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The pain helped, surprisingly. Merrigan read Sylvanglade, with a squeezing sensation around her heart. Then she saw Prince Bayl's name and understood entirely. Poor Belinda. How it had to pain her, to know the prince she loved was in Alliburton. She never saw him during the wedding festivities. Even if he had looked right at her, the disguise spells interfered. She tried to think of something she could do or say to distract Belinda, to—
Wait. Had she read correctly? She checked the list.
Prince Bryan of Sylvanglade was also on the list.
The brothers were traveling together.
Merrigan put the paper down and smoothed it out flat on the table for good measure. The slight trembling in her hands, the hollow sensation in her chest, made absolutely no sense whatsoever. What was wrong with her?
"I wonder how soon dinner will be ready," she murmured, and reached over to pat Belinda's shoulder. "We both need something in our stomachs, or at least some hot, strong tea, with plenty of honey. It's been a trying day for both of us."
"Oh, Merrigan," Belinda whispered, and knuckled her eyes dry as she tried to smile. "I am so thankful you're my friend. What would I ever do without you?"
Merrigan bit back a tart response that Belinda was in a sorry state indeed, to consider her a friend and be grateful.
You're too hard on yourself, Mi'Lady, Bib retorted, his voice stern and bracing in her mind. You've put yourself in the arrow's sight, so to speak, for her sake. Only a true friend would do that. I daresay you've become worthy of that pretty bauble you're wearing.
Dear Bib, always thinking better of me than I deserve.
The shivering sensation in her chest stopped. Merrigan managed to laugh at herself for nearly forgetting to put her cap back on, to hide the circlet, before she and Belinda went to the kitchen for that tea they both needed.
~~~~~
THE PROBLEM WITH THE decoy plan was that it did them no good if the princes hunting Belinda didn't come close enough to actually see Merrigan. After three days, King Auberg's men reported that the princes were still in the city despite most of the other wedding guests having departed. The "most" qualifier bothered Merrigan. Belinda had whispered Bayl's name several times in her sleep. The trio decided they had to do something. Bad enough that rainy, sloppy fall weather kept the children indoors, but waiting for the enemy to wander in was nerve-wracking.
"You need bait," Nasius said, when they listened to Bib and brought the old philosopher into the plan and the team. "Send up a beacon, so to speak."
Belinda shivered a little, and her throat convulsed in anticipation.
The words didn't have to be said. Merrigan was thankful that Nasius had joined them in the plotting. It was left to him to have the largest cooking cauldron filled with dried peas and put on to soak, to make the richest pot of pea soup the warehouse orphanage had ever cooked. Belinda blanched when the pot of soaked peas and seasonings and chunks of salt pork went on the fire. When she broke out in a sweat, Merrigan checked, and found the water had started bubbling. The ripples of convulsions in Belinda's throat made Merrigan queasy, just watching her.
They tried to sketch new clothes designs, just to calm their nerves. Sewing required steady hands they didn't have. The squeals of the children at their games made them jump, even though it was pleasant to hear them laughing and shouting and jumping and running into the shelf frames. The drumming of the downpour outside made pleasant, almost soothing counterpoint to the sound. From the corner of her eye, Merrigan saw several little bodies lift up the curtains over her and Belinda's bed shelves to climb in and hide.
"No. Not happening today. Not a chance," she muttered, getting up from the long sewing table with enough force to knock her chair backwards, and earned a shriek from Belinda. "Sorry," she threw back over her shoulder, and stomped over to the shelves. She yanked up the curtain and saw two little girls just sitting there, eyes wide, and getting wider as they waited for punishment to descend on them. The little white-blond girl clutched at the hands of her dusky-skinned partner-in-mischief.
The angry words died in Merrigan's mouth, and left a bitter taste behind. She could only imagine the fury twisting her face. What made the neatness of her bed more important than the children having fun? They were stuck indoors. It was cold outside, sloppy wet, and the noise of the rain drumming on the high roof had made lesson time difficult.
"You don't want to be on the bottom shelf," she said. "They won't expect you to hide higher than your beds."
