Once Upon a Valentine by Stephanie Bond

centuries ago. The dress had come into her hands by accident—the map along with it.
    With the support of the Grand Elatyria Museum and its patron, Queen Penelope of Riverdale, Ashlynn had made it her mission to find the rest of the map. She’d searched every record, spoken to the last few descendants of the Seasidians. She’d traveled the lands, scoured great libraries, studied old texts. Finally, she’d found another piece hidden behind an old painting.
    The search for the third quarter had taken even longer. It had also taken her somewhere far away. She’d had to visit a land called Pennsylvania, in the world called Earth, which existed just beyond Elatyria’s borders. It hadn’t been her first trip—Ashlynn’s father had taken her to a town known as Chicago as a child. But this time, she’d had to go by herself.
    I wish you could be here. Regret stabbed her as she thought of how much her father would have loved this quest. He’d also be very worried about her going on it alone. The theft of antiquities was rampant in Elatyria, and the two of them had been targets of thieves before. Now that he was gone, she had very few people she could trust…and over on Earth, absolutely none.
    But now she felt safer than she had in weeks, because she was home. The night was deep, the mossy ground spongy and soft beneath her feet, the air moist and rich with verdant soil. She’d missed this clean, heady scent during her weeks in that other place, where every breath was full of machine-made fumes.
    The nearest border crossing between the two worlds could only be accessed during the full moon. There were a few larger crossings that could be traversed at any time, but none was close enough to her home. So, restricted by the cycle of the moon, she’d been stuck over on Earth for many long, lonely days.
    Now she was back in Elatyria and was so overjoyed she felt like hugging the nearest tree. She wouldn’t, of course. She was no longer over there, where trees couldn’t hug back. And she didn’t care to be crushed by the enthusiastic embrace of a gnarled oak.
    Behind her, an owl hooted, another night animal howled.
    And a twig snapped.
    Her joy fading, Ashlynn froze. Listened. Silence.
    But that didn’t mean nobody was there.
    With stealthy purpose, she quickened her pace, clinging to shadows, alert for any movement. The starry sky provided light to guide her, but also made her too-easily visible to any pursuer.
    Perhaps she was overreacting. Maybe that step had been the tread of a doe, or the scurry of an anxious-to-get-home gnome.
    But she feared it hadn’t been. She was being followed. She knew that. She’d known it for weeks before she’d left Elatyria. Whoever it was might have been at the border, patient and determined, waiting for her to return when the moon waxed full.
    She also knew why she was being followed.
    Someone else was after the map…and the mysterious castle to which it led. That someone knew Ashlynn was hot on the trail.
    Spying the shapes of buildings in the nearest village—Foxglen, through which she’d passed weeks ago when she’d left for Earth—she walked even faster. It wasn’t Riverdale, where she lived, but there were people there. Plus, it boasted a small, clean inn and a less than clean but somewhat palatable tavern, with the dubious name of The Mare’s End.
    The tavern. She could actually spy its pitched roof from here, and breathed a sigh of relief. During the time she’d been gone, she’d had horrible visions of the place burning down or being shaken apart by a rampaging giant.
    But no, there it stood in the distance, the tavern with the old, stone floor, which had a loose stone beneath the back table. Hopefully nobody was seated there, so she could sit, warm her chilled body, wrap her hands around a mug of mulled wine.
    And retrieve the other two pieces of the map, which she’d hidden beneath that loose stone.
    She still wasn’t sure she’d made the right choice in stashing the