He frowned. “Phillip?”

“Your sister told me he went back to Ulstead, but what if he only intended to leave? If she was abducted and he was with her, he might have been taken, too.”

Count Alain gave that some thought. “You may be right about Phillip. But I fear he may not be the subject of misfortune, but rather its architect.”

“What do you mean?” she asked.

“Well, about a half hour after you and I parted, I saw Phillip walking toward your godmother, and there was an expression on his face I am not sure I can describe. Grim purpose, perhaps. And there was something in his hand. Some kind of dull metal. If he was the one who took Maleficent, it would explain their going missing at the same time. And it would give Ulstead power over Perceforest.”

Aurora listened to him in horror, thinking of the cold iron blade that had been found. Surely that couldn’t have belonged to Phillip. Surely he would never do such a wretched thing.

But wasn’t that what Maleficent had once thought about Stefan? Wasn’t that what was so dangerous about love: that it made you vulnerable to betrayal?

Count Alain went on. “If that’s what he’s done, he’s probably making for the border between your lands and his. Perhaps the significance of this place is that it’s where the raven lost the trail. It’s possible Phillip did something to throw us off the track.”

Aurora was trying to think of a reason it couldn’t be true. “But Phillip…”

“Always seemed so kind?” Count Alain said, a slight sneer in his voice. “I have heard things about Ulstead. You may think that your people are suspicious of faeries, but there they are despised.”

In Ulstead, the stories of faeries are even worse than those told here, and there are no Fair Folk to contradict them. He’d spoken those words. But what if he also believed those tales?

Aurora recalled the night she had discovered Phillip in the Moors.

I had to see you, he’d told her. But what if he’d gone there not expecting to find her at all? What if he’d gone for a more sinister reason?

What if he’d spent the entire banquet thinking about how he hated the faeries he was dining with?

What if Aurora’s rejection of him was the final straw? Reluctantly, she thought of Lord Ortolan’s warning.

You may have noticed that Prince Phillip has been dangling after you. I believe he is here to win your land for Ulstead through marriage. Be wary of him.

“I can see I’ve upset you,” said Count Alain.

Aurora picked at the cheese and did not answer.