Something wings out of the trees, swoops over the cart, and lands on a branch just off the side of the road. It’s the biggest crow I’ve ever seen. Its midnight-black wings stretch nearly as wide as I am tall. Its beady black eyes shine in the dark. I cringe. “I don’t even want to know what other kinds of creatures are in these woods.”

“Me either,” Constance says. “Unfortunately for us, our destination is at least another four days’ travel into the heart of the forest.”

That is not what I want to hear. “Four days? We can travel that far in and not come out the other side?”

“It seems impossible, I know. But that is where the heart of the forest lies. The last place the fairy godmother was thought to be. If that’s where she went, she picked a perfect spot. No one in their right mind would have bothered her in there. Except the very desperate.”

“And now we’re headed out there,” I say. “So what does that make us?”

“I’d say we’re plenty desperate.”

A chill moves through me as a gust of wind splits the air. The trees along the trail shudder, sending a shower of leaves down onto the ground, red and gold and brown, the familiar hues of autumn blanketing the forest floor. But just ahead, the tree trunks turn black, and their branches are devoid of leaves. Constance takes a short, quick breath as we roll past the demarcation in the trees.

“I lost my temper back there in the alley. I’m sorry.” She’s trying to distract herself from whatever feeling had come over her.

“You don’t have to apologize,” I say. “Did your mother teach you how to use a knife as well?”

She nods. “She wanted me to be prepared for anything. I can teach you if you’d like.”

I’ve always wanted to know how to use a sword, a dagger, anything that might help me protect myself. My mother might have actually fainted if I was both in love with a girl and thinking of learning to use a sword. “So you’ll teach me after we survive this little jaunt through the most terrifying place in the land? Seems like I might need to learn sooner than later.”

A hoot comes from the trees, and Constance’s eyes grow wide. “You’re probably right. But you’ve been inside the palace. This place can’t be as bad as that.”

She has a point.

A rustle along the path almost makes me jump out of my skin. I peer into the darkness ahead of us. “When we need to go back, how will we get into Lille?” I ask, trying to keep my mind occupied. “I don’t suppose you have another bomb lying around.”

“I do, as a matter of fact.” Constance grins mischievously. “But I don’t think it’s wise to set off an explosion every time we cross the border. We’ll stay hidden, but next time, it’ll be in plain sight.”

Constance reaches back into the bed of the cart and rummages through her burlap sack, pulling out a small envelope. She hands it to me.

“Is this what I think it is?” I’ve never held, or even seen, an official pass from the king. A part of me thought they were just a myth, something parents tell their children to give them hope that there is something beyond Mersailles’s borders, far from the king’s oppressive rule. Constance takes the reins as I turn the letter over in my hand like it’s made of glass. The envelope is similar to the one my invitation to the ball had come in. I open it and remove the folded piece of paper. The words are written in the same billowy black script, and they list two names: Martin and Thomas Kennowith. Details of their approved course follow. They left Lille to pick up a new cart and will return at a later, unspecified date. At the bottom, a sentence in very small print reads, “Failure to adhere to the parameters of this pass will result in imprisonment and a fine.” Two boxes are next to it, the red wax stamp of the royal crest in one and nothing in the other.

“We can use this to get back in. Save our bombs for another time,” says Constance.

“Where did you get this?”

“I stole it,” Constance says rather flippantly.

“You’ve got everything covered,” I say.

“Well, not everything,” she says. “I haven’t figured out how to make you look at me the way you did when I was standing by the fire back at the house. I don’t know that anyone has ever looked at me that way.” She bites her bottom lip as if she’s said too much.

My heart speeds up. I guess I’ve been more obvious than I thought. I avoid her gaze. “I doubt that no one has ever looked at you that way. You must know how other people view you.”

“I don’t care how I seem to other people,” she says, leaning in very close to me. “But I would very much like to know how you see me.”

She is direct. I don’t feel like I’ll be risking anything by being honest. The warmth of her body so close to mine makes me forget where we are, what we’ve witnessed. “You’re smart. Funny. You knocked out a man with one blow—”

“A shining example of who I truly am,” she says in a half-serious tone.

“I think you’re the most interesting person I’ve ever met.”

“Interesting?” She sits back, a little smirk drawn across her lips. “Care to elaborate?”

Now it feels like a game. A little push and pull between us. “I feel like you looked at Lille’s decrees and decided to do the exact opposite.”

“That’s not quite true, but not so far off. What about you? Is that what you did?”

I shake my head, taking back the reins. “No. I tried to go along with what everyone wanted. I guess I just wasn’t very good at following the rules.”

“Looks like we’re the same in that way,” Constance says. “Maybe in a few other ways, too.” I almost steer the horse right into the ditch.

As we head deeper into the woods, it is as if we have entered a windowless room. The trees become so tightly packed that the only way through is to stick to a path that barely accommodates the width of our cart. The wheels ride up onto the embankment, and we almost tip over several times, causing us to have to back up and realign with the road. My teeth chatter together, and I stare straight ahead, fearing that if I look to either side, I might see some nightmarish creature. Constance hands me a lamp and a small box of matches. The light illuminates only the area of the cart where we are sitting and does nothing to penetrate the curtain of blackness in front of the horse.

“At least if something attacks us, we won’t see it coming,” Constance says.

I turn to stare at her, but she only shrugs.

We clip along at a steady pace for hours until the growls—not from a bloodthirsty creature in the dark, but from our own stomachs—force us to stop. We make camp the first night right in the middle of the pathway. Constance is certain no one will be coming this way, and I refuse to go into the woods. She builds a small fire while I make a terrible gruel in the small cast-iron pot we’ve brought with us. Constance manages to ladle spoonfuls of it into her mouth without gagging. She smirks up at me.

“We’re camping on a road in the middle of the White Wood. The very least of my worries are your cooking skills.”

As we sit by the fire, I think of Constance and her family, living on the fringes of society, just out of the king’s grasp, and how they’ve preserved the truth, hoping they’d have the chance to help the people of Mersailles. I can’t keep myself from wondering if I even deserve to be here with her.