[b]Adila![/b]

Unravel. Unwind. Jump. You skip from situation to situation like a broken illusion, which means... well, you’re not sure if there’s a technical term, but your gut instinct says that this is very bad. “Lose Hornet’s mind to the timestream forever, temporally unmooring her, dooming her to mix up past and future for the rest of her life” bad.

“Friendship: data point,” she says, opening up a Science Journal. You’re sitting at her thirteenth birthday party. There are seats for twelve princesses. Hornet is sitting alone in front of a cake shaped like interlocking gears. “Adila, my Best Friend, has informed me that Hypothesis #17 is incorrect, and that friendship is not gratitude. Data points from Charts C7 and F4 support this interpretation.”

A jump. Iron Star is on your back and Hornet is looking up at you, her mother’s loving hand on her shoulder, as you prepare to go and show off for your crush. “After the dramatic failure of both the Friendship-Generating Spleen and the Friendship-Attracting Appendix,” she says, rubbing her side, “and in light of this new data, I am forced to conclude that Hypothesis #18 is, in fact, correct.”

A shiver. The cold immediately begins to destroy you. Frost forms a rime on your scales. Your wings freeze into useless place. The sky is huge and black; all around are snow-covered lumps the size of goblins, and lightless, heatless generators. Your eyes begin to fail, stinging with the sharp pain of absolute cold, but still you see Hornet sitting in a Marvelous Ambulatory Armchair, ice creeping up her tiny body.

“Namely,” she says, into the still and bitter air, “that Princess Hornet is a friendship null zone, incapable of interacting with its chum matrix or the fondness array, uniquely flawed and unviable for further residence in Hyperborea.” The Best Friend contract slips from one hand and shatters into a thousand pieces of ice when it brushes against the snow.

“It makes sense,” she says, as you become nothing more than another dead statue in this wound-down pocketwatch fortress. “I was the flaw in the data all along.”

You can’t stay here. You’ll be lost, too. Everyone will understand; it’s just Hornet, after all. How will anyone be able to tell the difference? She’ll just not make any sense, as usual. No one will blame you, Adila. It’s better than losing yourself here, too, in the dark future of Oberon’s victory, in the empty wasteland of Hornet’s forlorn heart.

It’s done. Let go.

***

[b]Kazelia![/b]

Your father hands you a pin and expects you not to stab him with it.

The flower is delicate and clear, a bloom of frost to go on the lapel of his wedding suit. The suit is perfectly fitted; he is leaner and sharper than you remember. Maybe he is melting here, too slowly to be noticed. Maybe, here, he cannot hide his heart any longer. His eyes are a smoky grey, and reveal nothing.

“Did you think that you could win?” The pin is too heavy in your fingers. Don’t drop it. Don’t lunge forward. “I am forever. I am inexorable. And I am so much [i]bigger[/i] than this world. Your new stepmother was content to stagnate here, but she will grow vast and beautiful once I show her the worlds beyond. She is the only one to ever complete me.”

[i]She is the only one to ever complete me.[/i] He’s said this before. He’s married before. And his brides [i]never[/i] meet his impossible expectations. What do you remember, Kazelia?

***

[b]Alina![/b]

When Cassian comes back in, it’s in a sharp black suit with white gloves, his hair slicked back and the amulet heavy and leaden on his chest.

“Right,” he says, with a wicked smirk. “Now that I’m finally prepared... let’s get you [i]lovely[/i] ladies ready for the ceremony!”

You are doomed.