been whipped into perfect diction.
Robin tilted his head at me. “So where did you get a unicorn? Are they breeding them at court now?”
“Mabi—Amabel was a gift from a foreign dignitary. He’d caught her as a filly, but couldn’t train her, so he gave her to…the court.” I paused for a second before completing the half-truth. “She ended up as mine.”
“For the last time, who are you talking to?” Will gritted.
“The sleeping girl in King Herla’s fortress, that’s who.” Robin presented the empty air they saw where I stood. “She’s right here, and for some reason I’m the only one who can see her, except for the horse.”
Amabel whinnied trotting around me in a circle, as if to agree.
Meira was skeptical. “How do we know you’re telling the truth?”
“You don’t, but how else would I know about Mabily? Not that I owe you any answers, anyway. Who are you two?”
Will rounded back on Meira. “Exactly. We didn’t get more from you than your names.”
“More importantly, who is she?” Jon asked Agnë, pointing at my general direction.
Robin’s head lowered to my level expectantly. “I actually don’t believe I caught your name.”
I balked, caught between introducing myself as Princess Fairuza of Arbore, or as the alias I’d used at the masked ball.
Then I opened my mouth only to say, “Briar.” His eyebrows shot up and I quickly amended my response. “Rose! Briar Rose!”
“Briar Rose.” Robin nodded, seemingly satisfied with that name. “Is there such a thing as a briar rose?”
“According to my father, it’s a flower that blooms in extremely rare instances.” Almost as rare as the birth of an Arborean princess. “And smells sweeter than any other rose.”
“And your father is what at the court?” Robin probed.
Panicking, I groped for a response that would fit the half-truths I’d listed earlier. “He’s involved in the, uh, upkeep and the, um, flourishing of the land, overseeing it and the people who lived on—off it.”
I almost wanted to scream at how lame that had come out.
“So, the Minister of Agriculture?”
I latched onto his suggestion, too eagerly. “Yes! Exactly!”
“Hmm, if you say so.” I had no idea if he believed me, his voice going as unreadable as his hidden face. Then he turned to my handmaidens. “The ghost-like girl from the castle says her name is Briar Rose, that she’s the daughter of a minister at court, and that she’s under some ambiguous fairy curse that can only be solved by finding fairy royalty. Any of that rings a bell, or am I well and truly hallucinating?”
As a testament to either their confusion or cleverness, Agnë and Meira didn’t respond outright, possibly processing the hints I’d hidden in my responses.
Then Agnë joyously exclaimed, “It is her!”
“Yes, it is our dear Briar Rose,” Meira agreed, not nearly as enthusiastic. “Where is she?”
Robin pointed where my head was, and Meira aimed her gaze in my direction. All her grouchiness melted into agitation, her dark eyes shimmering with wetness. “I’m so sorry, we should have tried harder to help you.”
In all her years in my service, Meira had been filled to the brim with impatience and snappy comments, all softness and sweetness coming from Agnë. Seeing her on the verge of crying was a shock. Not just because of the stark shift in behavior, but because it was out of worry for me.
I’d actually figured they’d forget about me like everyone else seemed to have done. That, like other handmaidens, once they’d been released from my service, they’d be relieved to be rid of all my demands forever.
Instead, they’d come to find me.
Trying to wrap my mind around that fact, I whispered, “Tell her none of it is her fault.”
Robin relayed my response and Meira’s tears spilled down her frustrated face, revealing themselves to be born out of anger rather than misery. That was more like the Meira I knew.
“Why would finding fairy royalty undo her curse?” Robin asked her.
Wiping her eyes, Meira sniffled. “It may be because she was cursed by a fairy queen.”
The men all gaped at her.
Robin broke the silence first. “This seems like a very long story, and as much as I’d like to hear it, we really need to get going.”
“You’re really going into Faerie?” Agnë squeaked. “For F—Briar, or for your rescue mission?”
Robin shrugged. “She and I have already discussed combining our causes.”
“Could you have discussed it with me?” Will grumbled. “Before you invited a new problem for you to solve?”
“It’s not going to affect finding Marian,” Robin promised as he headed