Lord Licorice held the crown over his workbench and turned it once in the lamplight. The red and black ropes glittered. He had braided it himself, twist by twist, through long nights in a castle nobody visited. Soon he would set it on his own head and call himself king of all Candyland. The true king was already sealed away where no one would think to look, and Lord Licorice meant to keep it that way until the word king meant only him. A wet flap pulled his eyes up to the rafters. One of his chocolate bats dropped down and clung to the edge of the bench, syrup beading on its wings. It bared small teeth and chittered. He had taught the bats to watch the road for him. They never came down for nothing. "Show me," he said. The bat tipped its head toward the high slit window. Lord Licorice climbed the spiral steps and looked out over the dark candy fields below. Two small figures walked the path toward his gate. Blue hair. Red shirts. A boy and a girl, twins by the look of them, each holding a lollipop. Outsiders. Children, but the wrong children. He had heard whispers that the land itself had called for help, and here was the answer, knee-high and licking candy. If they reached his door, they would see the braided ropes around the hidden castle. They would see the crown on his bench. They would see everything. He could not kill children. Not yet. Not before the crowning, when half the kingdom still believed he was nobody. But he could send them the long way around. He could send them down. Lord Licorice went to the cellar and pulled the lever he had built for a moment like this. Outside, between the twins and his gate, the ground split open with a soft sugary crack. A long purple chute rose up out of the dirt, glossy as a wet plum, curling in slow lazy bends away from the castle. A painted sign popped up beside it. He watched from the window as the boy stopped short at the edge. "Slide," Pip said. "Wasn't there a second ago," Julie said. She leaned over the lip. "Goes down a long way." "Path's gone." "Guess we slide." They climbed in. The chute swallowed them in one smooth gulp and carried them off, small and laughing, away from the castle and back toward the low candy country. Lord Licorice watched until the last flash of red sneaker disappeared into the curve. The bat landed on his shoulder. He scratched its sticky head and went back to his bench. The crown waited. He had bought himself a day, maybe two, and he meant to spend it finishing what no one had ever caught him doing.