“We hope you don’t mind simple fare,” Maleficent said with a wide, malicious smile.

Beside her, Aurora had an uneasy expression. She was looking at Phillip as though she fully expected him to flee the table. And he had to admit that he was tempted. In the air overhead, what he at first had taken for oil lamps suspended in the trees turned out to be more tiny faeries, glowing with pale yellow light and peering down at him.

He thought of a story he’d heard from his nurse when he was a child, about a girl who was sent by her wicked stepmother out into the cold to die. In the snow, the girl stumbled on a witch sitting by a fire. The girl was so polite that the witch gave her a warm fur coat so that she passed the night cozily. When the girl returned home, she discovered her pockets were laden with treasure. Jealous, the stepmother sent her own daughter out into the cold the following night. But her daughter was rude to the witch, so the witch put out the fire and let that girl freeze to death.

He knew that faeries hated many things, but above all, even more than iron, they hated uncivility.

“This all looks delicious,” Phillip said, somewhat unconvincingly, even to his own ears.

“Try something,” Maleficent said, bringing a black grape to her mouth and biting into it. The moonlight caught on her fangs, making them unmistakable. “I wasn’t sure what you liked, so we cooked up a little of everything.”

“Yes, I can see that,” Phillip said, looking at the vast number of mysterious dishes in front of him.

Aurora had a blue egg on her plate, along with some berries and a cake dusted with herbs and honey. The cakes hadn’t scampered over to Phillip yet. She smiled at him and raised one of the menacing black glass goblets to her mouth.

Aurora hoped that humans and faeries could get along. Phillip needed to try. Maleficent might want to frighten him, but she was hardly going to poison him right in front of everyone.

Probably.

He put a spoonful of the soup into his mouth.

It was surprisingly pleasant. He took another spoonful. And another. Then he speared a few mushrooms.

By the time the honey cakes finally came, he was happy to take three.

A raven circled overhead, then swooped down to drop a rodent onto an empty plate. Prince Phillip could not help startling in horror at the mouse’s open mouth and the blood matting its gray fur.

The raven landed beside the plate and began to take apart the dead mouse.

“My apologies,” Maleficent said, looking down the table. “Prince Phillip, would you like some meat?”

Phillip felt a little queasy seeing the mouse’s blood running over the plate and the raven’s beak pulling strips of red flesh from within the fur.