Who had transmuted her anger into love.

But Aurora was not smiling now.

“Tell me about this wall of flowers,” she said, hands on her hips. “Spiky flowers. Did you think I wouldn’t find out?”

Maleficent gestured airily. “Oh, my dear, it was too big to be a secret to keep for long. I thought of it as a gift—one I could always magic away if you didn’t like it.”

“Well, I don’t like it,” Aurora said.

“Only consider,” said Maleficent, “your borders are protected with no expense to your treasury. No knights need to patrol. No neighboring kingdom can engage in raids. Even brigands and robbers will quail when they realize there is no great distance they can run without trying to pass through a sinister, yet beautiful, hedge.”

Aurora did not appear mollified. “You’re trying to protect the kingdom the way you protected the Moors,” she said. “You put the crown on my head. You have to talk to me before you do things like this. You may have been the protector of the Moors, but you made me the queen of them, remember?”

“I protected the Moors quite well.”

Aurora looked exasperated but changed tack. “What about the storyteller in the market? Is it true you turned him into a cat?”

“Well, it’s not not true,” Maleficent said, a mischievous grin growing despite her best attempts to suppress it. “And just think of the stories he will have to tell now! Why, the more I think about it, the more I’m convinced that I’ve done him a favor.”

“Turn him back,” Aurora told her.

“Just as soon as I can find him,” Maleficent promised, gesturing to the expanse of moorlands, the foggy pools and hollow trees in which a hundred cats could hide. “I am sure he’s around here somewhere.”

“And the missing groom?” Aurora asked.

Maleficent shrugged. “Really, I can’t be to blame for everything. You will have to look elsewhere for the boy. And I hope that after today you see that the humans aren’t going to come to love the Moors. They’re not like you.”

“They didn’t even have a chance to see—” Aurora began.

Maleficent snorted. “As though it would have helped.”

Aurora gave her a wry smile. “Well, since you will be looking for the cat anyway, you can keep an eye out for the boy, too. Maybe that will help.”

Maleficent was surprised—and insulted. “I told you we’re not to blame. Had one of the Fair Folk stolen him away, I would have heard of it,” Maleficent told her. “I hope the humans haven’t managed to make you distrustful of us.”