“No. Not these rooms.” He shook his head. “My room. The one I had when I was a child.”

“But—” The maid hesitated. “It is—not fine. Not fine enough for the king.”

“That is where I will sleep.” He set off down the dark corridor.

Everything was as he remembered. The linen-wrapped windows where the mosquitoes would whine. The little seat where he’d sat when he learned he’d gone from eleventh to first. The same little seat where he’d sat eating his pots of cooked cream. Well. Perhaps he had not so many memories, but still, everything seemed the same.

The king lay on his old bed. It felt just as it did when he was eleventh. He felt just as he did when he was eleventh. Taller, perhaps, for his feet now hung over the bottom, but, still, when he closed his eyes, he felt like that same boy.

He blew out the lamp.

No mosquitoes now hummed at the window. No footsteps of Mother or Cook echoed in the halls. The dark was as quiet and plush as plum custard. He sank into it, and into his memories, as small as they were, of being a boy.

…

…

…

…

But the custard-soft darkness—perhaps it was really too quiet.

If he listened carefully, deep in the plushness, past the sound of his own breath and the blood whooshing in his own ears, there was still—Oh, make it stop! Make it stop! Make her stop singing!

The meadows now all wait for us,

the hills, the cliffs, the stream.…

On and on it went, soft as the patter of moth wings on a window, murmurous as the hum of mosquitoes in the dark.

Is anything longer than the hours spent sleepless in the dark? The no-longer-a-boy-boy-king-who-felt-again-like-a-boy did not think so. When the linen across the windows finally grew light, he rose and wandered through the house, the infernal singing still echoing in his ears.

He knew he might order everyone awake; he knew he might call for servants to pamper and tend to him, and he knew such coddling might quiet her noise. For a moment, he stood, mouth half-open, ready to bring the household to his side.

Instead, as he did when only eleventh, he made his way outside.

There was the stool where he’d passed so many hours watching the workers. Knees perched awkwardly high, he sat and looked at the land as it rose from the shadows.

There was not much, he realized, that would arise from the shadows. Where were his hornbeams? Where were the low-hanging boughs and riotous undergrowth?

Of course. They’d been brought under control, too. Everything ordered and neat. He sniffed—yes, here, too, that baked swamp-cake smell, perhaps even a little burnt. A bit ashy and charred.

He frowned. Did he miss the hornbeams? Or was it the charred smell that upset him? He rubbed his brow. No. It was that detestable singing. The air was still full of it.