WARNING: This story contains strong language, and depictions of violence and death that may not be suitable for some readers.

Camille Dufleur was eight years old when she saw the carriage in the woods.

It wasn't an ordinary carriage; the golden wheels shimmered like summer wheat, and the black horses' hooves ate up the narrow path. And on the side of the carriage, Camille realized, was the royal seal: a tower with a morning star over it. The king, perhaps?

But none of this mattered.

Not when her mother was so furious.

Camille twisted. But Adele Dufleur was a blacksmith's wife, and her grip was hard as iron. Camille could feel Adele's calloused fingers digging into her skin where her dirty white cap sleeve ended.

"Hurry, Mimi," Adele said. "It'll rain soon." She yanked her over a tree root. "If it wasn't for you, we'd be there by now."

Camille frowned. Considering that they were running late because she'd spent the morning cleaning white ash out of the fireplace, she wasn't entirely sure this was fair. "But I'm tired, maman."

"Well, you shouldn't have stayed up reading."

Camille dragged her feet. She could see the thatched roof of the cottage, peeking its head above the trees. She wished that she was at the forge, curled up in bed with a cup of tea and her book. Her father would be puttering around the kitchen, stomping his leather boots and smelling of metal and salt. Her mother rarely made her come to the cottage on Saturdays, but something had changed today.

She glanced nervously at the cottage. Camille knew what she would find there: dusty curtains, two hard wooden chairs and a spinning wheel. It had been the same routine for the last four years. Her mother would knit by the window, and Camille would sit at the wheel and do...

Something.

It was difficult to describe.

The feeling was instinctual. She let it pour out of her, gathering the golden substance in a glass phial. It always left her feeling strange after, as if she was floating.

Weaving, Adele called it.

Camille could remember the first time they'd gone to the cottage. Her mother had paused near a rose bush, pointing at a spider clinging to a glistening web.

"Do you see that spider?" Adele had asked. "It reaches inside of itself and finds a strand of silk; it weaves something out of nothing. You can do that too, Mimi. You can create golden threads that turn into dreams."

Her mother had been kind at first. Camille received the best cuts of meat at dinner, and the day that she had filled a whole phial, her mother had bought her a pink dress with ribbons, frilly as a wedding cake.

But she was not kind now, Camille thought. Not since her father had his accident last month and lost his arm; the forge now rumbled on like a sleeping dragon, spitting coals and red sparks, but nobody was there to man it. Furniture disappeared from their home. The rickety wooden rocking chair went first, and then a cozy armchair by the fire. Their best silverware. Her mother's wedding ring.

Now, her mother forced her to weave with threats of slaps and no dinner. Bruises braceleted her arms, purple as plums.

The cottage drew closer. Fear shot through her, and Camille stopped, yanking her arm out of her mother's grip. "I won't go!"

"Mimi—"

"No!" She set her chin. "You can't make me."

She would be brave, Camille decided, like Rissolyta in her book; the warrior queen let nothing frighten her. Unfortunately, Rissolyta did not have Adele Dufleur as a mother, and Camille shrank back as Adele's eyes darkened.

"Camille," she snapped, "you will come with me, or you will go without supper tonight. Do you understand?"

"Is there a problem here?"

Her mother jerked back. The beautiful carriage had stopped next to them, and a woman wearing a golden circlet peered at them through the window. Camille sucked in a breath. The queen.

Queen Brigid Delafort was smaller than people described, and even more beautiful. Brilliant red hair tumbled over her shoulders, and her dark eyes burned like coals.

"Your Majesty." Her mother had gone pale. "What an honour." She gave what Camille assumed was a curtsey but looked more like an involuntary jerking motion. "Please, don't let us keep you. My daughter is tired and being difficult. That's all."

Queen Brigid pursed her lips. Then she swung open the door of the carriage. Camille thought she heard one guard inside groan and mutter something about this being typical, but the queen ignored him.

"What's your name, child?"

"Camille," she whispered.

The queen placed two fingers under her chin. "You're a pretty little thing, aren't you?"

Camille flushed. She was painfully aware of the dirt caked in her blonde hair, and the rips on her sleeves. Even her brown eyes — more of a hazel, and not nearly as beautiful as the queen's obsidian gaze — felt plain.

