Drawtober 2025: Spellbound Princess

Dear Maggie,

The road to Glaustone Grove is a winding one. We’ve been walking it for four days, and my feet grow more tired every day. The atmosphere is becoming more oppressive the farther we go—the sky grows darker, the wind blows more coldly. Leafless branches twist against the sky, with only a few orange and yellow leaves clinging against the growing chill.

A chill grows in me, too. Even without a heart, fear has taken root in my breast. How confident I felt when I first spun this plan, and how many holes I see in it now. If I had spoken to you about it, you would have pointed them out to me. But I didn’t, and now I live with those consequences.

Blue has gotten quieter over these past few days, the atmosphere weighing on her as much as me. As for Rook, it seems not to have dampened his tongue but soured his mood. The closer we get to Glaustone Grove, the surlier he grows. We haven’t talked about the night outside the inn, and I feel my ill-advised honesty hangs over every conversation like the blade of a scythe.

Of late, he’s taken to asking about Arthur. He pestered me about him this morning as we began our walk. It rained the night before, turning the track muddy. It made me grateful that the seamstress thought to wrap the dress she made me in oilskin. It’s currently tucked in the bottom of my bag.

Mags, I don’t know how to tell Rook about Arthur. Rook always disliked him. That was the initial wedge that came between us, the rusted nail driven into the wood of our friendship. The closer we draw to our destination, the more he can’t seem to leave it alone. It’s like he’s picking at a scab. I don’t think I could bear the smug expression he would wear if I told him the truth: that Arthur left me. That I gave up my heart for nothing.

Instead, I always lie. He didn’t want to come, I say, or he’s busy. These half-answers seem to make Rook angrier still, and he grows snappish with me until slinking away in stubborn silence. At dinner tonight, when he began pestering me again, I told him could leave.

“I know how to get to Glaustone Grove from here,” I said. “I don’t need you following me any further.”

“Have I been following you? It seems to me that you’ve been following me,” he huffed, swatting angrily at our small cook fire with a branch. He knocked a few embers from the circle of stones, sending them smoldering on the wet earth.

I tried to keep my voice level and conciliatory. “You have been very helpful, but you’re clearly unhappy—”

“What gave that away?”

“—and I don’t want to drag you any further,” I finished, ignoring him.

“Do you really think you could navigate these woods without me?”

“I know I could. Furthermore, we must be getting close. Once we’re at the ruins, it’s merely a matter of finding the door.”

“Oh, yes, very simple. And once you’re through there, you’ll just waltz into the Queen’s Court and ask for your heart back, no questions asked. I’m sure she’ll capitulate right away. Faerie monarchs are ever so benevolent, after all.”

I couldn’t help raising my voice. “Why did you insist that I needed a new gown if you didn’t think I could do this?”

“Because I thought having to slow down would give you a chance to see your folly.”

“If this is so foolish, then you shouldn’t have used up your favor with Evangeline to help me.”

“I wasn’t about to let you wander into this unsupervised,” he seethed. “Last time I did it, you made the most foolish bargain you could possibly think of for a man who didn’t deserve you.”

I stood up then. Anger made my skin tingly—anger at him and at myself and at Arthur. I wanted to shout at him, but even as I thought to do so, the fight went out of me. It wasn’t worth it, arguing with someone who would never understand. So I told him I was going to write instead and curled up a little ways from the fire with this letter for you.

I have to hope tomorrow will bring us to Glaustone Grove. I don’t know how much longer we can stay together without this tenuous truce we have unraveling completely.

Your sister,
Penelope

#

Magpie,

I might have known you were the one Pen has been writing to. You aren’t here, so I’m guessing you didn’t know about this plan until she executed it. I always thought you were the duller of the two (I would apologize if I felt sorry for that), but now I wish Pen shared some of your good sense.

Let me first say I’m going to get her back.

Let me second say, this is my fault.

Despite my best efforts to mislead her, we had been drawing steadily nearer to Glaustone Grove. I knew we would reach it on the following morning, and I also knew I couldn’t let Penelope see it. I could tell you I was trying to protect her, but that would be a lie, and since I cannot lie I might as well be truthful. Also, you would never believe I had your sister’s best interests at heart, and in this case you would be right. So, no, I wasn’t trying to protect her. I was trying to protect myself.

I woke before she did in the dim light of pre-dawn and crept to the cage where Pen has been keeping the Queen’s messenger. Quietly, I opened it and woke the bird. I urged her to fly away, but the little thing merely looked at me with a skeptical expression.

“What are you doing?” she demanded.

“Setting you free.”

“But why?”

I gave my best shrug. “We are so close now, it hardly makes sense to keep you in there, does it?”

When she still did not move, I reached in to take her out. The vicious thing pecked at me, beginning to squawk, so I wove her beak shut as I’d done once before and took off into the skies with her in my talons.