Their giggles washed away a knot forming in her belly. Totally inexplicable tears blurred her eyes when they held up their arms, asking for help climbing up two shelves higher.
Belinda shook off her growing nausea to come over and help the little ones hide. She slipped coming down from the shelf above Merrigan's bed, and her left foot swung out and then in, trying to find purchase. It banged against the magic box, which had been disturbed by the little girls scrambling across Merrigan's bedding.
"I'm an idiot," Merrigan said, staring at the box while Belinda finally got her foot back into the notch in the shelf support bar and climbed down.
She snatched up the box and carried it over to the sewing table. Bib lay surrounded by a new batch of books sent over from King Auberg's library. The magic book was so busy absorbing more knowledge, he didn't notice Merrigan right away.
"We never thoroughly explored Morton's gifts, did we?" Merrigan said, tipping up the lid. She reached in and carefully removed the things she had used before, especially the sticks for the magically renewing fire.
"If you mean we never found the bottom of the box, no." Bib explained the box and the story behind it to Belinda, while Merrigan dug, removing one thing after another. Most items on top were her own, non-magical, simply put in the box because it could hold anything and everything.
Every time Merrigan found something she didn't recognize, she put it on Bib's open pages for him to analyze. A ring that, according to the ancient writing on both sides of the band, allowed the wearer to understand the language of the birds. Limited to northern climate birds, Bib added after further reading. Another ring for southern birds. A third ring for breathing underwater. A headscarf that improved hearing. Socks that allowed the wearer to leap as high as the third story of a building.
"Very useful for thieves," Belinda remarked, with a trembling smile.
"I have the feeling Morton used us to get potentially troublesome magic items out of Seafoam, along with helping us," Bib added.
Merrigan searched the box faster. Any moment now, the soup's influence would take Belinda from sweating to heaving. The whole purpose of searching through all the minor magical trinkets was to find something to prevent the nausea. Merrigan finally explained what she was doing, after finding a magic waxed paper bag that kept pouring out sweets until they had a pile taller than the box. As far as Bib could tell, the sweets in assorted flavors and colors had no magical properties other than soothing sore throats.
"But what if stopping me from being sick somehow ... I don't know, interferes with the tracking spell?" Belinda said.
"You don't know unless you ask." Merrigan wished with all her might that they would find something they could use, right this moment, as she reached into the box.
Belinda fled for the garderobe just as Merrigan's fingers touched a soft fold of cloth. She pulled the small bundle out and unrolled it to find a simple, conical sleeping cap. A note was pinned to it in Morton's distinctive, neat blocky handwriting: Do not use when you are alone. Merrigan put it inside Bib's pages for him to analyze.
"It is just what it appears to be—a cap for sleeping. Very dangerous," the book announced, as Belinda came back to the table, looking a little white around the mouth, and the hair at her temples dark with sweat.
"Dangerous how? Could we use it as a weapon?" Merrigan said.
"Only if we could convince our enemies to put it on, then for the next man in line to take it off the sleeping man and put it on his head, and so on."
"But the first man would just wake up, so what good would it do?" Belinda said, stroking the long tassel of silky black threads.
"Taking off the cap doesn't wake you." Bib ruffled his pages so the cap slid off.
Merrigan shuddered, grateful Morton had put that note on the cap. What if she had put the cap on just to keep her head warm, say if she was caught in the rain?
"Surely there has to be some way of reversing the sleeping spell. Who would make such a thing?" Belinda wiped her shaking hand on her skirts.
"Reverse." Merrigan could almost laugh with the relief that shot through her. "Bib, if we turned the cap inside out and put it back on someone's head, would that wake them?"
"It should," the book said after a moment. "Turn it inside out and put it back on me." He sighed loudly, riffling his pages from top to bottom down one side. "I do hate these limitations to my powers of analysis. Someday, there's going to be something very sticky and wet and staining that I will have to study, and I dread thinking of the damage to my papers when that happens."
