The tracking enchantment on Goldie's magic mirror pulsed steadily, a tiny red dot indicating her ship's location. She'd nded the magic carpet in a clearing about a hundred yards from the mansion, rolling the expensive Arabian carpet into a compact tube before tucking it into her dimensional bag. The bag itself was another Narnia product—they had the monopoly on dimensional technology in the world, sold it to everyone, and no one had managed to replicate it yet. Worth every coin her father had paid.

  She slung the bag over her shoulder and started toward the mansion.

  The Ashmore Estate looked even worse up close than the stories suggested. Over a hundred years of abandonment had reduced it to a skeleton of what it must have been—stone walls crumbling, wooden shutters hanging by single hinges, holes in the roof where tiles had fallen away. Everyone knew the story. The heiress had been found at the bottom of the grand staircase, neck broken, her white dress pooled around her like spilled milk. They said her ghost still walked the halls, crying, searching for something she'd never find. Most people were too terrified to come near the pce.

  Goldie wasn't most people.

  She was *furious*.

  Little John had stolen her ship. *Her* ship. The custom-built, aurora-gss-paneled, three-deck airship that her father had commissioned for her eighteenth birthday. And he'd had the audacity to—to *flirt* with her at the Rusty Nail, to take her to bed, to make her think he was interested, to get her number, and then just—

  Her hands clenched into fists.

  No man had ever treated her like this. *Ever*. Men fell over themselves for her attention. They brought her flowers, wrote her poetry, competed for a single smile. And Little John had just... used her. Taken what he wanted—her ship, her dignity—and disappeared.

  Well, she'd found him now.

  The mansion loomed ahead, dark and silent except for the wind whistling through broken windows. The front door hung crooked on its hinges.

  She was going to march right in there and demand—

  Something hard pressed into her back.

  Goldie froze, her breath catching.

  "Well, well," a voice said behind her, warm with amusement. "What do we have here?"

  Her heart hammered against her ribs. She tried to turn her head, but the pressure increased.

  "I'd stay still if I were you, ss," the voice continued. It was male, deep, with a slight rasp to it. "Now, who might you be, sneaking around our little hideout?"

  "I'm not *sneaking*," Goldie said, her voice coming out sharper than she'd intended. The fear was there, cold in her stomach, but anger burned hotter. "Someone stole my property, and I'm here to get it back."

  A low chuckle rumbled behind her. "Stole your property, did they? Well, you know how it works in our world, ss. If you're not strong enough to keep it, then it wasn't really yours in the first pce, now was it?"

  Goldie's jaw tightened. "That's *ridiculous*—"

  "Also," the voice interrupted, sounding even more amused, "you still haven't answered my question. Who are you?"

  "My name is Goldie. Goldie Locs."

  A pause. Then: "*The* Goldilocks? The hoity-toity Locs family?"

  Heat flushed through her face. "We are *not* hoity-toity—"

  "Oh, this is *brilliant*." The man sounded genuinely delighted. "Come on then, Princess. Let's get you inside. I'm sure the ds will want to meet you."

  The pressure on her back increased, guiding her forward toward the mansion's entrance. Goldie wanted to spin around, to sp whoever this was, to *run*—but her feet kept moving. Something in his tone, in the casual confidence of it, told her that resisting would be a very bad idea.

  The door creaked as they pushed through.

  Inside, the mansion was worse than outside. Decay had cimed everything—exposed beams overhead, gaps in the floorboards, the smell of rot and mildew thick in the air. A grand staircase still stood in the entrance hall—*that* staircase, where the heiress had died—its banister broken in pces, steps sagging.

  But the ruin wasn't empty.

  Oil mps had been set up in what must have once been a sitting room, their warm light pushing back the shadows. Mismatched furniture—chairs, a table, crates turned into makeshift seats—had been arranged in a rough circle. Several men lounged around, some pying cards, others cleaning weapons or just talking in low voices. They all wore green, she noticed. Different shades, different styles, but green.

  One of them looked up as she entered. He looked like one of the Wolf people. Fur covered his arms and face, and when he grinned at her, she saw fangs.

  Goldie's steps faltered.

  "Keep moving, ss," the voice behind her said, still cheerful.

  Her eyes scanned the room, her mind trying to process what she was seeing. These weren't just thieves. These were—were—

  And then she saw him.

  Little John.

  He stood near a colpsed section of wall that now served as a window, talking to a woman in a red hooded cloak. The woman was focused on her magic mirror, her fingers moving rapidly across its glowing surface as she typed. She gnced up briefly as Goldie was pushed into the room, her expression cool and unreadable, then went back to her message.

  Little John turned.

  Their eyes met.

  For a moment, Goldie saw something flicker across his face—surprise, maybe, or recognition. Then it smoothed into that same casual indifference he'd worn when he'd walked away from her at the hangar.

  "Well," he said slowly. "Look who it is."

  The anger that had been simmering in Goldie's chest roared into an inferno.

  "*Me*," she said, her voice shaking. She took a step forward, the thing at her back—quarterstaff, her mind supplied betedly—still pressing between her shoulder bdes. "*Me*, whose ship you *stole*—"

  "Silver-mane, right?" Little John said, his tone mildly curious, like he was trying to remember where he'd left his keys.

  Something inside Goldie *snapped*.

  "It's *GOLDILOCKS*!" she shouted, her voice echoing through the ruined mansion, bouncing off broken stone and rotted wood. "My name is *Goldilocks*, you—you *asshole*!"

  Silence crashed over the room.

  The card game had stopped mid-deal. The wolf-man was grinning, showing far too many teeth. The woman in red had lowered her magic mirror, one eyebrow arched as she watched. Every pair of eyes in the room had turned to stare at Goldie.

  And then, from somewhere to her left, someone started ughing.

  Goldie's head whipped around.

  A man sat in a chair near what had once been a firepce, his boots propped up on an overturned crate, a pipe dangling from his fingers. He wore green like the others, his hair dark, his grin sharp and knowing.

  She recognized him.

  The man from the vilge. The one who'd been talking to Little John outside the Rusty Nail that morning after—

  Her stomach dropped.

  He'd *known*. He'd known what Little John was doing.

  The man swung his feet down and stood, still chuckling as he walked toward her. "Goldilocks," he said, tasting the name. "Well, well. Little John said you had an interesting ship." His eyes glittered with amusement. "Didn't mention you'd be stupid enough to track us down."

  "Give it back," Goldie said, and hated how her voice wavered. "That ship is *mine*. My father—"

  "Your father isn't here," the man said simply. He stopped a few feet away, looking her up and down like she was a particurly entertaining curiosity. "And you walked right into a nest of thieves all by yourself." He shook his head, the grin widening. "What exactly were you pnning to do, little rich girl? Storm in and demand we hand it over?"

  Goldie's chin lifted. "Yes."

  More ughter rippled through the room.

  "Oh," the man said, his eyes dancing. "Oh, this is going to be fun."