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That's when Kai's knees finally buckled.

I caught him. Tried to, anyway, given that he was roughly twice my size and I was, generously, Martha-sized. So, as luck, and gravity, would have it, we ended up in a heap on the chamber floor together, tangled up in each other and dust and the last of the gold light.

"You fell again." I smiled.

"Occupational hazard."

"I'm starting to dislike this Guardian thing."

"I'm starting to dislike your Queen thing."

"Liar."

"Completely."

I looked down at the crown. It was quiet now, gold and warm and entirely mine. Aideen settled, peaceful and satisfied, somewhere deep in my soul for the first time in four months.

“Do I have to put it on now?”

“No.”

“Thank the Great Goddess.”

Putting it on could wait for another day, another ceremony, with my people around me instead of a basement full of dust and blood.

Kai looked up at me from the floor, battered and bleeding and grinning anyway.

"What happens now, my Queen?"

"Don't start."

I looked around at all of it. Zelda, alive, leaning on Carol. Kai, alive, bleeding on the floor beside me. The Door, sealed. The crown, warm in my possession. My life, still entirely mine.

For the first time in four months, nobody else got to decide what happened next.

"Now I decide what happens next."

“After coffee,” Aideen said.

"Obviously."

12

Apparently, there were rules about what a woman was supposed to do after saving the world. I thought I should at the very least go shopping for new boots to bedazzle.

Maeve's first rule was that I needed a shower.

Her second was that Kai needed stitches.

My first rule was that nobody was taking the damn crown out of my sight. My rule was non-negotiable.

So, there it sat, and there I was, hours later, clean-ish, with my hair still damp, sitting across from it. I was also happily wrapped in the softest sweats I owned with coffee steaming in my favorite mug. I was right there at my kitchen table, with the crown that was gold and quiet, propped against the sugar bowl like it had always belonged there.

Oh, it was also beside the coffee pot. Because where else was Martha Dellencourt supposed to put an ancient Magical symbol of Dragon Queen authority? By the coffee, of course... duh. I just told you that.

Maeve stared at it as if it might bite her. "You're seriously leaving that there?"

"I can see it there."