I suppose she’s leaving, which is exactly what I want for her.

But wanting it for her is not the same as wanting it for me, and I can’t ignore the hurt that pierces my chest when I realize I’m the burden she’s leaving behind.

So as I watch her walk away, it’s like watching my soul being rent in two.

I’ve worked myself into an irate state by the time I burst into the queen’s throne room.

She’s leaning back against the headboard of the throne, her lithe body slouched against the polished silver, her eyes closed in what must be a fleeting moment of peace.

When my footsteps ricochet across the frozen river that carves her throne room in mismatched halves, she jerks awake, her back snapping into its rigid upright position.

“Ah. Farin,” she says as if she was expecting someone else and is relieved it’s only me. Only Farin. Her son who is not her son.

I’m not in the mood for formalities. The queen has been evading me ever since Blaise woke from her Turning. I’d been so distressed as Blaise writhed upon that altar, so convinced she wouldn’t survive the harsh magic that ripped her body apart and stitched it back together, I hadn’t dared to call in my bargain with the queen.

At the time, I’d felt I could only ask the Fates for so much at one time, and though I was convinced Zora would live on through the remainder of the week, I felt all the Fates’ attention must be directed toward Blaise.

Blaise who had let me kill her.

Blaise who had lied to me.

Blaise who left.

But Blaise is not the only liar between the two of us.

It happened when Cinderella’s neck cracked. When her body morphed back into Blaise’s corpse before slumping dead on the floor.

It had come out of her—a sickly looking shadow of a substance, crawling from her lifeless lips.

Something ingrained in me had taken over amidst my grief, a habit Gunter had instilled in me, and I’d herded the inky being into the adamant vessel.

And then I’d bowed at the queen’s feet, offering it to her, begging for her to make Blaise live.

The queen had agreed to offer her assistance, to do whatever she could to ensure Blaise’s survival, but the parasite wasn’t the only thing she wanted in return.

As it turns out, I didn’t need the queen’s help—Blaise would have woken without her potions and salves—but the queen had fulfilled her side of the bargain in offering assistance, and now Blaise lives, half a life as it may be.

In exchange, I am the queen’s.

Forever.

It’s why when Blaise asked me about the parasite, I couldn’t bring myself to tell her. Couldn’t bring myself to admit that I’d taken our dreams, our future, and dashed them upon the rocks.

It’s why, when I learned the gravity of what Blaise withheld from me, I clung to my anger like a drunk to the bottle. Because at least, for just a moment, if I could be angry with Blaise, I could forget I was angry with myself.

I herd my mind from the thought.

It’s not useful anyway. Blaise and I are done. We were done the moment I bowed before the queen and gave myself over to her will.

“You’ve been avoiding me,” I say, and the queen doesn’t deny it. She simply rubs her forehead in the most unqueenly manner I’ve ever witnessed. There’s something about her regal air that’s lacking today, and I can’t quite put my finger on it. “It’s time for you to fulfill your end of the bargain. I extracted the parasite and delivered it to you; I fulfilled my end. It’s past time that you wake my sister and allow her to depart.”

The queen lets out a sigh. Her breath is so cold, it doesn’t fog the air, chilled by the river of ice. “You wish to remain, then?”

The scoff that escapes from my mouth drips venom from my exposed teeth. We both know that she hasn’t left me a choice.

A pained smile stains her lips, creases the corners of her discerning eyes. “I had hoped you might become fond of this place over the years. That you might one day consider it your home.”

There’s a barb to her words, one that stabs at the space between my lungs.

There had been a time when this had felt like home—the dysfunctional sort. When Blaise and I had worked to the tune of Gunter’s whistling… There had been moments when I’d felt like I could have gone on like that forever.

That had been a moment of betrayal. A moment I’d forgotten my duties to my family. To my sister.

I won’t forget again.

Gunter is dead because of that sort of lapse in judgment. That sort of complacency.

“Wake my sister and return her to my family. Unless you wish to face the consequences of a failed bargain.” There’s a part of me, the part of me that’s wretched and bathes in shadows and blood, that hopes she’ll deny me. That hopes I’ll get to witness as she’s suffocated to death by her own pride.

That part of me cares nothing for Zora. Not in comparison to the vengeance I’d love to enact upon the queen.

But I’m used to quashing that side of myself, to locking him away, so I do.

“Very well,” the queen says. “I return your sister to you. Do with her as you wish.”

My heart stutters a bit, and I find myself reworking the carefully worded bargain, searching for loopholes I might have missed, but I find none. “The bargain requires that you wake her first.”

The queen shakes her head. “No. The bargain requires that the girl be released from sleep.”

I allow her a generously patient swallow before I hiss at her through my teeth. “Then release her from her sleep.”

The queen doesn’t look at me. Instead, she traces her finger against the saber-toothed fangs carved into the armrests of her throne. “The girl is free to wake and leave when she wishes. I’ve certainly done nothing to stop her.”

I frown, my irritation mounting. “That’s it? You command it, and it’s done? I know you well enough to know it has to be more complicated than that, my queen. A ritual. An element. A talisman. A full moon, perhaps?”

The queen flicks her blue eyes toward me and stares at me through her thick white eyelashes. “I was never the one who lulled your sister into her slumber. It was never me who kept her under the influence of the Fabric.”

I frown, and that strange smile returns to her lips, the kind that’s self-afflicting and derives no satisfaction from what she’s about to tell me.

“My child, it was Gunter who kept her submerged. Didn’t you know?”

The words coalesce in the air between her lips in my ears, and it’s as if it takes even my pointed ears immense effort to decipher them.

“Gunter?” It’s a question I don’t give permission to slip from my lips, but it does.

The queen strokes her silver armrest. “His invention. His contraption. His brilliance to access the Fabric, to sew your sister into its story.”

Gunter working at the spinning wheel, weaving thread. Gunter’s loom. The brilliant tapestries that decorate the halls.