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Chapters (53)
  1. Cover
  2. Dedication
  3. Chapter One
  4. Chapter Two
  5. Chapter Three
  6. Chapter Four
  7. Chapter Five
  8. Chapter Six
  9. Chapter Seven
  10. Chapter Eight
  11. Chapter Nine
  12. Chapter Ten
  13. Chapter Eleven
  14. Chapter Twelve
  15. Chapter Thirteen
  16. Chapter Fourteen
  17. Chapter Fifteen
  18. Chapter Sixteen
  19. Chapter Seventeen
  20. Chapter Eighteen
  21. Chapter Nineteen
  22. Chapter Twenty
  23. Chapter Twenty-One
  24. Chapter Twenty-Two
  25. Chapter Twenty-Three
  26. Chapter Twenty-Four
  27. Chapter Twenty-Five
  28. Chapter Twenty-Six
  29. Chapter Twenty-Seven
  30. Chapter Twenty-Eight
  31. Chapter Twenty-Nine
  32. Chapter Thirty
  33. Chapter Thirty-One
  34. Chapter Thirty-Two
  35. Chapter Thirty-Three
  36. Chapter Thirty-Four
  37. Chapter Thirty-Five
  38. Chapter Thirty-Six
  39. Chapter Thirty-Seven
  40. Chapter Thirty-Eight
  41. Chapter Thirty-Nine
  42. Chapter Forty
  43. Chapter Forty-One
  44. Chapter Forty-Two
  45. Chapter Forty-Three
  46. Chapter Forty-Four
  47. Chapter Forty-Five
  48. Chapter Forty-Six
  49. Chapter Forty-Seven
  50. Chapter Forty-Eight
  51. Chapter Forty-Nine
  52. Acknowledgements
  53. About the Author

What should you do if you see a sleeping princess? Oh, you will pause awhile and watch – they rest their hands so nicely, their hair fans out so prettily, their lips look their most kissable. Aren’t they lovely when they’re asleep? But while they sleep their lands are going to ruin; while they sleep their people are being slaughtered; while they sleep evil can walk freely.

We must wake them, but how?

With a kiss? Don’t be creepy.

With a shake? Perhaps that might work.

With a slap? I’m afraid we can’t.

Let us shout, let us call out in our loudest voices:

WAKE UP.

Wake up, princesses and see the destruction.

Wake up, princesses and see that while you have had your eyes shut, every terrible thing has crept into your world.

Wake up, princesses. WAKE UP.

When they wake they will weep. But then they will act.

A princess cannot sleep for ever.

Chapter Thirty-Seven

Chapter Thirty-seven

I have been given traditional clothes to wear. A pleated leather skirt and breastplate. It shows every tattoo that I bear on my skin – including the mark that has appeared most recently; the mark of the reunited sisters, their hands clasped, is front and centre. It is a grim walk with guards either side of me and Minnow heading up our procession, and my skin is covered with goosebumps of fear. I have been allowed to wear my own boots and they pad gently as we head towards the hall of judgement.

We enter through a side door, and it’s a good thing, because there is a queue from the main doors that almost fills the square. The hall is big, but not big enough to contain the entire community – perhaps it was once. But that doesn’t seem to have stopped the whole of Saintstone trying to come and get a glimpse of what Mayor Longsight has planned for that treacherous, deceiving, murderous Leora Flint.

The last time I was here, my life changed for ever. I found out all my secrets, the secrets that so many people seemed to already know. All the hatred I’d been taught to feel for the blanks – all the fear too – meant that I gave up on my own father that day.

I had only ever seen one half of the world. As far as I knew, the earth was flat. It took going to the other side, exchanging my ignorance for experience, before I could see the perfect beauty of the full globe. It gleams in my memory now, like a crystal ball, but I’m no longer asking it what my future holds. I just want to show everyone its splendour.