The princess struggles, but she ultimately obeys him.

The rebel soldier looks up at Croi. “I can’t see the steps. Can you give me a hand?”

No.

Croi looks at the soldier. His eyes have a thick brown ring around the iris, and his magick is a strong and healthy green-flecked brown. “Figure it out for yourself.”

The caravan is invisible, but it’s still a tangible item. The soldier finally makes his way up the steps to the door by touching the sides of the caravan. Croi has him stop at the entrance. “Can you see the interior?”

“No,” Daithi admits a little sullenly.

“Wait for me here. Let me see if I can break the spell.” Croi takes a breath, pushes all thought away, and enters the caravan, expecting monsters to emerge from the darkness and finish what the Redcaps started. Nothing happens. There’s darkness, then there isn’t. She hears some shouts behind her, but she doesn’t turn to investigate. Lights flicker on in sconces on the wall. Croi looks around. The entrance widens into a room the size of a small field. The interior is far larger than the exterior suggests.

She can see lines of magick running along the perimeter of the room, stretching it longer and wider than it really is. But this magick is not at all like the Redcap magick Croi is familiar with; the magick worked on the caravan is of the woods and the earth, brown and green. What makes it strange, though, is the tinge of red in it, like it has been washed in blood. There are holes, too, in the magick, with blackened edges as if it were burnt. Croi sucks in a sharp breath. The person who magicked the Redcap caravan is also the person who cast the summoning spell on her. Croi tilts her head, ignores the fae soldier waiting at the doorstep of the caravan, and thinks. If the Redcaps are the Robber Queen’s minions, then the Robber Queen is the one who cast a summoning spell on Croi, but somehow this doesn’t seem true.

The Robber Queen needn’t do everything personally. She could have just directed a minion to do it for her.

“Then why would the Hag say, ‘Tell the princess,’ and not ‘Tell the queen’?” Croi counters. Her other self has no answer.

The hall, which is what Croi is calling this room, looks more like a chamber in a cave than a room in a caravan. The ceiling is high, and the walls are made of stone. The earthen floor is covered with furs, and a cold breeze chills the air. Croi catches a whiff of the stench native to the Redcaps. The furs need to be burnt as soon as possible. No pieces of furniture dot the room.

A knot of magick up on a wall catches Croi’s eyes. The magick extends into thin filaments that cover the entirety of the room. Croi gets up on her toes and is barely able to reach it. She simply touches it, and it unravels with a slithering sound common to snakes. A second later, she hears exclamations of surprise coming from outside and assumes the invisibility spell has broken.