The ruins of Glaustone Glen are a pile of dark stones riddled by trees and ivy. Most Folk do not like to come here. It is an ill-favored place even from the air. Among those dark colors and craggy ruins, it was easy to spot the Fox Princess. A woman with red hair, sitting where the courtyard of the palace here once was.

She saw me landing, of course, Blue still tucked in my talons. I changed my shape, giving her a bow as befits a guardian. She looked amused to see me.

“What are you doing here, Rook?” she asked. When I said I was only visiting an old friend, she laughed.

“You have no old friends,” she said. “Besides, I have been watching you through my Other eyes. You are here with that mortal girl. Why?”

And here, Magpie, I will tell you what I did not tell your sister. The reason I was with her, the reason I had been waiting in Dogmore in the first place.

Because I made my own bargain with the Queen to keep Penelope away from the Faerie Court until after All Hallows Eve had passed.

I do not know why the Faerie Queen so desires to keep your sister from her Court. With her, it is nigh impossible to even guess at motivation. She is the winter wind, the forest fire. Capricious, changeable, unpredictable. She has us all dancing for her own amusement. Whatever her reasoning, she made me a bargain. That were I to keep Penelope away from the Masquerade, she would grant me a title amongst her Court. As you so often pointed out to your sister, I am a covetous old thing and could not resist the allure of such an offer.

It is only to you I confess my sins, Magpie, in case I cannot confess them to Penelope. To the Fox Princess, I merely said that, at the request of the Faerie Queen, I needed her to keep the mortal girl from finding the door to the Queen’s Court.

“Wherever it is hidden,” I said, “is not good enough. She is clever and quick. She will find it even without my help.”

The Fox Princess pranced around me. In the growing light of day, I saw the transformation sparkling at the edges of her person. Ghostly whiskers appeared on her face, and her stature began to shrink and stretch.

“You ask a favor of me to keep a mortal from stepping through a Faerie Door and offer nothing in return. Your kind pride themselves on cleverness, but you forget that I was once like her.”

“All the more reason for you to prevent her from making the same mistake,” I argued. “The Queen is the one who put you in this piteous state. You live a half-life now because she cheated you of a full one.”

She was nearly all fox now, prancing about me in red and white and black. She hopped atop the lip of the courtyard’s craggy old well. “I have made my peace with the bargain I made. I asked the Queen to keep me from dying, and so she has. Too many centuries have passed now for me to wish to live amongst mortals once more, for everyone I loved is gone. Yet you come here to prevent this girl making her own deal.” She cocked her head to the side and gazed at me. “Is it possible you do it more for your sake than for hers?”

“What do you mean?”

“She is heartless. A peach pit rests where once that organ beat. Ah, you are surprised? I see more than you think, Rook. You may claim that you do this for your bargain with the Queen, but I think you do it for yourself. You fear what she will feel for you once she has her heart back in her breast. You fear it more than you hope for it. Without her heart, she might be attainable. She might not see what a rotten, crooked, covetous thing you really are.”

I lunged for the Fox, of course I did, but she was too quick. She skittered around the well laughing. Sunlight bled through the clouds, turning the edges of the world red.

“You kept asking her of this Arthur. Is he your rival? Do you hope she will tell you with her own lips that he is gone? That you have a chance again to win her affection where you could not before? Do you think she will forgive you more easily if she doesn’t have a heart?”

“I will owe you a favor,” I offered, but she only laughed again.

“What need have I for a thief’s favor when I can watch a lover’s heart break? What do you think, miss Penelope Fay?”

Penelope was always too quiet. I had not heard her. But she stood there, behind me, staring at me with such anger that I thought I might burst into flames. I was too shocked to keep hold of Blue, who at last struggled from my grip and zipped away overhead, disappearing into the twisting greenery of the ruins.

It was too late for explanations—I could see that already—but I tried anyway. I tried to confess to her what I have now confessed to you, but she would hear none of it. She circled to the well, not even looking at me.

“What does he want me to forgive him for?” she demanded of the Fox Princess.

In turn, the Fox Princess smiled. “Who do you think told your Arthur that you’d bargained away your heart?”

Penelope whirled on me. Her eyes blazed with anger. Within my own breast, a feeling so oppressive nearly sent me to my knees. I believe mortals call it guilt.

I reached for her, trying to plead with her. She would not listen. When I grasped her arms, she yanked away from me, back and back and back.

“You,” she said, her voice accusing. “You did this. You, you, you.”

I should not have pulled so hard. I should have known better. I put my hands on her to draw her away, for the Fox Princess was smiling and the clearing was stained red by the horrid dawn and all I wanted was to explain.

She pulled away to hard, Magpie. She pulled away and stumbled. She hit the well lip.

She fell.

And though I ran to the well and shouted, I didn’t see her. It was as though she’d never been there in the first place.

She is out there somewhere, Magpie. I will find her.

I promise

- - Rook