’s wealth. It has allowed us to construct an estate that I hope will meet with your approval. We have imported orange trees from the south and keep them warm by growing them indoors.”

Before Count Alain could go into more detail about the splendors of his estate, Prince Phillip’s horse trotted up alongside Aurora’s steed.

“I hate to interrupt,” Phillip said, “but I think I may have found a vantage point. We’re very close to the place where you were crowned, in the Moors, aren’t we?”

She remembered that day, remembered her aunties bringing her the crown and Maleficent declaring her the queen who would unite the two kingdoms. She had taken the bark-covered hand of one of the tree warrior sentinels when she’d noticed Phillip was among the faeries, with his gaze on her and a soft smile on his face. Her heart had beat so hard that she’d felt something a little like panic.

That was before she knew about the kiss.

He’s not the one for you, Thistlewit had said later that night. If he couldn’t wake you, then he’s not your true love. Such a pretty boy as that, he probably loves himself a little too well to have room to love anyone else.