“You’ve got to drink it, Zan.”

Zander hacked and coughed stubbornly and shook his head at his mother, who held the spoonful of bitter tasting cough syrup out for him to drink. He’d been like this for hours now, hardly able to breathe for coughing so much, and Mia knew that his chest and throat had to ache with as awful as he sounded.

“Zander Oliver Roy Zatara, if you do not take this medicine right this second, I will… I will never love you again.” Ha. There. That had to work, right?

Zander still shook his head and rolled away from his mother. Mia dumped the spoonful of syrup back into the container. She slammed the bottle and spoon onto the night table beside her son and went to go cool off outside, not wanting to yell at him. It wasn’t his fault that he was sick; those stupid kids at his elementary school had passed on the bug. And it certainly wasn’t his fault that he was so stubborn.

Mia missed seeing Zander give himself the proper dosage of medication. He knew that if she got too close, she could get sick, too, and that was the last thing he wanted in the whole wide world.

“What are you looking at, Sarah?”

I had been so lost in reading over my book that I hadn’t heard the King come in, and didn’t know that he was there until his breath was hot on my neck. Instinctively, I snap the journal shut so that he can’t see, but I know that it’s a mistake; he owns everything here. This place is his kingdom, and even I belong to him. Now that his curiosity’s been piqued, he reaches over and takes the leatherbound journal—his gift to me, some time ago—and opens it up to the page that my ribbon was marking.

“Kathryn Worthington. Alexander Summers-Frost. Jeremie LeBeau. Akane Ichiki. What is this, Sarah, darling, a hit list of some kind? You’re not planning things without me, are you?”

“No.” I reach up and take the journal back. “They were kids that I once knew.”

“I thought you didn’t have any children your age to play with in that hell hole.” He reaches forward so that his fingertips just barely touch my neck. I think for a moment that he may try to strangle me, but instead, he just pulls my hair back over my shoulders so that it lays flat and smooth.

“I didn’t. They came to visit from the future once or twice. It was… a dream. I never even knew if they came to exist.”

“Because you made the choice to be my Queen.”

“Yes.”

“Yes what?”

“Yes, your majesty.” I say flatly, and he’s pleased. He kisses my cheek and slinks away, leaving me with my journal.

I do not know what I thought this life would be like as a child. Though I am constantly living in luxury and I have unimaginable power over things I couldn’t begin to know, I am a prisoner of my own naive choice here. I have given up friendship and what could have been a lovely family to be a Black Queen, instead.

If only I had known that it would mean being chained to my throne.

“We’re not going to make it, are we?”

It was a training mission gone completely awry. They were meant to only spend a week in the Savage Land, learning how to survive in extreme situations, but the plane had crashed in the wrong part of Antarctica, and the only ones that survived were the ones who didn’t know how to repair the jet.

Flying back wasn’t an option for Takehiko, Akane, or Sofie; the cold was too much of a shock to Sofie’s system, and even if Takehiko and Akane were the grandchildren of Gladiator, they were still only half-Strontian; they were much more vulnerable to fatigue and the elements.

Takehiko carried Sofie on his back while Akane tried to use her eye beams to carve a path through the snow to the Savage Lands, where they’d at least be warm. They’d pried the gear off of the random other graduates that were supposed to have made it with them, but it wasn’t doing enough; the shock of the crash had sent their friend’s healing factor into a spin, and now she was ill with the cold and the adamantium.

“Shut up. Of course we’re going to make it.” Takehiko practically barked at Sofie. “There’s a second plane coming with the rest of the students and teachers. We will be fine.”

“Takehiko’s right, for once. The only thing we can do is to live through this and not look back on our moments of weakness. Besides, you said you wanted to hunt dinosaurs. You can’t hunt dinosaurs if you’re dead.”

“So you think that the sun’s about to set on your life, is that it? I’m afraid that isn’t going to happen.”

Mia wasn’t too weak to choke out a laugh. This kid; he was insane, whoever he was. This alternate whoever or whatever. She didn’t know anymore. She didn’t have to know anything now, except for the needles in her arm and the thin, starchy hospital gown and that her head felt cool against the pathetic excuse for a pillow.

Zander took off his glove and put his hand on Mia’s forehead. His hand was cold and it felt nice, and soothing. It wasn’t very calloused like Ollie’s hands, abused a thousand times over from his archery and his heroics. It was smooth. He’d had a privileged life.

“And who do you think you are, calling the shots?” She choked; she could feel the vomit creeping up in the back of her throat and wanted to push him away. Instead, he helped her to sit up and lean over so that she could purge the bile from her system. He rubbed her back and didn’t flinch away for a second, even when some of it splattered onto his neatly pressed pants.

He laid her back against her pillow and helped her to sip on some water, and he made eye contact with her directly. It was weird, looking into eyes that were exactly like hers.

“I’m your son. From the future, obviously. My name is Zander Oliver Roy Zatara. You don’t die here because you live to give birth to me. Do you understand?”

The entire room fell silent for several long seconds, but she forced a laugh again.

“That’s the stupidest thing I’ve heard all day. What are you gonna do about it if you’re right? Make a deal with the devil to keep me alive?”

“Something like that, yes.” Zander pulled his glove back on and smiled an almost sad little smile. He kissed her cheek and put his hand over her eyes.

“Peels.” he ordered in that ethereal voice. She felt magically inclined to obey; her eyelids were so heavy, and she was so weak, and tired. Sleep came to her easily enough that she did not fully hear him afterward.

“You have many more sunsets to come, Mother. So rest easy. I’ll take care of you, now.”

“You can’t do this!”

Laura felt her claws break through her skin before she realized that she’d tensed the muscles she needed for that to happen. She and Julian were both tense, standing beside James while he held his niece close to his chest. He was taking her away, and it wasn’t safe, and they couldn’t go to monitor anything or to check for Kimura or any other threats that could torture the poor girl.

“Would you relax, you two?!” James rolled his eyes and adjusted Sofie in his arms. “I’m not kidnapping her, I’m taking her to Los Angeles for a while so you can work on your exams. You know, those important tests you have to take? Rachel’s coming later in the week too, so she’ll be fine. We’ll write you a postcard or something so you know we survived the flight.”

The accident hadn’t been that bad, Rachel had been told. It could have been so much worse. Her daughters had been completely unscathed because of her husband’s quick thinking with a telekinetic shield, and he had taken most of the damage himself when the vehicle had rolled over right into oncoming traffic and gotten hit by a large truck. After hours of surgeries they’d determined that he’d live, that he wouldn’t be paralyzed, that in a few days, he could go home to recover.

Rachel first visited James in the hospital on her own, leaving Jeannette and Talia with their Uncle Julian for a few hours so that she could have some privacy. He looked awful, and hadn’t woken up yet, but the doctors had all said he’d be okay, so she didn’t doubt it.

She hugged him carefully and kissed his cheek, and the second his eyes fluttered open, she told him how worried she’d been, and how grateful she was that he’d saved the girls, and how she couldn’t wait to have him home. Rachel went on for some time before he managed to mutter an “Um.”

“Yes, James?”

“I’m sorry, I just- … You’ve been going on for a while now and I was trying to remember your name. Do I know you?”