The climb was a nightmare. As he made his way up the staircase, the insistent breeze tugged at his limbs and threw him off balance. Behind him, the monkey, obviously enjoying his palpable fear, alternated between laughing at him and poking him in the back with the spear, more than once almost causing him to lose his footing. With no railing, he could only cling desperately to the rough bark of the tree as he made his way up.

At last, after what felt like a century, the staircase joined up with one of the hanging walkways. Hex collapsed on the slats, not even caring anymore if the monkey stabbed him in the back. The narrow, dangling walkway, swaying alarmingly under his weight, was hardly the safest place, but after the staircase it seemed as good as solid ground.

“Well, well, well,” the monkey said behind him, a note of grudging admiration in its voice. “You’re made out of sterner stuff than you look. I didn’t think you’d make it. We always end up having to carry humans the last part of the way. Trial by fire, they say. Pain in the ass, I tell you, and if you ask me it’s an outdated system, but nobody asks me anything around here. I have so many ideas about streamlining efficiency and data management—you should see the spreadsheet I designed last week—but they don’t even care. ‘Not the monkey way,’ they tell me. As if we should be stuck living in this backward—”

Hex interrupted the monkey’s beleaguered monologue. “The stairs are a trial? You mean the monkeys don’t use them?”

The monkey shot him an amused glance. “Are you kidding? We use the elevator. Look, I’m sure the queen is going to execute you—probably even with torture. Since you won’t live to see tonight, we might as well introduce ourselves. I’m Iris.” Hex gaped stupidly at the monkey.

“Iris? But that’s a girl’s name.”

The monkey gave him another look, this time one of disdain. “Because I am a girl, you moron. You think only men can crunch numbers and be honored members of the queen’s guard?” Iris brandished the spear at him.

“No!” Hex yelped hastily. “No. Of course not. Forgive me.” Apparently mollified, Iris looked at him expectantly. “Oh, right,” he said. “I’m Hex. Sorry.” Iris offered him a paw and he shook it gravely.

“Pleased to meet you, Hex,” she said. “And now it’s time for me to escort you to your doom.”

FIVE

To reach the monkey queen’s palace, Hex had to climb yet another flight of stairs. This one, however, wasn’t half as bad as the first; there was even a handrail. His fear of heights had settled into a kind of numb dread in his belly. Soon enough he’d be swinging around on vines like the monkeys themselves, he thought drily. Iris’s attitude had improved considerably since their formal introduction. She was whistling cheerfully behind him, and, though he had no doubt she’d be delighted to stick him again if he made any attempt to flee, she had laid off poking him with the spear.

The queen’s palace was a hut, a little larger and grander than the others Hex had seen but otherwise unremarkable. It sat in the center of a broad platform of planks that had been built above the treetops. From the platform, Hex could see for miles in every direction. There was the wall of trees, and just beyond it the heaving sea of flowers where the wolves had attacked; there was the blue plain he had crossed with Pete, and in the distance he could see the crimson splatter of the poppy field. He thought wistfully of how wonderful it would be to be back there again, nodding off under a huge red flower without a care in the world, but there wasn’t much point in longing for something that clearly wasn’t going to happen anytime soon. He wondered again what had happened to Pete. Had he been captured by the monkeys, too? But Iris’s disbelief had seemed genuine when she’d found him just after the wolf attack, and surely he would have seen if someone else had abducted Pete after they’d escaped from the wolves. No, Pete had abandoned him. Did this have something to do with the mysterious test he was supposed to take? Either way, he was on his own, and there was nothing he could do about it.

Iris cleared her throat loudly, and Hex realized he’d been staring off into space like an idiot. “Sorry,” he mumbled, slouching toward the door at Iris’s prompting. The hut was windowless, its smooth round walls interrupted only by a single door—monkey height, like everything else in the village.

“Go on,” Iris said impatiently, and he stooped and entered.

The inside of the hut belied its humble exterior. Its smooth, round walls were painted an eye-searing yellow; here and there, the yellow was augmented by even brighter murals depicting the queen floating regally over her subjects, outfitted for battle, and surrounded by bunches of bananas that looked—well, as though they had been finger painted by a monkey. An elaborate chandelier hung from the low ceiling, looking rather out of place. It had no doubt once been very fine, but was now bedecked with dried banana peels in various stages of decay.

Queen Lulu herself was lounging against a raft of brightly colored pillows with a surprising amount of dignity for a ridiculously dressed monkey. She wore a vibrant, ruffled pink dress, leopard-print stockings, and rhinestone-studded sandals, and her eyes were hidden behind enormous sunglasses. In one hand she held a jeweled scepter; in the other, a half-eaten banana, which she was busily gnawing. She swallowed the last bites as Hex approached the throne and chucked the peel up at the chandelier, where it added to the collection.

He had never met a royal monkey before, but it seemed prudent to err on the side of caution. He executed a sweeping bow, so low his forehead nearly brushed his shins, and the queen grunted with approval through a mouthful of banana. “This one has manners, at least,” she said. Her voice was rough and heavily accented—and strangely familiar. Staring at her, he thought he’d surely seen her before—and then a flash of memory leapt to the surface of his mind. A stooped, haggard old woman in a black hat—he was giving her a shapeless old felt hat that he knew was terribly important despite its appearance. “This seals our bargain,” the old woman hissed. “Giving me control of the monkeys? You’re even crueler than I am, human, and that’s saying something. They must raise you differently in the Other Place.” And then the memory was gone as quickly as it had come, but looking at the queen, he was flooded with a sudden sense of sick, terrible shame. The hat had had some kind of power over the monkeys, and it had been his. Why had he given it away? What had his past self done?