Malefica climbed the black stair to her chambers at the hour she always climbed it. The palace above her was a spire of iron and red glass, built by her father's hand before he sent her up out of the pit to rule the living. She had ruled them for eleven years. She had asked the same question every morning for eleven years. She shut the door behind her. She did not look at the long window or at her own hands. She trusted neither. Her father had told her once that the eyes of Lucifer's daughter would always flatter the daughter. So she went to the wall where the mirror hung, and she pulled the cloth down. The glass was framed in pale metal and carved wings. A dead centaur had made it. She did not know why. She had asked the mirror that question at twelve and covered it for three years after the answer. She did not ask it anymore. She asked only one thing now. "Mirror," she said. "Who is the fairest in the kingdom." The glass showed her face first. Then it wiped her face away and showed a girl in a kitchen, sleeves rolled, cutting bread. Black hair. A red mouth. Skin the color of the bread's inside. Malefica knew the kitchen. Malefica knew the girl. Her husband's daughter. Her own stepdaughter. Snow. "Snow White is the fairest," the mirror said. It said it the way it said everything. Flat. Without pity. True. Malefica did not move for a long time. She had fed that child figs. She had braided that child's hair once, badly, when the girl was seven. The mirror did not lie and her hands were not shaking because she wanted them to shake. They were shaking because it was true. She covered the glass. She sat down on the stone floor in her own gown and thought about the kitchen and the bread knife and how easy a kitchen was to enter. A knock came at the outer door. Not a servant's knock. Three, even, patient. She opened it herself. The huntress stood in the corridor with a basket over one arm. Red cloak, wolf-stitched at the hem. Silver showing at the edge of her small mouth. Malefica had never sent for her. Someone in the lower court kept her name on a list for queens who needed quiet work done. "You called," the huntress said. "Not out loud. I hear the other kind." Malefica studied the girl's face. It was a child's face. The shadow behind her on the wall was not a child's shadow. It had too many legs. "I have a stepdaughter," Malefica said. "I know her name," the huntress said. "Snow. I know where she sleeps. I know what she fears. Tell me what you want done and I will price it." Malefica closed the door behind her guest.

Malefica stood with her back to the closed door. The huntress waited in the middle of the chamber, basket still on her arm. The shadow on the wall behind the girl shifted its legs, patient. Malefica did not look at it. She looked at the girl's mouth, at the silver in it. "I need to know you will do it," Malefica said. "Not sell the work to her father. Not lose your nerve at the door of her room. Kill her." The huntress set the basket on the table. Inside lay a hunk of raw meat, an apple, and a small bone. "I have never lost my nerve," she said. "But you cannot know that from where you stand. You are asking a stranger to cut a child." "Yes." "Then price it," the huntress said. "You said price. I am saying name what you will give." Malefica walked to the wall and pulled the cloth from the mirror. She did not ask it about Snow. She asked something she had never asked out loud. "Show me if this huntress will keep her word." The glass held her own face. It did not wipe her face away. It did not show the girl. It showed nothing but Malefica, waiting. She understood then. The mirror answered about the fairest. The mirror answered about the dead centaur, once. It did not answer about what a living stranger would choose tomorrow. No glass could. She had trusted the mirror for eleven years because it took the choosing out of her hands. Now the choosing was back. She covered the glass. "I cannot verify you," Malefica said. She turned. "So I will pay you in a way that makes verification pointless. Name anything within my power. Land. Gold. A name struck from a ledger. A person delivered to your door. If you bring me proof she is dead, it is yours." The huntress tilted her head. "Anything." "Within my power." "I do not want land," the huntress said. "I do not want gold. I have a debt owed to me by a daughter of Hades. Her name is Meadow. She has to answer when I call. I want a place she cannot refuse to come to. I want your chamber, for one night, after the work is done. You will open the door for me. You will leave. That is my price." Malefica did not ask why. She had asked the mirror one true question tonight and it had refused her. She would not waste more questions on the living. "Done," she said. The huntress lifted the apple from the basket. "Then I go tonight." She walked past Malefica and out the door. Malefica stood alone with the covered glass. She had bought the girl's death. She had also sold her own chamber, and she did not know to what.