CHAPTER 41

Hour after hour.

Day after day.

The party did not end.

The Woodcutter continued to search the House, trying to find the hostage fae. Each time, the rooms shifted; each time, the hallways twisted; and each time, he always found himself returned to the doors of the ballroom.

Jack’s eyes had become sunken.

But try as he might, whenever the Woodcutter tried to approach the child, the illusion of a wolf still veiled his true identity.

The Woodcutter sat in the corner, a pounding headache ripping through his skull.

The way out looked more and more attractive, but he had still found no sign of the captured fae, and if he left, he would lose the child. He could not risk Jack; he would not risk Jack.

But the dust was wearing away at his soul.

The only people allowed to leave the Vanishing House were the Twelve Dancing Ladies, but only when their dancing shoes had worn through. Hours later, they would appear with no memory that they had ever been in the Vanishing House before.

He would catch flickers of conversation as they danced by.

“That suitor will never figure out where we are…” said the Dancing Lady of Yellow to her sister of Green.

“One more fool who thought he could catch us…” said the Dancing Lady of Indigo.

The Woodcutter watched them night after night, their eyes glazed and unaware. He watched and wondered, wondered about their importance to the Queen and the Gentleman.

He waited until one night when the youngest Dancing Lady, blonde curls cascading upon her bare shoulders, fell exhausted at his side. She leaned against him and gripped his arm as if the whole world were spinning.

“Truly…Is there any place that could be more fun?”

The Woodcutter lit his pipe.

“I have never danced like I have danced tonight. I think I wore through my shoes!”

“Better dancing than last night?” asked the Woodcutter.

She slapped his arm playfully. “Silly goose, what happened last night?”

“You were here dancing,” he said.

“No, I wasn’t. I came here tonight for the very first time as the special guest of the Queen.”

The Woodcutter raised an eyebrow. “Really?”

The Lady’s head nodded too emphatically. “Indeed. She loves me and my sisters. And she says that we are all really princesses.”

“Really?”

“Indeed.”

“Princesses?”

“Princesses.”

“I thought you had to be born with blood that runs blue to be royalty,” said the Woodcutter.

“That’s how it used to be. But you see,”—she walked her fingers up his jerkin and tweaked his nose—“things change.”

“Really?”

“Indeed.”

“And how does this work?”

“Well,”—she wiped away a rivulet of drool that had escaped from the side of her mouth—“the Queen says false princesses have taken over the Kingdoms. Lots and lots of Kingdoms. Twelve in all. One got away and found a prince. But that’s fine because another Kingdom magically appeared. Just like that.”

She tried to snap her fingers.

“The universe is on the side of the Queen. It just wants her to be happy.” She paused, her thought stream interrupted by an explosion of confetti at the far end of the dance floor.

The Woodcutter shifted in his seat.

“Right.” She turned back to the Woodcutter, chattering, “The universe just wants the Queen to be happy, and what would make the Queen happy—and I know this because she told me—is to have me and my eleven sisters become princesses and rule the Twelve Kingdoms. She would be an empress, but not really. Just in case my sisters and me need help.”

“And how is this going?” he asked.

“Oh, very well. She has captured just about everyone. Except there is this one princess that disappeared, and evidently, she is important. And this man who has an empire in the Wood, he holds things together, and they can’t figure out how to get rid of him. The Queen is going to take over for him. Oh, and there are Thirteen Kingdoms now, but they are having trouble seating my sister on the new throne. They don’t know why, but they are going to see if anyone else has blue blood in the Thirteenth Kingdom that we didn’t know about. But otherwise it is splendid.”

The Woodcutter tapped his pipe thoughtfully. “But how do they get your blood to run blue?”

The Dancing Lady leaned in excitedly. “Dust. Lots and lots of dust. We have to have dust with every meal. It really is lovely, and I don’t know why everyone doesn’t have dust all the time. Pretty soon, he”—she pointed at the Gentleman—“he’s going to make dust fall from the sky and we’ll have even more kingdoms. Or bigger kingdoms. Or no kingdoms or something. I don’t know which. But they just have to find that girl and that man, and then it will be perfect.”

The Woodcutter playfully brought his face close to hers. “Our host, I just keep forgetting…Do you know his name?”

She looked at the Gentleman through one eye as her body swayed. “No.”

And her eyes rolled back into her head and she collapsed onto the floor.