The wicked queen was once a goodly girl, but goodly girls don't last in poison courts. In a court of gilded mirrors, gilded smiles, and gilded lies, she is an insignificant nothing. White-haired, gangly, and gawky, she stuffs her soft dreams behind an iron façade. But when her father arranges a foul betrothal for her in another city, she craves at least one tiny taste of freedom before her fate boxes her into nothingness. She takes her soft daring into the honeyed radiance of the carnival, where she seeks to unravel some secret. She sneaks behind one of the rides and finds… An open door. Inside a small room, on time-eroded planks, kneels a beautiful boy scarcely older than she, and as the wind brushes sand across her slippers, the boy glances up. Here, she takes her first step into freedom. But the unreadable, cryptic heir to the kingdom is always one step behind her. Look inside to discover how close he gets...