Belinda and Merrigan smiled, but neither could laugh. Merrigan's fingers itched as she turned the cap inside out and laid it on Bib's open pages. After a few moments, he announced that yes, she was right—reversing the cap reversed the sleeping spell.
"You don't sneeze and you don't heave when you're asleep," Merrigan said, handing the cap to Belinda.
"But I've awakened myself ... Oh. Yes. When I'm deeply asleep, during the middle of the night, I'm not sick. The spell only starts working when I'm waking."
"You'll be more comfortable while we wait, and hopefully the bait will still work. Besides," Merrigan added, as Belinda walked over to her bed shelf and lifted the curtain, "we can't have you sneezing like mad when those idiots walk into our trap."
"You are brilliant," Belinda said as she lay down. "What did I ever do to deserve a friend like you?" She settled herself, tugged her skirts straight, and pulled up the blanket. She pulled the cap down over her thick curls and sighed. "Oh, I feel bet ..." A soft snore escaped her before her eyes finished closing.
"You're under a curse," Merrigan murmured as she stepped over to pull the curtain down to hide her from sight. "That's what you did to have a friend like me."
Later, when the peas had been boiled soft and chunks of ham and carrots and onions were added, Nasius suggested they put several bowls of soup around Belinda's bed, to increase the spell's reaction. A few snorts issued from the sleeper when the clouds of steam from the bowls first seeped through the curtain, then she quieted again. A far as Merrigan could tell, the other princess was comfortable, no suffering from the proximity of peas.
"What if the sleeping spell totally cancels the spell to bring the princes to her?" she said to Bib, when lunchtime passed and still no foreign princes had invaded the warehouse.
"They're dilettantes," he responded. "The rain only stopped an hour ago. My guess is that they've stayed indoors this whole time." He chuckled, a delightfully malicious sound. "You'd think that all the privations of hunting for so long would weed out the weak and unworthy, so that in the end, only one prince would be left, who has become worthy through effort, and Belinda would be happy to let him carry her back home to her father's kingdom. With all the warping done to her disguise spells and the quite frankly nasty, childish nature of the detection spell, I'm of the opinion that these young men are holding on out of vanity. They can't believe a princess wouldn't want them. Still, their basic nature is showing, when they won't hunt in the rain and cold."
"Meanwhile, Belinda suffers. Why do little girls want to be princesses? It certainly isn't fun or comfortable to be the target of magic spells. Not even for the lovely clothes."
"Especially when you have the skill to make them for yourself."
"True."
They were still laughing together when a ruckus erupted at the other end of the warehouse. Children cried out in alarm. Merrigan lost her breath at the jolt of fury that shot through her. There were plenty of older boys and foster fathers to defend them, and guardsmen nearby to come at the first call, and alarm horns to sound, thanks to Aubrey. Only a fool would break into an orphanage, and risk being buried under a wave of shrieking, kicking, punching little bodies.
Despite hearing the blat of a horn to summon the guardsmen, Merrigan headed for the front of the warehouse. Her travels had taught her that the most vicious brutes and bullies shared a weakness: terror of little old ladies who reminded them of their grandmothers.
"I know she's here," a nasally tenor voice shouted, as stomping, booted feet approached the dividing wall between the dining and study tables and the kitchen. "Just see all the magic swirling around that huge pot of pea soup. It's a sure sign."
"Sure sign of what?" Merrigan demanded, calling up the chill, sharp-edged mannerisms she had once used to get her way. She stopped on the far side of the kitchen and tipped her head back, straightened her shoulders and held her hands down straight at her side. These obnoxious third-class princes were about to learn what it meant to be in a battle royal.
She barely restrained herself from reacting. The prince in the lead of the hunting party had been all too right. Swirls of pea-green sparkles spun in the air over the cauldron of leftover pea soup, like a particularly thick cloud of insane horseflies.
"The enchantress said if there was interference, then she found a majjian to help her." Another prince pushed to the front of the group. He looked enough like the first prince to be a brother or cousin, with long ferret noses and stringy hair that had probably been fashionably curled before they went out into the damp and wind. They both wore shades of muddy crimson. "Does she look like a witch to you?"
