Together?”
Maleficent blinked at her once with her slow yellow eyes. For perhaps the first time ever, an ironic remark, a dramatic observation, a meaningless quip didn’t form on her lips.
She seemed uncomfortable thinking about the question, and twitched her shoulders.
“But you can’t,” she finally said. “You’re just not capable, dear.”
And she swept up the stairs, her cape trailing out majestically behind her.
Aurora sank down on the cold stones. She didn’t go down to confront her parents. She didn’t go up. She stayed in the comforting darkness and wept over things she couldn’t even name.
THE MORNING OF THE GOLD BALL, Aurora was in bed, as usual.
With the minstrel gone, there was no way she could find out the truth of the matter. Either he was dead, or he was free of the castle, living with flocks of mutant bluebirds or whatever—and in neither case would he be coming back.
She flipped wearily through the blank pages of one of her books. The back of her mind was playing with the idea of wishing for images to appear. Of wishing for the darkness from the Outside to come in. Could it be any worse than living in the castle with the same people for the rest of her life? Worse than blank books and hateful parents? Worse than being confronted every day by your own stupidity—so stupid even your own aunt patronizes you?
She imagined the one brief glorious moment of false paradise the Outside would bring: birds and trees and bunnies and other animals everywhere, flooding the castle halls, singing and purring and leaping in people’s laps—and then it all exploding in one final, rapturous apocalypse as the monsters came in and everyone died.
She sighed, turning over in her bed. She knew exactly how ridiculous she was being. As a princess—a living princess—at the end of the world, she was far luckier than those who had died, and her life was far better than the lives of most of those who remained.
With great effort, she pushed herself up until she was at least sitting on the edge of the bed. Her head felt weary with all the terrible thoughts weighing it down. She felt sick—and that idea appealed to her very much. Of crawling back into bed and sleeping and having Lianna wait on her, and then go away…
Sparkles appeared at the corners of her vision. She was both relieved and scared; she really was sick. About to faint, even…
But the sparkles weren’t golden or silver as they were normally when she felt light-headed. They were red, green, and blue. They coalesced into three distinct balls of color instead of dissipating when she took a few deep breaths.
The little balls danced around the room in a manner that suggested intelligence: as if they were investigating the cracks, the crevices, the nooks, the crannies. Like they were looking for someone or something that might be hiding.
As Aurora crawled back onto her bed away from them, she noticed detachedly that when they came close to a solid object, their pale lights illuminated it and cast its shadow. Like real lights. Not hallucinations.
Finally, the three balls must have decided it was safe and grouped together, hovering right in front of Aurora.
She blinked, her eyes taking a moment to get used to their brightness being so close. As soon as she could see properly again, Aurora realized that there were things in the centers of the lights.
Little living things.
Things that looked suspiciously like tiny women. One in each light.
“Oh, dear,” Aurora said aloud, trying to steady herself.
The first thing spoke. Its voice was too high-pitched and tiny to hear.
Aurora shook her head and pointed at her ear.
The balls bobbled a bit.
Then they suddenly puffed up in size.
Now Aurora was faced with three—still smallish—flying ladies engulfed in light.
The princess began to panic. These were fairies. That was startling enough. There were no fairies left, except for Maleficent. And certainly not any good ones…
But—far more importantly—there was something terribly familiar about them. Something her body immediately recognized but her mind didn’t; she was overwhelmed with an urge to put out her hand and have them land on it. To try and hug them.
Why?
“This is not the world in which you are supposed to reside,” the green one said. The voice was still very high-pitched, but Aurora could just make it out this time.
The blue one rolled her eyes. “You are running out of time. Years and hours are tangled, it’s true, but both go fast. If you want to