She was me, and I was her.

Hyacinth had devoured the part of my soul trapped in that castle. What he really wanted now was the rest of my heart. The entirety of me. And after I brought him my brother tonight, he would let the illness overcome me and take me with him too.

“Wicked souls always seek to trap us,” the queen told me. Her voice was so lyrical, so sad in its sweetness, that I could feel the crack it made against my heart.

“What did he do to you?” I whispered.

“I was a young queen who loved her husband and was eager to rule her kingdom. Oh, I had so many ideas! The king would sit and listen to me for hours, writing down all I wanted to do for the villagers. Give food and homes to our poor.” Her eyes shone for an instant with the past. A wistful smile played on her lips. “And then, in the woods, I encountered a young faery.”

I could see it now, the queen’s first encounter with Hyacinth, how she must have been as hypnotized by his charms as I once was.

“He cast a spell on me and led me farther and farther from home. When I tried to find my way back, I only stumbled upon the white sands of this shore.” She looked away. “He imprisoned me in here, cursing my legs to forever be trapped as part of this cavern, until the day someone came to free me.”

She turned her eyes up to me again. The glow around her pulsed with a life of its own. “Here I am. And here you are. Have you come to free me? Or are you his messenger again, to put me out of my misery?”

I stared back at her, remembering her fury and frustration the last time I’d seen her.

“Is it possible to find what you’re looking for?” I finally asked her. “Is it possible to get what you want?”

“These are questions I cannot answer for you, child,” she replied. “But we must still try.”

My gaze shifted to the night flowers growing along the wall. There were only a few left now, dying because the spirit of the queen was dying as well. I walked closer to one and ran my finger delicately along its enormous black petals. It cast its scarlet light against my skin.

Fill the night flower with water, the queen had said to me when I last stood in this grotto. Pour it on my feet. Free me!

I closed my fist around the stem of the flower. I pulled hard. The stem cracked, the flower coming free into my hand. I walked to the grotto’s pool and knelt over it, filling the flower with water. Then I returned to the queen and held it over her feet.

“Perhaps,” I said, “we should have helped each other all along.”

THE RETURN OF THE QUEEN

From a distance, we must have looked like a timid pair, the queen and me. She walked behind me, her form small and fragile in a riding cloak. Beneath her hood, I could see nothing but the line of her lips. But there was a strength about her tonight. When she looked at the night sky, to where the twin moons hung aligned, her shoulders straightened and she tilted her head up as if to soak in the sight. The light of the moons was a reflection from the Sun, I realized, and even this small bit of heat seemed to feed her heart. I could feel the warmth emanating from her skin, see the yellow glow growing around her, highlighting her features underneath the cloak.

Her breaths quickened as the distance between us and the castle shortened. When the first tall spires began to peek through the trees, she paused in her tracks, as if she could no longer bring herself to move forward. I stopped to look at her.

She had not seen her kingdom since it had first fallen. Her memory of this place was one steeped in beauty, filled with the love of her people and the affection of her king. Now it was emptied, the square no longer packed with smiling crowds or bustling merchants, the moat filled with dark water.

She stayed still for a long time, seemingly lost in thought. I wondered if she didn’t have the strength to go any farther.

Then she took one step, and another. She came to my side and we walked together, our strides even. The glow around her strengthened the closer we drew to the castle.

As we reached the thorned bridge, the stems seemed to shrink away in fear from the heat that radiated from her. I gritted my teeth and continued to move forward. In my mind, I pictured my brother’s blinded face, his weak gasps on his deathbed. The bridge trembled as the queen’s bare feet walked across it. But she did not slow in her steps, and the thorns did not give way. They held together until we had reached the other side. Then the thorns, seemingly weakened from her magic, finally crumbled, falling into the churning waters below.

Hyacinth was already standing at the front gates of the castle, waiting for us.

His once-lithe body was now stripped of color, tall and sinewy like a creature of the forest, and his once-boyish cheekbones and delicate features had now grown so angular that he looked nothing like a human and every inch a faery. Perhaps this was what his appearance had always been, and I had simply never seen the real him.

His glowing eyes stayed fixed on me as we approached. He smiled as I stopped a few steps away from him. His gaze darted to the figure beside me, veiled behind the cloak. She stayed very still and did not move.

“My darling Fräulein,” Hyacinth said to me. He drew closer. All around him tittered his ever-present faeries, their blue glow dancing from spot to spot. They whispered harsh, eager things at me. “You’ve done so well. You’ve brought him, as well as yourself.”

As well as yourself. I stared into his lying eyes and saw the hunger there. The queen’s warning echoed in my mind. He did not care if my wish was fulfilled. He would take me tonight, along with my brother, and neither of us would return to the world beyond.

I looked behind us. The path we’d come from had now closed entirely, the thorns cutting off the bridge and the moat.

“I’m here, as you asked,” I said slowly.

Hyacinth’s eyes darted again to the cloaked figure beside me. She stood so calmly. For the first time, I sensed in him a hint of doubt. His faeries flitted about, irritated and skeptical. Hyacinth lifted his face to the sky, closed his eyes, and took a delicate sniff. Then he looked at me again, and when he did, his pupils were narrowed into slits.

“Your brother?” he whispered to me.

I looked back at him as steadily as I had once looked at my father. I realized that I was not afraid now. When I didn’t answer, Hyacinth swiveled his attention back to the cloaked figure and peered into the darkness that shrouded her face. His eyes then went to her hands, to the faint golden glow that came from her palms. When he peered more closely under her hood, he noticed the warm light against her features.

That was when the first hint of fear showed on his face.

“Who is this that you’ve brought with you?” he whispered to me.

I didn’t move from my spot. I only looked to the figure at my side as she removed her hood.