"Has to be a witch," the first prince said. The others in the group muttered agreement. None of them moved any closer. "Where is the princess? Hand her over, and you won't get hurt."
"Hand her over?" Merrigan nearly laughed. Her voice flung icicles in the air. "Who are you to give orders to me? Do you fancy yourselves to be princes?"
A few of the idiots actually nodded, some with wobbly grins, like puppies praised for doing the right trick entirely by accident.
"Do you fancy yourselves worthy of a princess?"
Merrigan heard the stomping of feet and the familiar bass tones of the captain of the guardsmen on the day shift. She forced a scowl when she actually felt a little wobbly in the knees from relief. For this deception to succeed, they needed to get rid of the princes as soon as she had convinced them they were hugely mistaken. They had to leave before they had time to think, to try to look around the warehouse. Belinda's enchanted sleep helped enormously, but the guardsmen would clinch the deal. She hoped.
"But we've—we've been hunting a long time," the second prince said, his head turning back and forth between his leader and Merrigan. "We've earned her."
"All of you? Marry one princess? Is that what the enchanter who gave you that spell—" She flicked her fingers in disdain at the magic sparkles, spinning frantically over the cooling soup. "Is that what he told you?"
"She, actually," another prince said. The others glared at him and he retreated out of sight behind their slightly broader shoulders.
"Oh, I see now. An enchantress decided to help you bumblers find a princess?" Merrigan jammed her fists into her hips and stomped forward. She nearly lost her scowl in laughter when the knot of them backed up.
All hail the undeniable power of little old ladies, Bib said with a vicious chuckle that bounced around in her mind and nearly shattered her façade.
"I have some sad news for you, little boys." Merrigan glanced past them, to dozens of children with eyes wide and mouths falling open in astonishment. Five guardsmen stood among them, grinning with malicious delight. She knew then, these princes had made a nuisance of themselves while they hunted for "their princess."
She took one step forward. They took one step back, tripping over each other. Giggles arose from the children, seen and unseen.
"The enchantress was playing games with your teeny tiny minds. She wasn't helping you, if this princess was ever yours to begin with. Any enchantress worth her salt wouldn't help you buffoons trap a princess. She's helping the princess escape, by distracting you."
No, more likely the enchantress has a grudge against Belinda, Bib countered. That might be helpful in figuring out who was helping them.
"But—she promised—the spell was woven just for our princess," the first prince said, his voice as wobbly as his chin.
"She lied." Merrigan's icy chuckle echoed off the high ceiling. "How do I know she lied?" She reached up and lifted off her cap. A satisfactory cloud of sighs and a long ripple of ooohs and aahhs erupted from the children. Multi-colored shimmers reflected off the pots and pans and brass surfaces of the kitchen, coming from the crown. "Because I am a princess, you buffoons. The spell brought you to the nearest princess, and that is all it did."
"But—but—" The lead prince looked like he might burst into tears. His brother, or cousin or whoever he was, did burst into tears.
"Are these intruders bothering you, Highness?" the captain of the guardsmen said, shouldering his way through the knot of stunned, pouting princes.
"Yes, they are. Thank you, Captain Watkins. I know I have no authority, and no right to ask, but if his Majesty would be so kind ..." She shrugged prettily.
"Highness, King Auberg has made it abundantly clear to us that even with no throne to call your own, you are royal and your wish is our command." Captain Watkins bowed low, and his expression grew stern as he straightened up, so when he turned it on the princes, they blanched to a man. All he had to do was point, and they scurried out of the kitchen.
"Captain? A small favor?"
"Anything, Highness." He swept her another, smaller bow. The captain really did have a wonderful future as a courtier. He had the manners down perfectly.
"Those ... ruffians are obviously being guided by magic. If you could find the source of that magic and remove it, they wouldn't be able to harass and frighten any more innocent women." She crumpled her cap in her hands. The tallest prince looked back at her, and the glint in his eyes made her think he wasn't nearly as repentant as he appeared or should be. "It's hard enough being deprived of my ancestral kingdom, but for those bullies to intrude in here and frighten the children and remind me of all I have lost ... I couldn't bear it if another displaced princess were to suffer the same humiliation and pain."
