Also, in five years of adventuring through the multiverse, I’ve never once made it out of Sleeping Beauty. And let me tell you, I tried. I hung my hair out of high windows and bought apples from old ladies at the farmer’s market; I went dancing until the stroke of midnight and asked my father to bring me a single rose from the grocery store. None of it worked. Charm theorized about clusters of related realities and drew graphics that looked like the branches of some great interstellar tree. I pretended like I understood when really all I understood is that there are some rules you can’t break.
But now, somehow—my eyes flick to the silver mirror in the woman’s hand—the rules have changed. It occurs to me that I have no idea what’s going to happen next. A thrill shoots up my spine and buzzes at the back of my skull.
“You,” I say, and my voice is shaking now, but not with fear, “are not a princess.”
Her perfect brows arch half an inch higher, and I wonder dizzily if this world has eyebrow threading. “Not anymore, no.” She touches the pink indent at her left temple, which I’m suddenly sure was left by the weight of a crown.
“So where am I?” But it’s a simple equation （apple + mirror + royalty） with only one answer. There are no spindles here, and no fairies, but I’d bet my left lung there are seven dwarves living deep in the woods. “Who are you?”
Her triumph flickers very briefly, as if she doesn’t like that question much. “You may call me Your Majesty, or My Queen, should you find yourself begging for mercy.”
I’ve heard more than a few villainous threats, but none delivered with such bored sincerity. My excitement dims somewhat. “Right. Cool. Well, it’s an honor.” My eyes slide to the only door. I’m several feet closer than she is. “I’m sure you’re wondering how I got here—”
Her eyes flash, the triumph swallowed by a bottomless, fascinating hunger that makes me forget, for a moment, that I’m in the middle of an escape attempt. The mockingbird in my bag sings an octave higher. “And I would just love to tell you about it. But, uh, is there a bathroom I could use, first?”
The queen tucks the hunger away with practiced ease, like someone leashing a dog; some very unwise part of me is sorry to see it go. She says with polite amusement, “No, I don’t think so.”
“Oh.” I take a sidling step toward the exit. “Could I at least have something to drink? I have this condition, see, this mysterious ill ness.” Generalized Roseville Malady （GRM） isn’t actually that mysterious, but premodern monarchs aren’t generally familiar with terms like “amyloidosis” or “in utero genetic damage.” “It causes me great suffering, and will one day surely kill me.” My only symptoms at the moment are a high heart rate and a headache, which could be explained by being hungover, freaked out, and—sue me—a tiny bit horny, but I drag my hand dramatically across my brow anyway.
The queen looks profoundly unmoved. “How tragic,” she says passionlessly. The part of me that isn’t busy calculating the distance between me and the exit and the likelihood of dying in a fairy tale I don’t even like goes huh. Twenty-six years of terminal illness has taught me to anticipate and weaponize pity, however tedious and gross it feels—but the queen’s face is the definition of pitiless. It would be gratifying if it weren’t so inconvenient.
I take another step, edging behind a chair. “It is, truly it is.” The queen is watching me in a way that reminds me uncomfortably of a lean-boned stray watching a very stupid robin. “It’s a sad tale, which I will relate to you, at length and with footnotes, should you desire it, Your Majesty.” On the final syllable I shove the chair hard, sending it tumbling between us, and rush for the door.
I make it, hands slapping hard against the wood, fingers fumbling for the latch—
Which is, as it turns out, locked.
I stand facing the door for a long moment, breathing hard into the silence.
“Oh dear,” says the queen. “Let me get that for you.” I turn to see her carefully righting my tossed chair, setting the mirror on her workbench, and taking a long green ribbon down from a hook. She saunters toward me with a swaying, careless step that makes me think again of a hungry cat, if cats wore crowns and gowns the color of fresh kidneys.
She stops far too close to me, and there might be the teensiest, tiniest delay before I move my eyes from the clean line of her collarbone up to her face. There’s a curl in her lip that tells me she noticed.