Elverella's unicorn died at dawn, and that was how she finally got her meeting. The animal had carried her since childhood. It had golden flanks, pink wings, and a purple mane threaded with roses and crystals. Now it lay still beside the enchanted flower at the heart of the kingdom. Its coat had gone gray. Its roses had turned black. Elverella pressed her hand to its neck and felt the rot spreading underneath, soft as wet paper. She understood at once. Someone had touched the flower. The flower twisted living things, and if anyone misused it, every creature in Elderbloom would rot from the inside out. The unicorn was only the first. Elverella was the princess. Her crown of flowers and diamonds said so. But a crown was not an army, and the four rival houses each thought their own leader should rule instead. For months she had wanted them in one room to argue for unity. None of them would come. She had no reason they would accept. Now she did. She stood and smoothed her pink dress. Grief could wait. She walked back to the pink crystal castle, its towers glinting like cut jewels, and she sent her fastest riders out with a single message to each house. She did not beg. She wrote the truth plainly. The flower has been used. Your lands are already dying. Come, or lose everything. They came within two days. The four house leaders filed into the castle's great hall and would not sit near each other. One wore a coat stitched with candy-colored stones that rattled when he moved. He had mocked Elverella's claim at her father's funeral. He crossed his arms now and did not bow. "A dead horse," he said. "That is your emergency, little princess?" Elverella did not flinch. She placed a cluster of pink, blue, and purple stones on the table. Each one had dulled to the color of ash. She had pulled them from her own garden that morning. "These were bright yesterday," she said. "The gumdrop trees on your eastern border lost their leaves overnight. Check with your riders. You know I am not lying." The man in the stone-stitched coat went quiet. The others leaned forward. For the first time, nobody left the room. "Someone reached the flower before any of us did," Elverella said. "Alone, each of your houses rots. Together, we can find who did this and stop it. That is the only reason I called you here." The four leaders looked at the gray stones, then at each other. They did not agree to her rule. But they stayed, and they listened, and they began to talk. Elverella had the room at last. She also had a thief loose inside her kingdom, with a weapon that could kill everything she hoped to inherit. She did not yet know who it was.

The four leaders had agreed to hunt the culprit. They had not agreed to follow Elverella. She knew her next words in the crystal hall would decide everything. She wanted to name a plan, a way to guard the flower and rebuild trust under one hand. But she had no proof of who had touched the flower, or how. Without it, the leaders would call her plan a trick to steal power. She needed evidence before she spoke. She found it in the garden at dawn. Beside the dying flower lay a single black feather, tipped with blue. She knew those wings. Prince Raven Wing had flown in with the leaders, quiet and watchful, a prince from beyond her borders who owed her nothing. He had stood closest to the flower that first night. Elverella picked up the feather and walked back inside, her heels loud on the pink crystal floor. She did not accuse him. She went to the one person who could read the truth from a feather. The flower-witch waited in a side room, her dress grown from living vines, her green eyes glowing. Flora Thornweave pressed the feather between her hands. The vines around her wrists tightened. "Someone used this near the flower," Flora said. "But the magic in it is old. Years old. This feather was planted here last night." She opened her hands. "Prince Raven did not touch the flower. Someone wanted you to believe he did." Elverella's stomach dropped. A frame. The real thief sat among the leaders, close enough to drop a feather at her door. She carried the feather into the hall, where the four leaders and their guests had gathered. The vampire queen watched from one corner, yellow eyes bright. In another, a man with broken red wings and burning eyes stood too still. Elverella set the feather on the table. "This was left by the flower to blame an innocent man," she said. "Flora read the magic in it. The feather is years old. It was placed last night, after the prince arrived." She looked at the man with the red wings. "The thief is in this room. And he is clumsy." Char Ashborne smiled with his teeth. He did not deny it. He raised one hand, and a shard of red crystal grew from his palm. "Clever princess," he said. Then he ran. His broken wings beat hard, and he crashed through the tall crystal doors into the open air. The hall erupted. For the first time, the four leaders turned to Elverella and waited for her word. She had her proof. She had their eyes. But the thief was loose, armed, and now he knew she was hunting him. Worse, he had a reason to reach the flower again, and finish what he started, before she could.