"Anything for you, Highness." He bowed again and grabbed hold of the shoulder of the prince closest to him, to guide him out of the kitchen. The foster parents guided the children away moments later.
Merrigan sat down on the nearest stool at the long preparation table. Her legs felt rather weak. Echoes of her icy words hummed in her head and her chest. She didn't like the sound of her voice, and liked even less the feeling of familiarity the whole situation gave her.
"Mara?" Nasius paused in the doorway of the kitchen. Merrigan wasn't sure how long she had been sitting there, holding her hands clasped tightly together so she wouldn't feel them tremble. The sounds of the orphanage on a rainy day had returned to normal, if a little softer than usual. "Are you all right?"
"Are they gone?"
"Gone, and if we're lucky, on their way out through the gates as fast as the good captain can move them."
"Good. I think it went rather well, don't you?"
"Well?" Nasius tipped his head back and let out one of his rare, bull-bellow laughs. "Mara, you were brilliant! If I weren't still heartbroken over my Felicia—if I were ten years younger—I'd ask you to marry me right this moment."
"Don't be ridiculous." She surprised herself with a chuckle. The sound broke a logjam inside her. Warmth spread to her extremities and calmed the impending shudders. "If I were twenty years younger, you mean."
"Well, maybe it's the magic of that crown, the colors ..." He crossed the kitchen to her and held out his hand. "There are many kinds of beauty, and youth is the least of them."
"Oh, my." Merrigan accepted his help sliding off the stool, and gladly leaned into his arm to walk back to the sewing area. "Nasius, where were you when I was ... well, when my prospects were much kinder?"
Just to be safe, Merrigan and Bib agreed to leave the magic sleeping cap on Belinda for the rest of the day. Nasius kept watch on the cauldron of pea soup, monitoring the nearness of the intruding princes and their tracking spell by the speed of the sparkles in the air. The old philosopher let out another bellow of triumph two hours later, and came running to report that the sparkles of magic had vanished with an audible snapping sound. Later, Captain Watkins confirmed their theory—King Auberg had had the princes searched and every bit of magic removed from their belongings.
"Female magic," a thin, dusty-voiced man announced when Merrigan, Belinda, Bib and Nasius came to the palace two days later to discuss the resolution of the problem with King Auberg.
The king introduced the man as Bergomass, the seer and enchanter. He had assigned himself to the kingdom of Williburton, mostly because he didn't like to move and he had a comfortable, roomy suite in the north tower of the palace. He also happened to be King Auberg's great-great-great-uncle. He preferred most people not even know he existed, and had a clever spell in force that didn't take much maintaining, so people looked at the north tower and never wondered about it. Some didn't even realize it was there. He liked a good game of chess, appreciated magic puzzles, and got on very well with King Auberg. He had been incredibly busy for years, focused solely on unraveling the curse that tried to erase even the memory of Prince Aubrey. Now that the prince had been found and restored, he had far less work to do and was in a good mood. The task and challenge of deciphering the spell used on Belinda was just what he was looking for.
"I agree that the enchantress who wove the spells has a grudge against you, Princess. Most likely she is someone who knows you very well. See here." Bergomass gestured at a long table with numerous items scattered across a surface made of intersecting strips of iron and silver. Iron to counteract inimical magic and silver to reinforce the restraint spells, to keep any active residue of magic from affecting anyone in the room.
He explained that each prince in the party had carried a little leather bag, sewn with silver thread, carrying locks of red hair and dried peas, arrowheads and several pages torn from a book. Closer inspection showed the leather bags had bits of embroidery on them. Bergomass decided the leather had come from one larger leather item, perhaps a lady's hunting outfit. The passages on the pages were familiar, and likely all came from the same book.
