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of those situations without affecting all the others.
    So I lie there, wide awake, without saying or doing a thing. I feel like Sir Stephen playing chess: When he’s thinking about his own strategy, he can sit there for ages without taking any action at all. “Move something!” I urge him. “Anything!”
    “Nothing before its time,” he always says, and then seems to deliberate even longer, just to prove his point. When he finally takes his turn, I’m so frustrated that sometimes I grab the first piece I lay my hand on, sending my bishop dashing across the entire board, or shoving my knight forward without counting spaces or gauging risks. And then he swoops in to defeat me, chiding, “This is why one must not act too hastily. . . .”
    I cannot act hastily tonight, because Nanny is wide awake over on her side of the room. Just as nobody could sneak into our cottage without her knowing, I could not sneak out undetected.
    But that is the plan that’s growing in my mind now, cobbled together out of worry and fear and regret and some of the same rashness that always endangers my chess pieces. If there’s even a chance that Sir Stephen willcarry me away from our village tomorrow, or the next day or the day after that . . . if there’s a possibility that Nanny will confine me to our cottage until she thinks it’s safe to let me out of her sight (which might be never) . . . if it’s likely that my enemies know where I am and they’re planning to murder me in my sleep . . . then of course I need to go to Harper now, tonight, and tell him everything, so that I can go in peace to my new home or my confined exile or my death. I get a little sniffly thinking about my death—
Poor thing,
people will say.
She never even got to wear her own crown. . . .
Then I realize that I am sniffling so loudly that surely Nanny will hear me and rush across the room to comfort me once more.
    I stop sniffling and listen. Nothing. Nothing except the thin edge of a snore coming from across the room.
    Nanny’s asleep after all.
    Finally,
I think.
We can’t be in such great danger if Nanny went to sleep so fast. Can we?
I wonder. But I’m not sure how long I’ve been lying there, plotting and planning.
    I silently shove the quilt aside and stand up and listen again—still nothing. I tiptoe over to the door. I’m in awe of my own daring. It’s one thing to fling chess pieces across a board without regard for their safety, quite something else to take chances with my own life.
For Harper’s sake,
I tell myself firmly. I ease the new door latch off its peg, take a deep breath, and step outside.

  7  
    It’s a moonless night, the darkness as thick around me as cotton batting. I find this comforting. Even if someone is watching Nanny’s cottage, waiting for the right moment to attack, they wouldn’t be able to see me slip out the door. And really, I argue with myself, if my enemies know where I live, I’m safer outside the cottage than in.
    The darkness is not so comforting when I stumble forward, vines slithering against my ankles, brambles snagging my dress. My bare feet discover the hollowed-out path between the trees, so I inch forward, feeling my way with my toes. If I touch packed dirt, that’s good and I take another step; if I touch grass or leaves or brambles, I’m off the path and I have to try again. That’s all I let myself think about:
Dirt or grass? Dirt or leaves?
So I’m stunned when my toes plunge into water, squish down into mud. It doesn’t make sense—there’s no water anywhere near thepath to the village. My mind reels; for a moment it seems possible that the world becomes an entirely different place at night, water flowing in the daytime’s dry paths, lakes and forests trading places. I’m picturing a sort of musical-chairs game of mischievous geographical features. Then logic returns, and I remember where I’ve seen mud puddles before.
    Oh.
Then,
Oh, no.
    In the disorienting darkness I’ve started