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The queen shook loose a fan and yawned behind it. “I am so very sleepy,” she murmured.

“Find out where this Amara is!” hissed Lord Oswain before succumbing to a yawn himself.

“I’m trying!” I hissed back.

The queen’s eyes were closing. I felt an overwhelming desire to sink onto a cushion and close my eyes for just a moment, but even as I longed for it, I knew it was an enchantment in the music.

I reached for my rose crown, holding onto its magic, and summoned the strength to say, “Your Highness, I entreat you with all the rights of the Rose Daughters to do all within your power to recover the princess!”

The queen groaned and waved a hand.

“Tell them, for the love of the High Queen of Faerie, where to find Amara’s dwelling, and give them mounts that they may be swiftly on their way and leave me in peace!”

A faerie servant appeared, and gestured for me to follow. I turned to shake Jack by the shoulder, for his eyes were closing and his legs almost buckling beneath him.

As Sir Oswain staggered past like a sleepwalker, the queen opened her eyes to narrow slits and called after him, “You may take your little knife with you, Sir Os wart . You will certainly need it should you be so foolish as to try your strength against Amara or the dwarf lord.”

The servant walked silently, ignoring our questions as he led us through a maze of corridors to a chamber lined with shelves of ancient tomes and scrolls. A marble table stood in the centre, and on it, a large map was unrolled .

“Here is the dwelling of Amara,” said the servant, a tall faerie with a crop of silvery curls.

I studied the markings on the map. A jagged outline formed what appeared to be a small area of land, surrounded by rippling blue ink.

“That looks like a moated island,” said Sir Oswain, frowning.

“And what’s that thing in the water?” said Jack, rubbing his eyes as if to make sure he was seeing correctly.

“The draig, ” said the faerie.

“What’s a draig?”

“It is what you mortals might call a water behemoth,” said the faerie, his tone bored, as though speaking to ignorant mortals was a tedious duty.

“Never heard of a water behemoth,” Jack said, looking to Sir Oswain and me for confirmation.

“A foul reptilian,” said Sir Oswain. “A leviathan.”

“A monster,” I concluded. “And how shall we cross the water to the island?”

“You must go over the water, or under it. But I would not advise going through it,” said the faerie.

I was beginning to dislike faeries, with their cool indifference and unhelpful answers.

I exerted my rights once again, saying in a commanding tone, “You are charged to assist a Rose Daughter when she asks for it. Tell me how we shall reach the island, recover the princess, and get safely away again.”

The faerie looked as if I were a vexatious gnat buzzing in his ear, but he unrolled a second map and laid it over the first. This topmost one was semi-transparent, and it layered over the surface of the one beneath a map of a complex web of tunnels .

“Go under the water by way of the tunnels.” He tapped a point on the map. “Enter here.”

Sir Oswain traced the lines with his finger, following them towards the castle perched on the edge of the island.

“There’s no monsters on the island,” noted Jack with relief.

“How far is it?” I asked.

“Five by fifty leagues,” said the faerie.

“So far?” Sir Oswain looked dismayed.

“We’ve got to be home before the border closes,” said Jack.

The faerie did not trouble to conceal his scorn. “Her Highness’s mounts travel more than fifty leagues in an hourglass. But they will not travel underground. They are not dwarvish beasts.”

I concluded from his tone that he thought as little of dwarves as he did of mortals. “How much more than fifty leagues?” I asked.

But the faerie was rolling up the maps and returning them to their place. He ordered us to follow him to the stables.

“Wait!” I said, as he turned to leave us at the stable doors. “We need food and every useful item required for our venture.”

“I will get you supplies,” he said coldly.

“Wait!” I called again. “Do you know of one known as Beran? A bear who dwells in Faerie.”

“I know of no bear .”

There was no time to marvel at the wondrous stables, with their gleaming walls of white marble.

The queen’s mounts were taller than any mortal horses, but they looked slight and delicate, with their silvery bodies and feathered manes and tails, so much so that Sir Oswain hesitated to mount the one given to him.

“Is there no saddle?” he asked.

The stable master gave him such a look of disdain that Sir Oswain did not repeat the question. “I must surmise that fae mounts need no harness,” he said, approaching the mounting block.

“Never ridden a horse,” confessed Jack, looking nervously up at the proud eyes of his mount, who pawed the ground and snorted at him. “Let alone a fae horse.”

“ She has never carried a common mortal,” said the stable master coldly, soothing the creature with a few words in an unknown tongue.

Jack mounted awkwardly.

“Release her!” snapped the stable master as Jack gripped the creature’s feathery mane, and the faerie mount screeched in outrage and snapped at Jack’s dangling leg.

“Beg pardon!” cried Jack, nearly toppling from the creature’s back. “But what shall I hold on to?”

“You do not need to hold anything!” said the stable master sharply. “She will carry you . Press your legs against her gently. Place your hands on her shoulders if you must put them somewhere, and she will do the rest.”

Jack gulped and did as he was told.

I was eager to ride. I had never ridden anything other than our old Jenny, and faerie mounts were said to be as swift as the wind. My mount did not snort at me as I climbed onto her back. I made sure not to touch her mane or press too hard against her flanks.

“I think she likes me,” I said, pleased with the sensation of being so high off the ground .

“She respects your rose crown,” said the stable master. “She cares nothing for you.”

The servant returned with three small sacks of provisions. I slung mine across my shoulder, adjusting its strap. I had barely finished when the master gave a sharp command, and the mounts leapt forward.

Jack shrieked, Sir Oswain yelled, and I gasped as the world blurred into streaks of green and blue, as trees and sky rushed past and the ground disappeared beneath us and the wind roared in our ears.