Queen Clarissa read the list of names for the fourth time and crossed out the last one. Her doctors had given her two years, perhaps three. Genovia needed an heir before her reign ended, and the list held every noble cousin, duke, and distant relation with a claim. She had met them all. Not one of them loved this country more than they loved its crown. She set down her pen and let the fire pop in the grate. "Every name a wolf," she said to the small white dog curled on her lap. The dog lifted its head, blinked, and settled again. Clarissa scratched behind its ears. If she chose wrong, the greedy ones would gut the treasury and tax the farmers bare. If she chose no one, they would fight over the throne the moment she died. Both roads ended in ruin for the people she had spent forty years protecting. A knock came. Her steward entered with a thin folder and a strange look. "Your Majesty. You asked me to trace the child. The daughter your son had before he died." Clarissa went still. "I asked you that eleven years ago. You told me the trail was cold." "It was." He set the folder down. "A letter arrived today. From a widow across the sea. She raised the girl as her own and never told her." Clarissa opened the folder with careful hands. Inside lay a single photograph. A teenage girl stood beside a garden fence, long brown hair pushed off her face, mud on her boots. She wore a worn leather vest and a crooked grin. She looked nothing like a princess. She looked strong. "Her name is Mia," the steward said. "She has no idea she is royal. She thinks her grandmother is a stranger." Clarissa touched the photograph. Green eyes. Her son's eyes, exactly. Something turned over in her chest, sharp and warm at once. Here was the one person on earth who shared her blood and wanted nothing from the crown, because the girl did not know the crown existed. "She is my granddaughter," Clarissa said softly. The dog jumped down and pawed at her skirt. She barely noticed. For the first time in months, the list of wolves did not matter. "Prepare a carriage," she said. "And a room. The east one, with the window over the pear trees." The steward hesitated. "Your Majesty, she is not raised for this. She may refuse. She may hate what we ask of her." "Then I will teach her," Clarissa said. She closed the folder and pressed it to her chest. "I have a granddaughter, and Genovia has an heir. All I must do now is convince a girl who has never heard my name to become a queen." She rang the bell before her courage could fail.

The carriage brought Mia to the palace three days later. Clarissa watched from the tall window as the girl climbed the steps in muddy boots and a worn leather vest. Green eyes. Her son's eyes. But joy could wait. The council had already sent word. Before Mia could inherit anything, the court demanded proof she was truly the late prince's daughter. Without it, they would name her a fraud and cast her out. Clarissa met her granddaughter in the east room, the one with the window over the pear trees. Mia stood stiff by the door, arms crossed. "They tell me I'm a princess," she said. "I think they've got the wrong girl." "Sit," Clarissa said gently. "Please." The small white dog trotted to Mia and sniffed her boot. Mia's hard face softened. She knelt and scratched the dog's ears, and for a moment she looked like the child in the photograph. The steward entered with the council's demand on paper. "They want blood proof or documents," he said. "The widow left no marriage record. Your son named no child. We have nothing they will accept." Clarissa's chest tightened. She had two years, perhaps less. If the court rejected Mia now, the wolves would take the throne. She looked at the girl by the dog and made herself think, not feel. "The widow," Clarissa said. "She wrote me a letter. Did she send anything with the girl?" Mia looked up. "Just this." She pulled a small cloth bundle from her vest. Inside lay a ring, worn thin, set with a green stone. "She said my mother gave it to her. Told me never to sell it." Clarissa took the ring with shaking hands. She knew it at once. Her son had worn its match. She had given him the pair on his sixteenth birthday, made by the palace jeweler, marked inside with the royal crest and a private number only the crown kept in its records. She turned the ring to the light. The tiny stamp was there. "This is proof," she said. "The jeweler's ledger records every crest ring and who received it. This one was my son's. He gave it to your mother. No one can forge that." The steward took the ring and studied the mark. His shoulders dropped in relief. "The court cannot deny the ledger, Your Majesty. This will hold." Clarissa closed Mia's fingers around the ring. "You are my granddaughter. Now the whole court must admit it." Mia frowned. "So I can't just go home." "No," Clarissa said softly. "You cannot." That evening the steward returned, pale. "The court accepts the proof. But word has spread. The nobles you rejected know their claims are dead. Three of them have already left the capital." He set down a sealed note. "This came an hour ago. A threat. They will not give up the throne without a fight."