Red Hood's Revenge

bracelet. “Fairytown will be told exactly what the Duchess did today. If Trittibar earned exile for saving your lives, the Duchess has earned far worse.”
    “What about Roudette?” Snow asked.
    Danielle swallowed, her uncertainty clear to anyone who knew her. She glanced at Talia, who nodded and adjusted her grip on her knife. Danielle straightened. “Would you like a moment to pray and prepare yourself, Roudette?”
    Roudette kept perfectly still. “Kill me, and the three of you will never see another sunrise.”
    Talia dug the edge of her knife into Roudette’s throat. “Not even the Lady of the Red Hood can kill us after she’s dead.”
    “You think it’s me you need to fear?” Roudette smiled. “I’ve lived with death as long as I can remember. It holds no terror for me anymore. But kill me, and before morning comes, you’ll wish I’d turned you over to Queen Lakhim.”
    “I’m willing to take that chance,” said Talia.
    “Do you believe that final fairy spared your life out of kindness, all those years ago?” Roudette asked.
    Danielle lowered her sword slightly. “What are you saying?”
    “She’s saying whatever it takes to stay alive,” Talia snapped.
    “Poor Sleeping Beauty,” Roudette said, smiling up at Talia. “Cursed to die upon your sixteenth birthday, until that curse was altered by the final fairy’s wish. Instead of death, you would merely sleep. Only you weren’t the only one to fall into that enchanted sleep, were you?”
    Snow’s breath caught. She leaned closer, pain forgotten in her excitement. Why had she never seen it before? “The fairy lied. That last wish wasn’t supposed to break the curse. It dispersed it!”
    Roudette’s lips pulled back in a grimace. “Instead of killing you, the curse blanketed the palace. Everyone within the fairy hedge slept for a hundred years, all triggered by the prick of a spindle.”
    “By a zaraq whip,” Talia corrected her. “An assassin’s weapon. The tip was poisoned.”
    “Who made that poison?” Roudette asked. “What mortal toxin could plunge an entire palace into a century of cursed sleep?”
    “You’re saying the fairies planned this,” Snow breathed, awestruck by the elegance of the plan. “The final two fairies worked together to prepare their curse.”
    “The assassin was human,” Talia protested. “He was—”
    “He was a fairy slave.” Roudette rose, ignoring the weapons pointed at her. “They wouldn’t have sent one of their own, knowing what was to come. Why condemn even the lowest fairy to such a curse when a human would do the same for mere gold?”
    “Why?” asked Danielle. “What would they gain from such a spell?”
    “Chaos.” Talia stepped back. She kept her knife ready, but her gaze was elsewhere. “In a single day, they removed the entire ruling line of Arathea.”
    “One hundred years of war and rebellion and death,” Snow whispered, thinking back to the history of Arathea. “Leaving fairykind free to do whatever they wished.”
    “It’s worse,” said Talia. Her knuckles were white where she gripped the knife. “For the next hundred years, every family with a drop of royal blood sent their sons and brothers to try to penetrate the hedge. All died, impaled upon the thorns. They eliminated my family, and then they removed every male heir who might have taken the throne and reunited Arathea.”
    “And who helped to save your land from that century of darkness?” Roudette asked. There was no mockery or cruelty in her tone. She appeared almost as pained by the revelation as Talia. “Who spread throughout Arathea to help the poor humans, to build new cities, to advise the tribes and factions?”
    “The fairies,” Talia whispered.
    Snow turned toward Jahrasima. History described the lake cities of Arathea as gifts, but few fairy gifts were truly free. More than half of Arathea’s population lived in these nine fairy-built cities. Within each one, fairy advisors stood behind every ruler, guiding their path.
    “Do you remember what it was like when you awoke?” Roudette pressed. “How deeply they had infiltrated your culture? Today the lowest fairy is higher than any human. But it’s not enough. Despise your mother-in-law if you’d like, but she’s managed to unify this country under human rule again. For that alone, the fairies would see her dead. Her and all her kin. Or if not dead, at least removed from power. Eliminated just as your own family was.”
    “The