The problem gnaws at my mind for the next few days, but I can't come up with a solution. To be honest, I can't even formulate a proper summation of the problem - all I really have is this strange, unreasoning fear and a host of possibly-unrelated incidents. It's not enough, not nearly enough.

Ben doesn't seem too concerned, though. He spends the time enjoying the hospitality of the Sidhe, dancing with the courtiers at night and wandering the gardens during the day. Well, I say day and night - truly, the sky darkens and lightens at the whim of Lord Oberon, but the cycles are reasonable facsimiles. The fae tend to hold their most elegant parties during the dusky night, while the days are given over to more private pursuits. Sometimes, the day or night can last for far longer than a mortal would expect, but it appears as though Oberon is catering to his mortal visitors, for the cycles are relatively consistent. Certainly Ben notices nothing out of the ordinary.

The princess is having a grand old time, as well. We don't see her much, so I check in a few times a day via reflections. When she's not being pampered by the servants, she's flirting with courtiers or playing with the tame animals in the false woodlands around the castle. She's absolutely enchanted, and I suspect she'll try to stay as long as possible. Though I personally don't have a problem with it, I wonder if her continued presence Underhill is yet another thing out of place. Her story is not supposed to involve the fae, after all; is her presence here distorting the timeline of her world?

Yet another question I can't answer.

At times, it feels like I'm trapped in a hedge of thorns, walled in by the unanswerable questions all around me. Am I supposed to be doing something about all of this? Stories are subtly changing left and right; the fabric of spacetime feels ever-so-slightly stretched. I didn't notice it at first, but the space between the worlds is growing thinner, as though it's an elastic sheet being gradually pulled outwards. Yet no one else, not even the most powerful mages, says anything about it? Am I the only one who can tell that something isn't right?

No. The farseers, at least, can detect the anomalies as well. Though they haven't summoned us back, and I haven't seen them talk to the princess, I've felt the distant stare of their seeing-crystal several times in the past few days. They're planning something, I think; I just don't know what.

For lack of anything better to do, I leave a fragment of attention with the huntsman and begin to systematically check in with the other worlds I can access. I've been in contact with them the whole time, of course, but focusing the bulk of my attention on a single world is the best way to quickly gather information from it.

Most are functioning normally. Political backbiting, intrigue, and gossip abound, of course, but all within normal parameters. This prince is seeking a princess locked in a tower; that princess brought a frog home to dinner. That sort of thing. Their kingdoms, too, are operating smoothly - the farmers are harvesting or planting, the merchants are journeying, and the soldiers are drilling like always. Everyone, from the young snow girl in a frozen kingdom in the far north to the sly thief in a sunbaked southern desert, is behaving as expected.

But then there are a few worlds where things are subtly off-kilter. I deliberately avoid the darkened world where the young princess died - I have no desire to witness the bloodshed that's surely occurring there. Maybe that makes me a coward, but I prefer to call it prudence. But there are other worlds that bear the same sort of taint as that one, albeit much more faintly - worlds where the colors are ever-so-slightly dimmer and the people ever-so-slightly crueler.

One world in particular stands out. It's a harsh world - heroes abound, but the challenges they face are cruel, and many fail. I've seen more heroes fall in tragic deaths than succeed and return home in triumph; even the triumphant returns are often marred by tragedy in some way. But now, I shiver to see the way the world is growing even harsher.

In a maze buried deep beneath a palace on a small island, a bull-headed monster stalks, fed each year by a tribute of seven boys and seven girls chosen from the lands under the king's command. Things have been like this for years, but no one has done anything, for the maze shifts around on itself, making it impossible to traverse in any sort of order. A few brave souls have ventured into it, but none have succeeded in finding the monster before hunger and thirst weaken them too severely. Eventually, the townsfolk decided that discretion was the better part of valor, and stopped sending for warriors - the king doesn't choose his victims from among their children, after all, but from the children of conquered city-states, so they have little to lose.

The shortsightedness of mortals never fails to astound me.

But this is normal. Eventually, a young man will come along and charm the daughter of the man who built the maze, and she will give him its secrets so he can find and kill the monster. The subjugated city-states will celebrate, the townsfolk will breathe a sigh of relief, and everyone will be happy.

Or, at least, that's what's supposed to happen. Though I don't have the farseers' gifts for reading the most probable futures, I do have hundreds of data points from nearly-identical situations, and the vast majority of them take that path. So it's reasonable to expect the same thing here.

