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anymore as “understood tobe private.” A stack of letters emerged as the compartment slid open, letters tied up with a limp silk ribbon. Anyone coming upon them could see in a glance that they were love letters. Not everyone, however, would guess they’d all been written by Foxbrush himself. Written and never delivered.
    Foxbrush pulled them out, several years’ worth of the most tender and romantic feelings he’d ever put to paper. Such as this one: And a union of our two houses would prove as profitable to the improvement of our estates as would the union of our hearts to the improvement of our lives.
    Or this: When weighed upon the joint scales of reason and regard, the balance of my affections proves a sound measure upon which to make your judgment.
    The idiotic yearnings of youthful fancy, perhaps, but truly, if rather haltingly, expressed. Only, thank the Lights Above, he’d never let one of these fall into the adored object’s hands!
    Until today.
    With a biting curse, Foxbrush fumbled for his matches, some notion of warming the room with a blaze of burned hopes and dreams brewing in his mind. He struck a light, held it up.
    And he screamed, “Iubdan’s beard!”
    Across his desk stood the hooded groundskeeper.
    “Good evening, Foxbrush,” said he. “It’s been some time.” Then he put back his hood.
    “Iubdan’s beard !” Foxbrush cried with redoubled vehemence.
    It was Lionheart.

3
    T HE W OOD WAITED , as it always did.
    It had no need to go hunting. In all the long existence of the Between, before and after the advent of Time, it had proven itself the most effective of predators, not by any great cunning or guile but simply by its patience. If it waited long enough, prey inevitably walked into its enfolding arms as into a lover’s embrace. And those whom the Wood embraced, it rarely let go.
    For the Wood was full of things that kill: some that meant to, some that didn’t, though the latter were no less deadly.
    Daylily, her underdress torn, her hair in disarray, her eyes wild in an otherwise calm face, slid the last few feet down the gorge trail and stood upon the edge of the Wilderlands. She knew what she did, or believed she knew. After all, had she not shut her mouth when Lionheart asked if anyone would defend Rose Red? Had she not shut her mouth and thereby pronounced the poor girl’s sentence as clearly as though she’d spoken it aloud?
    And Rose Red had been banished to the Wilderlands. She had disappeared into its shadows even as Daylily, her skirts clutched in both fists, disappeared now, stepping out of the world she knew into a world of half-light remembered from poison-filled dreams.
    The ground was soft beneath her feet. Leaves rustled against the hem of her gown. Silence closed in around her, reaching out to touch her face even as the tree limbs stretched down and caught gnarled fingers in her hair. She passed into the Wood Between, ready for any fate to greet her.
    Any fate, that is, except the one that did.

    Had Crown Prince Foxbrush been asked how his day might conceivably be made worse than it already was, he would not have been able to give an answer. How could it possibly be worse?
    But this was only because he wouldn’t have considered the possibility of Lionheart returning.
    The match he’d struck burned his fingertips, and he dropped it with a cry, plunging the room back into darkness. For the space it took him to light another and apply it to the nearest lamp, he could pretend that it was all an illusion brought on by fatigue, worry, and hunger. Surely, surely Lionheart could not—
    Oh yes, he could.
    Foxbrush, holding up the newly lit lamp, leapt to his feet, jostling his desk with violence enough to knock the basket of figs over the edge. Figs landed with thuds and scattered across the tiles like so many rodents escaping a trap.
    “You . . . you’re real,” Foxbrush gasped.
    “Last I checked,” Lionheart agreed with a grin that looked more wicked than usual