“Once you’re gone, she will stop caring so much about the Moors. She’ll make a lovely wife, especially once she has children to distract her. She’s nothing like you.”

Maleficent gave him her most menacing smile, the one that showed off her fangs. “Oh, that’s true enough. She’s nothing like me. But if there’s one thing I know, it’s that it’s very foolish for the wicked not to be afraid of the good. I, for one, find goodness very alarming. And unlike you, Sir Ortolan—or me—Aurora is very, very good.”

Chapter 25

Moonlight allowed Aurora and Count Alain to ride over the familiar roads outside the castle until dawn broke. Then they rode through the day, Diaval making urgent circles above them. Toward night, the raven landed on the back of Aurora’s horse and rode there for a while before perching on her shoulder, his black feathers fluttering in the wind.

He led them to the west, and soon they were out of the boggy wet around the Moors and into deep pine forests. But as sunset fell over unfamiliar roads, the way became harder to pick out and exhaustion began to overtake them.

“Are we close yet?” Aurora asked Diaval. Though they’d stopped at intervals to let the horses drink and eat grass, she was sure that they had been pushed to their limit as well. “Caw once if we have much farther to go.”

The raven was silent, making Aurora blink herself alert.

“We ought to make camp for the night,” Count Alain said. “Whatever we must face, we need to be rested for it.”

“Just a little farther,” she insisted.

The moon was bright enough to light their path, Aurora thought. Their horses kept on.

“You’re very determined,” said Count Alain. “Many girls might not be so eager to save the murderer of their father.”

“You weren’t there,” Aurora said. “You don’t understand. She tried to save him, but he was beyond saving. He loved her once and then he hated her, but his hate was some malignant thing, fed by the love. He cut the wings off her back. Can you imagine doing that to the person you cared for?”

Count Alain looked at her with a strange expression on his face. “Ambition drives people to do many things.”

“King Stefan—my father—hung the wings up in his chambers, like some horrific trophy. He spoke to them, as though he was speaking to her—or to himself—I don’t know. The servants told me as much. I think betraying the person he loved most drove him mad.”

Count Alain shook his head. “Faeries have great powers of enchantment.”