But this king is doing things differently. In the past, he's behaved according to my expectations, but this year, he announced that there would be a lottery among the townsfolk of his own kingdom, and the loser would go to feed the beast. This provoked outrage, of course, but no one protested too loudly, in case the king took offense and selected their children as tributes.

Now, it's time for the drawing. The king brings a large cauldron out to the courtyard of the palace, full of scraps of parchment inscribed with the names of every child between the ages of twelve and seventeen in his island kingdom. Anxious parents line the walls, clutching the hands of their spouses; there are no children to be seen.

I wonder if that's a kindness or a cruelty in disguise. Do they realize that their children are huddled at home, watching each other with terrified eyes? The older ones try to be nonchalant, to pretend that nothing is going on, but their faces are pinched with the fears they refuse to voice.

In the courtyard, the king raises a hand, and the crowd falls deathly silent. "My people, I regret to do this," he intones, though his eyes hold no sorrow at his actions. "But the augurs have read the signs, and it is clear - the beast will not be satisfied with paltry foreign tributes this year. It demands one of our own, one of our strongest, to placate its fury." The assembled parents shift restlessly; I can see anger and despair on more than one face. It's the king's fault that this monster exists, and they resent him for his casual dismissal of their pain. The king doesn't appear to notice, but his captain of the guard is watching closely, and his eyes are narrowed. Will the most vocal of the dissidents wake up one morning to find their own children vanished? Or will he let them seethe in peace until their rage erupts?

That's neither here nor there, though. A fragment of my attention is on the ship bearing the captured tributes to the island, and there is one among them who fits the profile of the man who will kill the monster. The other captives whisper that he volunteered for the duty, that he's insane but maybe his courage will pay off.

They hold out little hope for that, but I suspect he's the one. So the people here may soon be freed of this horror.

Unfortunately, he won't come soon enough for the poor child chosen from the cauldron. The king nods his head once, then plunges his hand deep into the heap of parchment. Nothing but cold calculation shines in his eyes as he lifts a single scrap up high. "The tribute this year will be..." He unfolds the parchment. "Ariadne, daughter of Kastor."

A skinny, unkempt man lunges forward. "Sire, you can't!" His voice breaks on the last word. "She's my only daughter, my only child! You can't!"

The other parents wrestle him back in place. "Stop it, old man," one of them hisses. "Just shut up and maybe he won't take all of our children." His tone is laden with venom, but underneath it is a mixture of fear and relief. It's an understandable reaction, but I can't applaud it - if the assembled parents all worked together, they could overthrow this corrupt king. But they won't.

The old man is sobbing, broken-hearted, as guards march through the crowds to him. "I regret this necessity," the king says again, as his guards drag the man out. The other parents quickly disperse.

Kastor, the old man, looks oddly familiar. I search through my memory as he stumbles towards his hut, followed by a pair of armed guards, but I can't find anything until I see his daughter. Then it all becomes clear.

The monster will win this one, I think. Without Ariadne to give the hero the key to the labyrinth, he will perish like all the others, and the tributes will continue. Already, the colors of this world are dimming. The monster gets stronger with every person it eats - how long will it remain trapped in its maze? Will it break out one day and consume everyone on the island? Or will the king keep feeding it children until the town is barren and everyone who can has fled?

It's not my place to do anything, but I can't let the monsters win here too. As soon as the guards drag Ariadne away, I whisper, "Kastor. Listen to me."

He raises his head from his gnarled hands. "Spirit, whoever you are, stop your torments," he mutters. "I have nothing left to give."

"Do you want your daughter to live?" I demand.

His head jerks. "What? Who are you? What do you mean?"

I don't have time to explain my nature, for I can already see the guards returning, presumably to put him under guard until the sacrifices enter the maze. "Never mind that," I say hurriedly. "It doesn't matter. You need to leave here, now, and find the ship that's about to disembark. There is a man among the tributes who comes as a volunteer - give him the secrets of your maze and as much help as you can. It's your only chance."

He's clearly bewildered, but nods obediently. "Thank you, spirit, for your advice." He yanks a ball of string out of a covered basket and stands, back straight. "Tell me, which god do you serve, so I might make the appropriate sacrifices?"

"Ah..." Crap. I can't remember the names of any of the deities of this world, and the guards are getting closer, so I snap, "Never mind that, just go!" He hesitates, and I add, "Sacrifice to your patron if you survive this."

That satisfies him enough for him to grab a knapsack sitting by the bed, bow to thin air, and hurry out the door. The guards are still coming up the path, and don't see him as he slips into the woods. I sigh with relief. It's not much, but at least the island has a bit of hope now.

Is it just my imagination, or have the colors grown a bit brighter?