“I’m not exactly sure how I’m supposed to get up there,” Croi tells the princess. Ceara sighs loudly and offers her a hand. Croi looks at the proffered hand, raises an eyebrow, and grasps it with a shrug.

She settles on the beastie before looking around with some fascination. The world looks completely different from this height; it gives her a false sense of prominence. The sand-horse feels strange and Croi squirms, trying to get used to the feeling of being on an animal. Usually, the things she sits on aren’t alive, but the sand-horse isn’t really an animal, is it? Nor is it alive. It’s fae-made, so maybe being on a real horse feels different. Croi vows to find out one day. She will start off with a small horse. A really small one that doesn’t look at her wrongly.

“Don’t you have to make your farewells?” Croi asks the princess.

Ceara doesn’t reply but looks over at Daithi, who is standing on the side, ostensibly talking to one of his subordinates. He senses her gaze and looks up, his eyes lingering on the princess, sweeping over the gentle rise of her cheeks, leaving red blossoming in its wake.

“No. Hold on tight,” the princess says, digging her legs into the sides of the beast. It starts running; Croi feels the bit of breakfast she did manage to eat slosh around her stomach. She concentrates on keeping it inside where it belongs.

The beastie speeds through the forest, tearing through pockets of darkness that still cling to the nooks and hollows like cobwebs. They battle with the wind and almost win. Croi’s half drunk with glee and wondering how she can procure a beastie of her own when the princess brings the sand-horse to a sudden stop. Croi’s flung forward and would have fallen had she not clung to the princess. After directing a dirty look at Ceara’s back, she peers around in confusion. They’re in the middle of nowhere.

The princess relaxes her hold on the reins and whistles a call that is picked up by the birds in the canopy.

“Wait here,” she says brusquely, and slides off the beastie without offering any other explanation.

“Where are you going?” Croi calls, but the princess doesn’t answer. She watches the fae walk farther into the forest and deep into the shade of an oak tree. There, dressed in a cloak that obscures both face and body, is a kin.

Croi doesn’t care too much about the princess’s business, but the cloaked kin’s magick makes her freeze. The magick circulating the body of this kin is the same magick as the summoning spell on her. It is also the same magick that was present on the Redcap caravan, turning it invisible. The magick is shades of green, brown, and gold, but what sets it apart, what makes it recognizable, are the holes in it, as if something corrosive touched it. Like dragon magick touched it.

Do you think that’s the Robber Queen?