Free The Sleeping Beauty by Mercedes Lackey

her Brownies. They were good at that sort of thing, and they enjoyed it. Perhaps it had something to do with being able to issue orders that the Big Folks had to obey!
    Thanks to Jimson keeping an eye on almost everyone through anything that reflected, she knew who was likely to give her trouble at any given audience. The murderous stare was the best weapon in her arsenal, and she used it freely today. By the time she dismissed them, there wasn’t a soul who would have dared to offer a petition, complaint or even a comment. The Lesser Audience Chamber was as silent as a tomb.
    “Is there any more business?” she asked. No one spoke up. “Very well. This session is concluded. May King Thurman be successful in preventing war, and if he cannot prevent it, may he be victorious. All hail King Thurman.”
    The courtiers and petitioners mumbled a response of “Hail King Thurman,” and quickly shuffled out.
    She breathed a sigh, and hurried back to her rooms. It was time to become Old Maggie, the Bee-Woman. This was perhaps the easiest disguise she had ever donned, other than the complicated illusion itself. She liked bees, and bees liked her. Best of all, perhaps, bees never caused her any problems.
    She stepped through the mirror in the Queen’s Chambers into the Hall of Mirrors, picked up the cloak and the basket with the potion bottle in it from where she had left them and stepped through a new mirror, a temporary one, that she had set up just for this purpose. She stepped out of an identical mirror incongruously leaning against a tree. How it got there, she had no idea; the Brownies had managed itfor her, as the Brownies managed so much for her. They had their own rules and their own magic—if she was able to give them a day or so to do their work, they could accomplish amazing things. If not, though—well, that was where the ingenuity of a Godmother had to come in.
    She shook out the cloak and pulled it on, feeling the persona of Maggie settle into place. The bees began to gather about her immediately. They told her with their dancing that the Dwarves were all gone and Rosa was alone.
    She sent the bees on ahead of her, made her way down a mostly overgrown path, and came around the corner of the building. Rosa’s face lit up to see her, and she felt a lovely warmth to see it. If they managed to get through this, she knew that she and Rosamund would have an especially close relationship, perhaps making up for the fact that she had held aloof for all of Rosa’s childhood.
    Rosa looked as if she was on tenterhooks, and well she might be. “I believe I have a solution,” Lily said gravely. “But first…you should know I have been deceiving you, though never with malice.”
    She whipped off the cloak. Rosa gaped at her, blinking. “Godmother Lily!” was all she could manage. She stared, as if she couldn’t believe it. “But—oh. Yes, of course. You’re trying to force the Traditional Snowskin Path, right?”
    “Exactly. Which is why I am also Queen Sable.”
    If the revelation that Old Maggie was really Godmother Lily had been a shock, this left Rosa reeling.
    “There were three women vying for the title of Evil Stepmother while your father was staying with Perrin,” she continued, as she watched Rosa try to absorb this revelation and process it. “Three genuinely Evil Sorceresses. No matter how much Thurman was protected, it was clear that sooner or later someone was going to take him down that path. So I became just what The Tradition wanted.”
    “You married my father?” Rosa said incredulously.
    “In name only.” She smiled wryly. “Is all this making sense to you?”
    Rosa suddenly sat on a stump. “I—think so,” she replied after a moment. “This is all very sudden.”
    Lily spread her hands wide. “We were swiftly running out of time to act. This was a joint decision.”
    “It would have to be.” Rosa looked dazed. “Is Father all right? Is there a war? Is—”
    “Your father is as