Gabrielle and Jacques sat swinging their legs over the edge of the castle’s grounds. Storm clouds were gathering overhead and electricity prickled in the air. Soon, the rain would come, and it would be a deluge.

“Heir to the throne?” Jacques whispered, half to himself. He could not seem to wrap his mind around any of this. This castle, this place. In the village, it had all seemed some sort of distant destination. Unreachable, unknowable. Finally in its presence, Jacques wished he were anywhere else.

He wished he could just climb down the ivy back into the cozy, sleeping village.

How could this have happened?

Gabrielle’s hair rippled in the wind of the imminent storm. “I’m afraid so,” she said, swinging her toes back and forth over the edge. “The castle is crumbling,” she continued, in a more serious tone. “Bit by bit it is descending back to the earth from which it rose.”

Something didn’t make sense. “Gabrielle, you say that the village is the dungeon. What crime, exactly, did I commit?”