Wendell White found his gaze wandering back to the larger than life-sized portrait of his famous grandmother that hung on the opposite wall of his throne room. It had disappeared during the two short reigns of his evil stepmother, but despite her worst threats it had never been destroyed. So it was now once again found and cleaned and restored to the place where his father had hung it when he sat on the throne.

His father said he kept it as a reminder to be kind and wise like Snow White. Wendell found it more of a puzzle than a comfort as he stared at it between royal audiences. Snow White was not just considered the fairest of the five beautiful women who changed history, she was also remembered as the most merciful, compassionate, and just. But her name was on the most feared prison in the whole of the Nine Kingdoms, and she had entertained the guests at her wedding with the torture and mutilation of her worst enemy.

How could someone do that? How could anyone reconcile such kindness and such cruelty? It wasn’t as though people forgot what she had done. Every time they told her story, they made sure that it ended with a triumphant description of her wedding. It seemed to make everyone happier to think that evil had been punished, so all was right in the world. Was he the only one who tried to imagine what it was like that day? The palace hung in glad banners, the people in their best clothing... and the sound of anguished screams drowning out the celebratory bells, the smell of charred flesh replacing the scents of flowers and reception sweets, the once-fairest of them all crawling, ruined and footless, past the heroine with skin paler than her pure gown.

Could he punish someone like that? Would anything they did be so bad that they deserved it? He was about to find out. His council of advisors had been depleted, his fellow royals didn’t trust him, homeless packs of wolves were flooding into his kingdom, and his human citizens were in almost open revolt over his pardon. Something had to be done.

He didn’t know how he would finish establishing law and justice, but he knew how he would start.

Charles Hardleather, Governor of Snow White Memorial Prison, was not a man who indulged in emotions. He preferred to be the cause of emotions in others-preferably profound respect and/or complete terror. For twelve years he had run the prison with ruthless efficiency. Nobody ever escaped. Nobody ever returned to his care. Criminals would commit suicide rather than fall into his hands a second time, or sometimes even the first time. He felt honored beyond his wildest dreams when he was assigned the task of guarding the Evil Queen. No one else in all the land could be trusted with a charge that dangerous. Except him.

And then, in a few terrible days, everything was lost. The prince’s best advisor was murdered on his doorstep-literally. Criminals waltzed in and out of the prison with ease and he didn’t know what was more embarrassing, how many had broken out or how many had broken in. And after all his years of studying her magic and trying to break her spirit, he’d proved worse than useless at trying to keep the Evil Queen. He’d thought that cleaning up from that and restoring his authority had been the most horrible time of his life.

Until the full story behind the coronation was published and he discovered that he’d been a dogbowl away from inadvertent regicide. Even now he couldn’t quite believe that the blithering Tony had been telling the truth after all.

Hardleather prayed to Snow White that her grandson, the new king, had forgotten or decided to overlook his lapses in the face of Fate’s power and in the memory of all his long years of excellent service.

The royal summons came three weeks after the coronation.

Neither the messenger nor the message said anything other than “Come to the palace to discuss recent events.” There wasn’t a need for anything more than that, really. Hardleather nodded, wrote a few instructions to his second-in-command, and checked that his will was still in the safe (he kept it in his office where it would be found quickly if there was ever a prison riot).

No, he wasn’t a man much given to emotion, but today his hands were sweating as he tacked his horse up to follow the messenger back to the palace. He was not a man given to introspection either, but as they rode off, all he could think of was the times that convicts had begged him for mercy. He’d always considered that merely an irritating, meaningless noise.

Now he wished he’d granted it.

Wendell stared at the governor. He’s a lot smaller when you’re staring down from a throne and not up from four feet. Even without canine senses, he could smell the rank sweat of fear coming from the impassive man standing unmovingly at attention before him. The silence dragged out, until Wendell finally said, “You’ve heard the stories about the events leading up to my coronation.”

“Yes, sire.”

“You know you are personally responsible for the lapse of security which allowed the Troll King to use magic to break into the prison, which in turn allowed the queen to break out.”

“Yes, sire.”

Hardleather neither bluffed nor begged, which impressed Wendell. The queen had single-handedly tricked or controlled hundreds of people, could the governor really be blamed for being one of them?

Wendell looked again at the portrait. What would you do, Grandmother? What would you consider justice? She didn’t respond, but an answer came to him all the same. Wendell examined it from all angles and decided that it felt right.

“I assume that you have examined the loopholes in your security and tightened them?”

“Yes, sire!”

“What would you do if you were king and talking to the governor who allowed a regicide to escape his jail?”

For the first time, the man before him cracked. After a harsh gulp, the governor said, “I would have him publicly executed as a reminder to his successor to be more careful.”

Wendell nodded, watching the blood drain from the governor’s face. “In this case, I shall not do as you would do. For your many years of faithful service to the House of White, I grant you your life. Because you have plugged your security leaks, I will not have you replaced as governor either.”

An upraised hand cut short the incoherent praise of thanks and relief. Wendell kept his face stern as he continued, “However, I will follow your example in one particular. Lord Anthony told you how he and myself ended up in your prison. Instead of investigating his story and capturing the queen before she could kill my advisors, take control of my castle, and almost kill me, you had him whipped. How many lashes did he get for telling the truth?”

The governor had to lick his lips twice. “Fifty, sire.”

Wendell gestured sharply to the guards by the door. “Then you shall pay the same penalty for telling me the truth.”

Brave to the last, the governor did not fight back as he was seized. He stood at attention as impassively as possible, even as Wendell instructed the guards to find a beanstalk whip and to make the governor leave for the prison immediately afterwards. Anthony hadn’t been given any kind of aftercare either. As the guards took the governor away, Wendell wondered idly if that prison policy was about to change.