“Yes, mistress. No need, by the by, to thank me for bringing Aurora to your rescue,” he said. “No need for me to have freed myself and thought of nothing but coming back here, flying through the night and day. No, no need to thank me at all.”

Maleficent gave him a fierce look. “You mean for bringing Aurora straight into danger?”

Aurora left them bickering and knelt beside Phillip. “If you move onto your side,” she said, “it will elevate the wound and help slow the bleeding.”

As he turned, she pillowed his head onto her lap. He looked up at her and gave her a lazy smile. She stroked his hair back from his brow, her heart aching.

“I do love you,” she told him. “I was afraid to tell you that. I was afraid to admit it to myself. But I do.”

Afraid the way she was frightened to fall asleep at night, because it felt like giving in to something she couldn’t control.

Or the way humans were frightened of faeries. Love was as unpredictable and powerful as any magic. But maybe it was also as marvelous.

His smile grew. “Now I know I must be delirious, since the only time you say things like that is in my dreams.”

In the distance, there was the sound of horns.

Chapter 32

Smiling John arrived soon after, one of his scouts having discovered Aurora and Alain’s camp and tracked them from there. He found an exhausted group resting beneath a newly grown tree, its limbs shimmering with magic and some of its roots formed into a mossy, bark-covered cage that held an enormous scuttling black centipede. On the other side, the roots seemed to have grown over Lord Ortolan’s ankles, holding him in place.

“My queen,” Smiling John said, bowing stiffly, “your leaving your camp after dark had us in quite a panic. We came as soon as we got a signal from the raven, but—” He looked around and swallowed the rest of the lecture he had clearly been planning on giving. “I see you have everything well in hand.”

Maleficent eyed them with suspicion. “How do you come to be looking for her?”

“Queen Aurora ordered us to follow behind her with a large battalion and to await a summons from the bird. She said she thought she was going into a trap, but she couldn’t be certain who had set it. She suspected the count but believed that the only way to prove it was to go along with the scheme and see who the traitors were and what they were planning. I disagreed, as I thought it was too great a risk. But in the end, it seems she was correct.”

Maleficent eyed Aurora with an obvious desire to scold her. “So you knew you were going into danger—”

“I knew you were in danger,” Aurora reminded her.