Kya found her brother at a pool. The surface rippled with the wind, but it was clear that Saro was concerned. “Kya, I don’t want you coming to Else Woods Lake with me.”

  “W-What?” Kya practically cried. “Saro, I’ve been on this whole adventure with you! Of course I’m going to see it to the end!”

  Saro folded his arms. “No, Kya, you’re not. Maybe you don’t understand how dangerous this is, and now I can’t be there to guide you. You won’t like what’s there, and besides, I don’t think you can help with this part.”

  “Of course I can!“ Her face turned red. “I’ve been getting us out of all kinds of situations.”

  “No, you’ve been relying on pure, dumb luck that just happens to have not run out yet. That cloud back at the witch’s could have just as easily turned on you, and so could the frog prince. You don’t think before you act, and you’re just putting yourself in danger.”

  “You think I haven’t done anything? What about you? You haven’t done anything but look at your dumb books and boss me around! Without me, neither of us would be here!”

  “Fine! Then stay here and see how far I get on my own!” His face rippled and disappeared.

  “Fine yourself!” Kya shouted back.

  Fuming, the princess made her way to Else Woods Lake.

  As abandoned castles went, it was pretty standard. Spiderwebs draped the ruined towers, and the floor was a carpet of weeds. She found Saro in a cracked mirror inside of the master bedroom. He looked up when she entered. “I told you not to come,” he said.

  “I know. I didn’t listen.”

  “When do you ever?” He held out a book, “I found this.”

  “What is it?” Kya asked.

  “Proof that my mom is out of her mind.” Glaring, he read.

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  Once upon a time, in a kingdom on a lakeside, there was a princess. Unlike her older siblings, this child was strange. She would scream when coddled, and at every royal party, the child would hide. To the king and queen and other nobles, the young princess was unsettling. To erase this mark on their reputation, they gave her what she desired, in a way. The child was not forced to wear fine dresses or attend parties. Indeed, she was left in her room most days, alone in her plain clothes, and kept away from the company of others. The princess’s existence passed into rumor, and for those who had not known her well, she might have not existed at all.

  The princess did not revel in her abandonment. She cried and screamed without provocation, for she did not understand why it was her fate to be so shunned. Desperately lonely, the girl would gaze out her window, watching the kingdom from afar. Daily, she grew more miserable.

  One day, the princess found the key to the mirrored world beyond her walls. She took solace in the library, finding a companionship in books that she had never known with people. She learned things, too, and when she finally returned, her people did not understand how she could know of their private affairs so intimately. The princess, too could not comprehend why their fear of her had increased, for she had believed that her knowledge was the key to finally understanding their world. Now, the others shunned her more than ever. The girl’s sadness turned to anger, which slipped back towards loneliness. If the world would not love her, then she would not love it back.

  One day, the girl we called Laetitia, who knew no joy, disappeared. Those who remembered her were frightened at first, but after time, they forgot. The girl remembered.

  She who watches from beyond the walls saw all. Over weeks—months—centuries, she learned, and she grew in grace and beauty, in her own special way. The ugly duckling child had become a golden swan.

  Laetitia held just one secret shame. Although the world had rejected her, she still longed for it. She surrounded herself with the company of books, but still, she could not forget the fleeting memories of human comfort that had graced her old life. The princess, detached from time and space and body and mind, returned to her home.

  Her castle was ruined. Her people were gone. There was a prince. He saw her, perched inside her ruined tower, and the enchantment cast upon him by a fairy compelled his love. Laetitia had found a companion at last.

  The new kingdom was just as strange as her old one. Laetitia’s books told her what her new subjects whispered about her, and worse, they told her that her prince’s love was a curse. She could not bear to live in a world where she was feared by her people and falsely loved by her husband. She could not stay, even for the sake of her infant son.

  Laetitia was good at disappearing. She vanished, but did not cease her watching.