Her palms grew sweaty. Fortunately, Camille was spared a response by the queen's sharp intake of breath.

"You're a Dayweaver." There was no accusation in Brigid's voice; only curiosity. "And a powerful one. I can see it on you, child." She dropped Camille's chin, turning to Adele. "You know the laws. The girl is too young to train; she must wait until she's seventeen."

Her mother paused. "I wasn't—"

"You were." Brigid's voice was cool. "As you know, I'm a Dayweaver myself. I can sense the magic that runs in her veins. She's been using it."

"I had no choice." Adele reminded her of the rabbits that they used to catch in traps, right before they skinned them for dinner. "My husband has lost his job, you see. We rely on Mimi's weaving to pay the bills. I sell her phials of somnium at the market." Beads of sweat clung to her forehead. "Please, Your Majesty; do not punish us for this."

Brigid pursed her lips. The queen had the same look in her eyes that the fishmonger at the market got, Camille thought, when he was deciding how much a cut of salmon was worth. Weighing and deliberating.

"I will make you a deal," Brigid said finally. "I will pay you for the somnium that Camille would produce each week in perpetuity. In exchange, you must let her come to the palace with me. I will bring her up as my ward."

"Your ward?" Adele looked incredulous. "But look at her! She's—"

Her mother cut off. Camille could hear her unspoken words, hanging between all of them like the silvery morning mist over a lake. But she's poor. But she's ugly. But she's difficult. Her cheeks, if possible, became even hotter.

Brigid ignored her mother, bending down so that their eyes were level. "What do you say, Camille?" Her dark eyes were bright. "Would you like to come back to the castle with me?"

Camille hesitated.

She thought of her father, swinging her up on his shoulders, laughing as she stretched to pluck a green apple off a tree. The smell of the forge, all smoke and salt. She would miss him, Camille realized, and the little frog in the back garden, the spotted one that hopped on her windowsill each morning.

But the idea of not going to the cottage with her mother today — not going ever again — was too tantalizing to resist.

"Yes," Camille said. "I would like that very much."

From there, things moved quickly. The queen and her mother murmured about annuities and payments and other things that Camille didn't understand. And then Brigid helped her into the carriage, where Camille sat with her hands folded on her lap, trying not to rub her dirty dress against the velvet seats. The queen leaned forward.

"You are very brave, Camille," Brigid said. "Few little girls would go on a big adventure like this."

Camille brightened; if the queen thought she was brave, then perhaps she was like Rissolyta. She sat up straighter, pretending to be the warrior queen. Brigid's red hair swung between them, a curtain of flame in the darkness.

"But I must ask you for a favour," Brigid murmured. "Something in exchange for your time at the castle. Would you be willing to make a little deal with me?"

Camille hesitated. Make a deal? That never ended well in the stories that she read. But the evil witches that offered deals in the stories had warts on their nose — and Brigid didn't have those. "What sort of deal?"

"You will be my apprentice," Brigid said. "I will teach you how to weave the most enthralling dreams. The most beautiful fantasies." Her face was kind. "And sometimes, I will ask you to use your magic to make people do things. It will be a sort of game between us. Doesn't that sound fun?"

It did sound fun. The girls in Camille's books were always playing games such as tag or hopscotch, but Camille had no one to play with. And a secret. Only adults had secrets. That sounded very exciting indeed.

"And I'll get to stay at the castle?" she asked.

"Yes."

"Then I'll do it." She smiled. "I'll play the game."

Brigid drew something shiny out of her dress pocket. It was a bronze necklace, Camille realized, with a blue stone wrapped in a wire cage on the end. "Here." The queen brushed Camille's golden curls aside, clasping it around her neck. "You must wear this always."

Camille toyed with the end, her heart racing. She had worn nothing so fine, and especially not a gift from a queen.

"Thank you, Your Majesty."

Something flickered over Brigid's face. "Do not thank me, Camille. Not yet."

Camille pressed her face to the glass window. Outside, the sky had opened up, weeping thick droplets. Wind howled through the trees. The carriage shuddered, bumping over overturned logs. She wondered if her father had remembered to lock up the forge, and then realized that it didn't matter; she was never going back there again.

She touched her necklace, and it thrummed like a second heart.