We were at my cousin’s for a week, and for every hour of that time, I thought about my cousin’s words.

And it wasn’t the idea of getting revenge that troubled me.

It was the struggle of knowing whether or not my cousin had put that into my head with good intentions, of bad ones.

I truly wanted to think he was a good man, just incredibly foolish, but...yet…

He made it very hard for me sometimes.

But my main focus was on trying to encourage Mildred and Alan to court, and I was successful in those endeavors. I wasn’t entirely sure if my cousin’s wife caught on to what I was doing, but mostly she avoided me and stuck to socializing, and so I was left to my matchmaking mischief.

And if my cousin had planted seed into my mind, I think I was successful in planting one into Alan’s.

He caught me alone on the last day and asked if he could send letters to me to pass on to Mildred, which I agreed to, knowing his mother didn’t bother reading our letters anymore after she realized we were just talking about books, the weather, and the latest essays published.

I did worry about Mildred though.

I don’t think she quite understood what kind of woman Alan’s mother was.

As we were just leaving my old home, Mildred gushed about how much she enjoyed her time with Alan without having a single unkind word for Alan’s mother, who she told me she thought was intelligent and beautiful.

So I hoped, perhaps, Alan would be able to summon the strength to deal with his mother when the time came, because I truly did think Mildred was a good bride for him – she would be for anyone, really, but I felt a selfish desire to marry her off to Alan knowing that one day Alan would inherit my mother’s home and, hopefully, Mildred might reinstate the gardens.

Or at least sell the hideous fountain over my mother’s grave so she could have a proper headstone.

While the carriage was being loaded up for our departure at the end of the week, I finally made the walk out to my mother’s fountain to say goodbye.

And I was sure then that a fairy had in fact paid a visit.

The fountain my mother’s half brother had sent had been of a maiden sitting on a bench sobbing into her hands, her tears pouring down a distraught face as she stared down at where my mother was buried underneath the massive base.

But when I looked, I saw the maiden was no longer sobbing.

Instead, her stone face was impassive, her fingers somewhat cover her stern lips as an unreadable gaze looking out toward the manor.

The water no longer poured from her eyes, and instead came out of her hands.

Only a fairy could do that.

Though I didn’t understand why.

Why now?

Why come after all this time?

Alan nor either of his parents had a fairy godparent, so it could only be my mother’s finally making an appearance, which I didn’t understand.

She hadn’t bothered when my mother was constantly wilting. She didn’t bother when my mother was passed on by the father of her child because she no longer had status. She didn’t bother when my mother died, so why come by now after all this time?

It made me unreasonable angry, but being angry at the fairies was foolish at best, so I just channeled that into being angry at our prince for what he had done to Anna.

If she was not significantly recovered by the time I returned, I was going to pay the prince a visit.

“Would you mind terribly if I read on the way home?”

I smiled to where Mildred was sitting next to me, bundled up in a blanket Alan had given her for the ride home. “Only if you didn’t read aloud so I might enjoy as well.”

She perked up – if there was one thing Mildred loved doing most, it was reading to others, which she had spent doing for Alan endlessly this week and was why I had brought her along. Alan was often confined to bed for his health, and I knew Mildred would be a great companion for that. “Well then! Which one shall we start with – would you rather hear a tale of tragic romance, or of great revenge?”

I leaned back, lacing my fingers in my lap as I closed my eyes. “Revenge, if you please.”