In four new novellas, Christina Henry returns to the universe she created for Alice and Red Queen, where magic runs more freely than anyone suspects, but so do secrets and blood. Lovely Creature In the New City lives a girl called Elizabeth, a girl who has a secret: she can do magic. But someone knows Elizabeth's secret—someone who has a secret of his own. That secret is a butterfly that lives in a jar, a butterfly made by a girl called Alice. Girl in Amber Alice and Hatcher are just looking for a place to rest. Alice has been dreaming of a cottage by a lake and a field of wildflowers, but while walking blind in a snowstorm they stumble into a castle that seems empty and abandoned...at least until nightfall. When I First Came to Town Hatcher wasn't always Hatcher. Once, he was a boy called Nicholas, and Nicholas fancied himself the best fighter in the Old City. No matter who fought him he always won. Then his boss tells him he's going to battle the fearsome Grinder, a man who never leaves his opponents alive. The Mercy Seat Alice has a secret—a secret that not even Hatcher knows yet, but pretty soon she won't be able to keep it from him.