Kya found her brother in the storage cellar on the lowest level of the castle. He looked up when she entered, and he didn’t try to hide that he had been crying. “Hi Kya,” he said flatly.

  Kya took a small step into the room. “You okay?”

  “Yeah.” He fished a crumpled cloth out of his pocket and wiped his nose. “I’m better now. You can come in, if you want to.”

  “Okay.” She took another step forward and let the door close softly behind her. The room was dark, with only a small window bringing light from above. “Dad is still looking for you. He’s worried.”

  “I know.” Saro folded his arms and looked down again. “I’m just not ready to face him yet.”

  “Okay.” She plopped down and stretched her legs. “What are you going to do, when you do see him?”

  Her brother shrugged. “I dunno. Apologize, probably. Try to convince him that I’m not as crazy as my mother.”

  Kya frowned. “Your mother wasn’t crazy.”

  “Yes she was. She barely ever spoke, she spent whole days crying, and one night she ran off and was never seen again. Dad never would’ve married her if it wasn’t for his whole twice-cursed business. She sounded pretty crazy, if you ask me.”

  Kya brought her knees up to her chest. “Who said she did all that?” she asked, somewhat alarmed.

  “Dad did.” Saro shrugged. “I asked him one time,” he explained.

  “Oh.”

  “It’s okay. She isn’t me, and it wasn’t even like I got to know her or anything. At least you get to have a normal mom.”

  Kya frowned. “Don’t say that. She’s basically your mother, too.”

  “No she isn’t. Your mom hates everything about me.” Kya opened her mouth to disagree, but she closed it, unable to think of a reply. Her brother seemed to realize that, and his expression softened. “It’s okay. At least you’re different. Heck, if you were just like her, I’d probably…” His voice trailed off into unknown thoughts. “Well, at least you’re different. Thank you, Kya.”

  “Thanks, Saro.” She hesitated for a moment, and then smiled. “Are you ready to come out now?”

  “Yeah.” He smiled back, and then stood up.

  There were a total of four secret passages leading outside the castle, and Saro knew the location of every one of them. His father had shown them to him when he had turned ten, but he was already familiar with three of them by that point. Most of them were behind old tapestries or bookcases and the like, but there was one that was rather cleverly hidden behind a mirror outside of the Grand Hall that he hadn’t been able to discover on his own. Saro lay in his bed, thinking about that particular passage the night after the picnic. He swung his legs off the side of the bed and stood up.

  Saro made his way over to the window and opened the curtains. The moon, waxing to almost full, let in ample light for him to search through his closet and find the picture of his mother. He held it up, breathed deeply, and sighed. She couldn’t have been there. Whoever had been up on the cliffs had looked just like her—heck, she had felt just like her, even though Saro had been too young to remember her before she had disappeared. She couldn’t have been there, though. And he wouldn’t know who the woman really was, either, because she had gone by the time he had reached the top of the cliffs. And he couldn’t shake the fear that the figure on the cliff had merely been a figment of his imagination, the imagination of a prince gone just as crazy as his ma.

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  He crept silently down the stairs and through the darkened castle. There were a handful of guards on patrol at that hour, but Saro could hear them coming and he knew when to hide. He stood in front of the mirror for a moment, his reflection barely visible in the dim light, when he realized that he was still holding the picture of his mother. He sighed. If he dodged the guards again, put the picture back, and then traveled all the way back here, he might not have the heart to go through with this. Taking a deep breath, he pushed the mirror ever so silently to the side, crept through the exposed tunnel, and replaced the cover. In another minute, he was outside.

  That night, someone else could not find sleep, and so she followed him.

  The outside world was cool and quiet. Softly, water lapped against the lake’s shore, driven by an unseen wind. Something scuttled through the underbrush, and Saro’s heartbeat quickened. “All right, Mom, what are you trying to show me?” he muttered. The cliffs were just ahead. Slowly, he dared to look up.

  Someone was looking back.

  Saro gasped, standing frozen. Then he ran. His heart pounded as he went up and up, never thinking about the possible danger. Something inside of him told him that there was none, that he was going to be okay. He reached the top of the cliffs, breathless and panting. There was no one there.

  “Prince Saro, what on earth are you doing here?”

  Queen Harmony was behind him, striding up. Saro gulped. “I-I, um, good evening, Queen?”

  “By all four winds, Saro, what madness drove you to be up at this hour out—“ Her nostrils flared, and then surprisingly, her gaze softened. She sighed and looked up. “The stars are beautiful tonight.”

  Saro waited for the lecture to start. Surely, his stepmother was more than happy to drag him back to the castle and report his irresponsibility to his father. But she said nothing. She only watched the stars. And somehow, she wasn’t looking at the stars, but at him.

  It must be made clear that Queen Harmony was not a thoroughly wicked person. She was vain, but she really did care about her daughter’s future. The queen feared what might become of her kingdom if her stepson controlled it, especially with how mad the boy’s mother had been, and she hated the fact that her daughter could not rule it. Queen Harmony was not a thoroughly wicked person. She just happened to be at the wrong place at the wrong time and thinking the wrong, wicked thoughts.

  Queen Harmony did not dare look over the edge of the cliff. She didn’t wait to hear the crash. Instead, she covered her mouth, hid the scream at what she had just done, and ran back towards the castle.

  It took Saro precisely five seconds to reach the surface of the lake. As he fell, time seemed to stretch and he had a few moments to sort through what was going on. In the first second, the understanding that he had been pushed trickled into his mind. The next second came with a panic, and some crazed thought told him to flap his arms and make a desperate attempt to fly. In the beginning of the third second, for the briefest moment he caught sight of a flash of gold. Then he was jerked upwards, not truly flying, but slowing in his fall. The lake was close, however, and in the fourth second, Saro was once again picking up speed. The prince felt the soft barbs of feathers digging into his arms as a golden pair of wings wrapped themselves around him. Together, they dove.

  In the fifth and final second before they reached the bottom, Saro finally found his voice to scream. He didn’t think about how high and frightened he sounded, or imagine how his father and teachers would shake their heads and tell him that princes should be brave, even in the face of dragons and monsters and certain death. For a moment, in that fifth and final second, he was just a little boy who wanted to live. The scratchy clutch of feathers squeezed tighter, and for a moment, a stray wisp of a dream, Saro saw the water glow an impossibly bright shade of gold. When he and the swan reached the surface, they vanished without a sound.