The world around me was wrong.

The dirt roads were gone, replaced by strange black stone stretching endlessly in both directions. There were no market stalls, no castle walls, no torches flickering against the night. The air smelled foreign—thick with something unnatural, sharp like metal and oil, mixed with the faint scent of something sweet.

I turned in place, heart hammering. The buildings loomed high, impossibly tall, made of glass and smooth stone, their windows glowing like captured starlight. Strange signs flickered, their symbols unfamiliar, and towering poles lined the street, each bearing a single glass lantern that burned without flame.

Magic. It had to be magic.

A deafening roar made me spin just in time to see a monstrous metal carriage speeding down the road, no horses in sight. I stumbled back, my skirts tangling at my feet as it passed, vanishing into the distance.

Where was I?

I tried to think, to make sense of it, but my mind was a whirlwind. Had I been cursed? Stolen away by some unseen force? My last memory was of the castle halls, the familiar scent of lavender and old parchment in the air. Had I touched something enchanted? Fallen into some kind of sorcery beyond my understanding?

Panic crept in, but I swallowed it down. I was a princess. I could not afford to lose myself.

And then I saw him.

A boy stood a short distance away, watching me with mild curiosity. He was dressed in strange clothing—dark, loose trousers made of a material I didn’t recognize, paired with a simple shirt and an even looser jacket. His boots were unlike any I’d ever seen, thin and oddly shaped, nothing like the sturdy leather riding boots of noblemen.

He did not seem alarmed. Not by me, not by the unnatural world around us.

That meant he belonged here.

I took a breath, squared my shoulders, and stepped forward. “You, boy,” I said, lifting my chin. “Tell me what kingdom this is.”