My first thought when my eyes land on the Witch Queen is that no one has ever spoken of how beautiful she is. She’s also fucking terrifying, especially with all the fog, slithering vines, and dim lights that I’m sure are her doing. Despite the dark makeup, her eyes are bright, piercing and viridescent—her milk-white skin providing the perfect backdrop for the beautiful green to shine. I have to force my gaze away from them. Her figure is all soft features, from the small, button nose to the voluptuous legs on full display in a tantalizing dress that leaves little to the imagination. A dress that exposes too much to keep my eyes from dipping to her chest. My mouth goes dry at her full breasts and curvy figure, and I try to cover it with a wide smile that I know exposes my dimple. Her delicate, heart-shaped lips purse in suspicion, and I take an involuntary step toward her, unable to stop my body from moving closer. Her features sharpen at the same time the enormous black feline next to her stands, arches its back, and hisses. I swear I hear her murmur praise to the hellish beast, and my lips quirk involuntarily. She adjusts herself, causing her long reddish-brown hair to sweep across her breasts, drawing my attention back to them and emptying my mind of all rational thought. I take a deep breath and intentionally move my eyes to the cat that now looks like it will gouge my eyes out with a single swipe of its massive paw. Get it together.

When I woke the morning after our pub-crawl with the worst hangover in a hundred years, I panicked the moment I saw that the letter I only vaguely remembered writing the evening before was gone. Silene and Fionn had stared at me in horror as I told them of the drunken missive I’d written, with threats and demands so aggressive we were sure she’d kill us immediately. I’d waited in anticipation all day, my head pounding and my body aching from the ale.

When her reply came, we all read it together, not sure what to make of the cheeky response. It matched the aggression of my letter, maneuvering through her own threats with expert precision and calling me out for complaining about doing the work of an ambassador. But it was also… funny. Or at least, I thought it was. She called her interactions with my father ‘unhappy affairs.’ It was also more honest than I expected, and that gave me hope I might make a real ally of her.