“Where is she?” the Dark Queen hissed, in a voice edged with ice. “You were to bring Fair Jennet to me, not cause her to flee!”

A white tracery of frost formed on the Black Knight’s chest-piece, proof of his ruler’s ire. He bore the cutting cold without complaint.

“I will not fail you again,” he said.

The queen crooked her finger, compelling him forward until he stared into her deep, fathomless eyes.

“See that you do not.”

She drew a wickedly pointed blackthorn spike from her robes and, faster than thought, plunged it deep into the place his heart should be.

The knight shuddered but held his ground. This was the price of his failure. He would not die from it, though the pain would have sent any other member of the Dark Queen’s court screaming to their knees. Instead, he merely bowed his head.

The watching Court laughed: pale maidens gowned in cobwebs, sharp-toothed goblins, hollow-eyed, nameless creatures with impossibly twisted limbs, all cackling and gibbering until the noise eclipsed the waning scythe of the moon above.