Married life between the now-Queen Titania and King Obrey is not as exciting as it once was. Titania's skin slowly turns more green. Obrey returns to the wars.

The Amadan, in unusually unkempt shape, comes to tell Titania that Obrey is dead at the hands of his nephew, Auberon. It turns out that Auberon was the true king, but he spent so much time on Earth that Obrey took over. Now that Auberon has won, Titania is no longer Queen.

When Auberon returns, he treats her with respect. She is now fully green. He proposes marriage to her a way to unite the kingdom--not knowing of her human origins. Titania, now fully a schemer herself, agrees.

The marriage is not necessarily a close one, and they engage in their separate pastimes. Now lonely and unhappy with her lot, she wanders through the forest and ends up back on Earth, where she finds her original home, now long-decayed, her Gran long-dead. She misses her, but runs into Tamlin, a human. They bond, and he agrees to talk her home, where he himself is entrapped by Faerie. He works as Auberon's falconer.

They take a trip off alone together, at night, where she reveals her unhappiness, her tired feeling about how everything in Faerie is too perfect. But she is happy to be with him, and she teaches him how to change his shape into that of a falcon. They engage in a tryst.

However, when Titania returns home, she finds Auberon, who insists that they finally sleep together, until they have a child together--something Tamlin vows will never happen.