OUR CANOE WAS MOORED in a watery cavern, deep beneath the hallways of the Queen’s palace where no one else ventured. Water dripped from above, Aiti’s faery light barely illuminating the way forward. I expected to be stopped at any moment, but no one leapt out of the shadows and into our path. So I passed the time debriefing my mother about the Kingmaker and the Queen’s new threat to her person.
Aiti stiffened as my reasoning for fleeing Faery became apparent, muttering something I couldn’t quite make out. Then, as we approached the canoe, she shook her head as if to clear it before waving me forward. “You’re the one with ties to earth. You take the stern.”
This was new. The person in the back of a canoe steered the craft and Aiti had always been our guide previously.
Still, I nodded. Cl
