Aisling Úllmhara wanted the crown of the island's fairy host, and she had nothing to win it with. Once she kept an apple grove between worlds. Bite a fruit, cross a threshold, walk home. Then someone cut the grove down and burned it. Now she stood on a strange island, on the wrong side of everything, watching the host gather for their great Samhain revel. Win their crown, she thought, and she could command the folk who might grow her a new door. The host filled the deck of a dead ship. Its timbers were black with age. Its torn sails hung like old cobwebs, and pale carvings glowed along the hull. The fairy folk crowded the rails, drinking and laughing, waiting to name their queen. Aisling climbed the plank and spoke her claim. The laughter stopped. A horned lord stepped forward. He looked her up and down. "Where is your court?" he asked. "Where is your land, your hall, your people?" "Burned," Aisling said. "But I am Aos Sí still." "You are a stranger with empty hands." He turned to the crowd. "No court, no crown. She owns nothing on this island." The host jeered. Aisling's face went hot. On her old ground she had ruled a grove. Here she was less than a beggar. Then a voice cut through. "She's not alone." Aisling turned. A red-haired woman climbed the plank behind her, a gold cross swinging at her throat. Deirdre Ní Bhriain. They had met once on the road, two women running from what men had taken from them. Deirdre owed her nothing. Yet here she came. "And who are you?" the lord asked. "The bishop's woman," Deirdre said flatly. "That's what they call me. I say I stand with her." Behind Deirdre came a small figure in tattered white, hair drifting like smoke. Moira Wails climbed up, gripping the rail. Aisling knew her too, a banshee who scattered every crowd with her scream. "Hi," Moira said, waving. "Don't panic. I'm working on the whole scary thing." The lord smirked. "Two humans and a banshee. Is this your court?" "It is," Aisling said. "Prove it," he said. "Bind them. If they'll swear to you, the host will hear your claim." Aisling faced her two unlikely followers. "I have no land to give you. No hall. Nothing but a door I mean to build, if you'll help me stand." Deirdre met her eyes. "I want something back too. We help each other." She knelt. Moira dropped down beside her. "I've got nowhere better to be." Her voice wobbled, and one sail cracked down the middle. The lord's smirk fell. Two sworn followers stood where a stranger had stood alone. "Very well," he said, teeth tight. "You have a court now. Small. Ragged. But a court." He raised his voice. "She may compete for the crown." The host went quiet. Aisling had her seat at the revel. Now she had to outshine every rival on the deck.

Aisling had a court now, but nowhere to hold it. Each night her three followers met in the open field, near the graves of old ancestors. Rival courts had halls and ships. Aisling had wet grass. When she spoke of her plans, a broom-witch flew past and laughed. "The homeless queen holds court in the mud," she called. Deirdre said nothing, but her jaw went tight. Moira tried a joke and cracked a headstone instead. "We need a roof," Aisling said. "Somewhere they can't mock us." Deirdre pointed across the field. A crooked mansion leaned against the dark. Stained windows glowed. Its towers tilted like they might fall and never did. "That one stands empty half the year," Deirdre said. "So I've heard." "It's not empty," said a voice behind them. An old witch stood there in a long black coat. Every inch of it was stitched, patch on patch. Her white eyes fixed on Aisling. This was Grizzella Moonwick, a witch of three hundred years. Aisling had seen her earlier, turning over rocks, searching the ground like she'd lost something. "That's my house," Grizzella said. "Well. It was." "Was?" Aisling asked. "Someone stole my spell book. Without it I can't hold the wards. The house won't open for me now." She touched a stitch on her sleeve. "Twelve years I lived there. The door only knows my magic. My magic is gone." Aisling looked at the old witch's hands. They trembled. She looked at the crooked house. She saw a trade. "I know doors," Aisling said. "I kept one once, between worlds. A threshold answers to what belongs to it." She stepped closer. "Your book holds your magic. But so does that coat. Every stitch is a thing you owned. The house doesn't want the spell. It wants you." Grizzella stared. "You think a door can smell an old coat?" "I think a door remembers," Aisling said. "Let me try." They crossed the field together. At the crooked steps, Aisling took a loose thread from Grizzella's hem. She pressed it flat against the wooden door and set the witch's shaking hand on top of hers. "This belongs to her," Aisling said to the house. "She belongs to it." The door held still. Moira held her breath. Then a lock turned deep inside the wood, and the door swung wide. Warm light spilled onto the steps. Grizzella went in first. She touched the walls like she'd found something buried. "Twelve years," she said. "I thought it forgot me." "It didn't," Aisling said. The witch turned. "Stay. Hold your court here. A house wants people in it." She smiled, sharp and crooked as her towers. "But I'll need my book. You find doors. Find mine." Aisling stood in the warm hall, her court behind her. She had a roof at last. And a new debt owed to a witch whose stolen book was still out there, in the hands of a thief with no name.

