"You don't...happen to be royalty, do you?" she blurted.

His lips twitched in a little smirk that told her before he spoke that he was far from it and her heart sank.

"No," he said, then asked the natural corollary, "Are you?"

Mentally she cursed herself for asking the question in the first place, since it had only shortened their already short time together. But, she reflected stoically, she supposed it might be best. A real relationship with him could never be. It would only be cruel to prolong the agony of separation.

"Yes," she admitted, her voice small. He heard it nonetheless.

"Who are you then?"

She was sure his voice sounded as disappointed as she herself felt. That in itself made her heart ache more than her own longing. Best to hurry and get it over with, she thought.

"I'm ... I'm Riding Hood III, queen of the Second Kingdom."'

When Wolf & Virginia return to the Nine Kingdoms to discover why their story was shown on TV, they must find the origins of an age-old curse, which leads them to the Second Kingdom, Red Riding Hood III, and Wolf's erraticly dangerous brother.