The crushed form of Poesy sat up on the stairs, a zombie of the queen’s usual glamour. The charm bracelet snapped from Kane’s wrist and returned to her, orbiting the bloody stump of her arm. The arm, feeding magic from the starfish charm, rebuilt itself nerve by nerve. Poesy’s other damage shed from her, too, like a dingy husk, and when she stood up she was brand new. She wore a sleeved dress of thick white fabric embroidered in gold, its scalloped hem brushing her toned thighs. The belt cinching her waist was a braid of thick rope ending in belled tassels that jingled merrily as she swayed. A cape peeled from the air and clasped itself around her shoulders, and a wide-brimmed hat spun down and onto her head. Her makeup shifted on her face like a Rorschach test, finally settling on a look of pure, Hollywood glamour.

Poesy was back, and she was dressed for a finale.

“We are alike in many ways, Mr. Montgomery. But that teacup takes a certain ruthlessness that you have always lacked. You should have known better than to think you had earned its power.”

Kane barely heard these words. A profound fatigue had climbed up through the void in him, and it clasped lovingly at the pieces of his broken mind. It whispered for him to follow it down and away, and to leave this evil queen to do as she pleased.

But he could still see Sophia’s ankle. She was crawling away from them, toward Adeline.

“I’m not completely critical, of course,” Poesy went on. “I am rather impressed you made it back here, all by yourself. But then again, that was my intention. I figured your sister was good enough bait to draw you out, though I never thought you would actually attempt her unraveling. I figured you would be inclined to let go of your old reality if your own sister served as the foundation for my new one. Your cruelty toward her surprises me.”

Poesy’s words were the articulate edge atop the actual sound of her voice, which was the drone of cicadas.

Kane pushed himself up through pure spite. “You’re not human.”

Poesy curtsied. “Thank you.” Then she bent over the shattered teacup, finding the curved handle and plucking it up. The rest of the pieces swung after it like a marionette, joining together so that it rested, whole and healed, in her palm.

Steam rose from it a second later, and Poesy sipped casually.

Like lightning, Kane directed a snap right into Poesy’s face. The shot glanced sideways, but the deflection sent tea all over Poesy’s perfect, white dress.

“That was”—she looked over Kane with unmasked disdain, her painted face dripping—“your last act of indiscretion.”

Her clawed nails crushed the air, and a psychic grip closed around Kane. He slammed onto the throne, pinned there by Poesy’s invisible hand.