The roof was won, but the court under it was thin. Three faces at a long table. Deirdre polished a dull crown they didn't have. Moira hummed cracks into the plates. Aisling knew the horned lord would weigh her court against the others at the revel, and three was not a number that impressed anyone. She needed followers, and she needed them fast. So she walked to the manor across the field, the one with crooked towers and windows lit in every color, where the loudest laughter on the island came from. Music hit her at the door. Inside, a green-skinned Frankenstein monster tapped a beat on the table with one hand. "Yeah, that's not me doing that," Frankie said, grinning at the hand. "Drummer's hand. Belonged to somebody else. Taps all night whether I like it or not." He didn't seem to mind. He seemed to think it was funny. A vampire in flower-print pants swept over, cape swirling. "A visitor! Groovy." Drac Groovula bowed low, all teeth and charm. Beside him a witch in yellow sunglasses studied Aisling like a puzzle. Melody Moonbeam pushed her glasses up her nose. "I'm Aisling Úllmhara," she said. "I hold a court. I'm claiming the crown at the revel. I came to ask you to join me. To swear to my court." The music kept playing. Nobody stopped dancing. Drac's smile stayed, but it changed. "Swear? Kneel to a queen?" He laughed, warm and loose. "That's not our scene, apple girl." "We don't do crowns," Melody said, not unkind. "We do parties. Nobody here bows to anybody." Frankie's hand drummed on. "No offense, yeah? You seem cool. But swearing's heavy. We keep it light." Aisling felt her face burn. She had come to gather an army and found a room that couldn't be gathered. "Then I've wasted your evening," she said, and turned for the door. "Hold on." Drac caught up in two strides. "You don't leave a party sad. That's a crime." He looked back at Melody, at Frankie, at the crowd. "We won't kneel. But the revel? A big Samhain blowout? We'll come. We'll play. Best band on the island, apple girl. You want a crowd that makes the horned lord's jaw drop, you don't need servants." He spread his arms. "You need us on your stage." Melody grinned. "Guests, not subjects." Aisling stopped. It was not what she came for. No sworn followers, no swelled numbers on paper. But a ragged court with the loudest, wildest band on the island behind it was a court that turned heads. "Guests," she said slowly. "You'll perform under my name." "Under your party," Drac said. "We don't do names." She shook his cold hand. She had failed to grow her court. She had won something stranger instead. Now she had a show to build, and a rival court would surely try to shut it down before the horned lord ever heard a note.

The band would play. That much was settled. But the roof over Aisling's court came with a price she still hadn't paid. Grizzella Moonwick wanted her spell book, stolen twelve years ago, and Aisling had no idea where it went. Without the book, Aisling lost the crooked mansion. Without the mansion, her court had no seat, and no seat meant no crown. So she climbed the stairs of the manor across the field, where she had left the party, to think somewhere quiet. Grizzella was waiting for her on the porch. The old witch sat on the top step in her long black coat. Every inch of it was stitched. She ran a thumb over one seam as Aisling approached. "You said you would find my book," Grizzella said. "You have found nothing. The revel is close. My house is not yours until you pay." Aisling stopped. "I don't know who took it. I don't know where to start." "Twelve years I have known," Grizzella said. She did not look up. "A puca took it. Shape-changer. Slippery thing. Lives in a manor full of music." She lifted one hand and pointed at the door behind Aisling. "This manor." Aisling turned. The music thumped through the wall. Somewhere inside, a green hand drummed a beat that wasn't its own. She thought of Luca Paguro, the quiet one at the edge of the party who kept changing seats, changing faces, laughing at jokes no one told. "Then we go in," Aisling said. "Now. Before the thief runs." Grizzella rose. Her knees cracked. "I go with you. It is my book." They found the puca in the back room, curled small as a black dog on a velvet chair, then large as a man, then small again. Luca grinned when they entered. "Apple girl. Old woman. Groovy." "You took her book," Aisling said. The grin held, but the shape stopped shifting. "Twelve years ago," Luca said. "A joke. I hid it. Forgot it, mostly." A shrug. "It's under the floor. Third board from the window." Grizzella crossed the room faster than a witch her age should. She pried the board loose with her fingers. Under it lay a thick book, its cover stitched in the same thread as her coat. She lifted it to her chest and shut her eyes. "Yours," Grizzella said to Aisling. "The house is yours until the revel ends." Relief hit Aisling like warm rain. Then Grizzella opened the book, and her face changed. Pages had been torn out. A ragged gap sat in the middle. "He kept some," Grizzella said. Her voice went cold. "The best spells. Threshold spells." Luca was already gone from the chair. The velvet still held his shape. Aisling had her seat. But the puca had run with the very magic that opened doors between worlds, the magic she needed to rebuild her grove.

