I’d seen her before.

“Owe?” The sound of her voice made my head ache, and I pressed a gloved hand to my temple, trying and failing to relieve the pressure. “I recall making no deals with you, human. Nor do I recall you doing me any favors.”

“Maybe not,” I conceded, dropping my hand from my head. “But you’ve benefited from my actions.” She was the woman – fairy – that I’d seen in my dream. The one the Summer King had called wife; and sure enough, there were bonding marks across one of her hands. Only in my dream, in that land of endless summer, she’d seemed… passive. And what sat before me was anything but. This was the Winter Queen.

“Have I? Are you so sure about that?”

I hesitated. “You’re here, aren’t you? A day ago, that wasn’t possible.”

She shrugged one elegant shoulder, long black hair brushing against a gown made of mist and stars that shifted and moved in a way that made it dizzying to look upon. “Do not look for gratitude from me, mortal. I’ve walked through worlds beyond number; what does the loss or gain of one filthy bit of earth matter to me?”

I opened my mouth to retort that it mattered enough for her to turn it into her own winter palace, but then clamped my lips shut. Not listening had caught me more times than I cared to count with the trolls and, immortal or not, she was of the same ilk. There was a reason why she was bothering with this “filthy bit of earth”, and it would be something worth knowing. “You tell me.”

She smiled, pale pink lips pulling back to reveal a mouthful of fangs. My heart skipped and I blinked. The fangs were gone, replaced by pearly white human teeth. “You wished to ask a favor of me, Cécile de Troyes.” She tapped a long fingernail against her throne, and I swallowed hard as the eye beneath twitched, rolling to look up at her.

I remembered her words to the Summer King. A favor given is a favor owed… “No,” I said. “But I do wish to bargain.”

Her verdelite eyes narrowed. “What makes you believe you have anything I want?”

I thought about the massive ice walls that had formed for the express purpose of herding us toward this meeting; the grandstanding and showmanship that was obviously intended to intimidate and impress. “I do not think,” I murmured, dropping into a deep curtsey, “that the Queen of all of Winter would condescend to meet with a mortal such as I if there were nothing I could do for her.”

Her laughter sounded like the shattering of glass, and I fought the urge to clap my hands over my ears. “Perhaps it is only that an immortal such as I,” she said the words in a perfect mimicry of my voice, “becomes easily bored.”

She rose to her feet, and two winged creatures scuttled over to the dais to offer their hands as she walked down the steps. It made me wonder who – and what – else was present in her icy throne room. As if in answer to my question, clawed hands folded around the tear between our worlds, drawing the edges back.