The velvet chair still held Luca's shape, but Luca was gone. Grizzella clutched the torn book to her coat. Aisling knew what the missing pages meant. Threshold spells opened any locked door. In a rival court's hands, that magic could seal her out of the crooked mansion. Then her seat was lost, and the crown with it. She left the manor and ran across the field toward the sound of hooves. A black horse stood at the tree line, one front leg wrong. The leg was a man's arm, locked stiff in the wrong place. Luca's face slid from a woman's to a boy's and would not settle. A witch in black stood over him, a broom in her fist. Morgana Nightshade. Aisling had seen her mock the ragged court at the revel. Now Morgana pressed the broom handle against Luca's chest. "He took my flight stone," Morgana said. Flat. "Grey. Small. My broom is a stick without it." She pushed harder. "Where." "I don't have it," Luca said. No softening. "I steal what's fun. Your rock is not fun." Aisling looked at Luca's twisted arm. "Someone bound you," she said. "Halfway. You can't hold a shape." Luca's yellow eyes fixed on her. "Break it," he said. "I'll give the pages back." Grizzella arrived, breathing hard. She looked at the broken shape and shook her head. "A binding needs a fire spell. My best fire spell is on a page he tore out." Her voice was cold iron. "He cut the cure out of my own book." Aisling thought fast. Threshold magic linked a thing to a place. A binding linked a shape to a form. Both were about joining and splitting. She turned to Morgana. "Your flight stone splits you from the sky. His binding splits him from his shape. Same kind of knot." Morgana lowered the broom an inch. "Speak plainly." "Help me," Aisling said. "A witch's cauldron. Fire. Grizzella knows the old way, even without the page." She looked at Grizzella. "You kept every object you ever owned. You kept the method too." Grizzella's jaw worked. "I did." They dragged a soot-stained iron cauldron from the mansion porch. Morgana lit the fire under it. Grizzella spoke words she had not needed for twelve years. Aisling held Luca's twisted arm over the steam and named the shape it should be. The arm cracked. Bone shifted. The horse leg became a man's arm. Luca's face stopped sliding and held one settled face, pale and stunned. Luca reached into his coat and dropped the torn pages into Aisling's hands. Whole. Every threshold spell. "Fair trade," Luca said. He turned and walked off, one shape, steady. Aisling held the pages to her chest. Her seat was safe now. But Morgana stood watching, her stone still missing, her eyes on the cauldron and the book. She wanted something. And Aisling had just shown a rival exactly what her magic could do.

Aisling stood in the crooked mansion with the threshold pages safe in her coat. Tonight the revel would begin. The band was tuning up outside. A skeleton rock group cracked their knuckles and struck their first chords by the bonfire. Guests filled the field. But Aisling saw the horned lord watching from the dark tree line. He had called her court ragged. The music was borrowed. The house was borrowed. None of it was her own magic. If the lord saw only guests and no power of her own, he would crown a rival. She needed to show him something only she could do. Deirdre pulled her aside. "The other courts have wonders," she said. "A witch flies a burning broom. A kraken raises waves. You have apples." It was true. Apples were Aisling's only magic, and her grove was ash. She had nothing left to grow a door. Then she remembered the shell on Grizzella's shelf. Grizzella had said a cursed mermaid lived inside it, too big for the space, trapped for years. Aisling carried the shell out to the fire. She set it on a stump where every guest could see. Marina Shellborne looked out at the crowd through the shell's gap. "You want a show," Marina said. Flat. No thanks in it. "I want out of this shell. Make it worth my while." "I can move things between spaces," Aisling said. "A thing that fits nowhere. That is what I do." Marina did not smile. "Then do it," she said. "The shell smells of dead fish. The last witch made it worse." Aisling knelt by the fire. Threshold magic linked a thing to a place. But a thing could be linked to a between-place too, the space her grove had once held. Marina belonged to neither shell nor field. That made her an in-between thing, like Aisling's lost apples. Aisling spoke the old words from the recovered pages. She pressed her palm to the shell and named the open air as Marina's threshold. The shell cracked. Not with force. It simply parted, as a door parts. Marina rose out of it. Her tail unfolded and became legs, then folded back to a tail when she chose, shifting as she pleased in the firelight. She stood free for the first time in years, floating a hand above the grass, held by nothing. The field went quiet. The skeleton band stopped mid-note. The horned lord stepped forward from the trees. Even the rival witches stared. Marina looked down at her freed tail. "Good," she said. "Now I find the witch who cursed me." She turned to Aisling. "You kept your word. I owe you one." She did not soften it. The horned lord crossed the field. His hooves pressed the wet grass. He stopped before Aisling and looked at the broken shell, then at the freed mermaid drifting on air. "The others borrowed their wonders," he said. "Hired witches. Summoned tides. You opened a door no one else could open. That is your own craft." He studied her. "A court that frees the trapped is a court worth a crown." He lifted a circle of hawthorn and iron from his cloak. He set it on Aisling's brow. The weight was cold and real. Deirdre gasped. Moira let out a cry that was almost joy. The rival courts bowed their heads, stiff and unwilling. Aisling touched the crown. She had won. But she had not forgotten why she came. She spoke to the lord plainly. "I claimed this for one thing. My grove was cut and burned. I cannot cross home. The crown holds the power to grow a crossing back. I mean to use it." The horned lord inclined his horns. "A queen may command the roads between worlds," he said. "Yours is yours to rebuild." The band struck up again. Marina slipped toward the dark water to hunt her witch. Grizzella clapped her wrinkled hands. Aisling stood crowned at her own fire, her small court beside her. In the morning she would walk to the burned ground where her apple grove had stood. She would plant a seed and speak a threshold over it, and this time the door would open because she was its queen. The road home was hers to make.