"Mine," Belinda said, her voice thick, after she examined the items. She wrapped her arms tight around herself. "My hunting outfit—my arrows—my hair—my favorite book!"
"Who would be able to get all those things, to weave together such an insidious, accurate tracking spell?" King Auberg asked.
"Someone who lived in the palace, obviously," Merrigan said, when Belinda could only shake her head. She was pale, but the two bright red spots in her cheeks hinted she wasn't going to burst into tears this time. Fury was the dominant emotion vibrating out of her now. "Do you think your father might actually be behind this, so desperate to get you back and force you to take a husband ..."
"Female magic," Bib reminded them. "You said your sisters were studying magic."
"Bythia and Barbarina," Belinda murmured. "How could they? They love books even more than I do. How could they sacrifice a book, of all things?"
Merrigan muffled a snort of laughter. She knew Belinda wasn't being a featherhead. The weight of the revelation was so bitter, she had to focus on something inconsequential to survive.
They agreed Belinda would continue to wear the illusion spell. Word that a "real princess" was living in the orphanage might draw the attention of the curious and adventurers. With all the pieces and knowing the source of the inimical magic, Bergomass had no trouble unwinding the tracking spell and separating it entirely from the illusions. When they returned to the orphanage that night, Belinda asked for a bowl of pea soup to celebrate. She said it was delicious, but only ate half of it.
Merrigan brought the crown back to King Auberg, but he told her to keep it, that it needed to be worn. Gilda was a lovely girl and he was delighted to have her for a daughter-in-law, but the crown of woven vines and tiny flowers was simply not her style. Merrigan agreed to keep it for Belinda, when she would need to prove she really was a princess. King Auberg smiled and said the crown would go to whoever married first.
Sometimes, Merrigan just could not understand men.
Then she had bigger problems to worry about.
The next morning, Prince Bayl and Prince Bryan of Sylvanglade walked into the orphanage, and announced Prince Aubrey had asked them to come help. After the previous invasion of princes, the foster parents were naturally hesitant to accept them. However, the brothers had a letter from Aubrey. He had met them several times during his travels working for Gilbrick. They had always been kind, and because they had been touched by a curse themselves, they recognized him as a fellow prince. Their friendship and support had helped make the years of obscurity bearable. Since Aubrey would now be busy with his royal duties and unable to spend as much time at the orphanage as he wished, he asked his two good friends to take his place. Besides, they were without a kingdom or home.
"None of us are getting any younger," Bayl said with a half-smile and a shrug. Nasius had read Aubrey's letter aloud to all the adults gathered around the table in the kitchen, where they could have a little bit of privacy.
"Why did you wait so long after the wedding to make contact?" Garber, who taught the boys carpentry and leatherworking and arranged for apprenticeships, rarely spoke. Merrigan was glad he did this time, because the same question had been circling through her thoughts.
"Quite frankly," Bryan said, speaking for the first time, "those good-for-nothings who gave you trouble the other day. We would have come right after the wedding. We were going to introduce ourselves to you at the wedding, and follow you home, but they saw us before we saw them." He glanced at his older brother, visibly hesitant.
"It's all right, Bri," Bayl said. "I was ... I loved a princess once, but I was unworthy of her. She was disgusted by all the younger sons of kings who saw her throne but never saw her. Those seven were hunting her. Our paths have crossed too many times over the years, and they've been so frustrated in their quest to force her to marry one of them, they take it out on me. Us." He nodded to Bryan. "I don't know what I would have done all these years, without my brother's strength and encouragement. Those scoundrels know I would like nothing better than to find her and rescue her from them. We didn't want them following us here and assuming that my princess is here."
Merrigan wanted to believe him, that fate had brought Bayl of Sylvanglade to the orphanage just when Belinda had been freed from her tormenters. Still, she was relieved when the other foster parents took the responsibility to doubt and to question and to make sure there were no holes or thin spots in their story.
She had brought Bib to the meeting to check over the princes in his own way. She knew as soon as they introduced themselves that giving Belinda and Bayl their happily-ever-after just could not be this easy. There had to be more codicils and nasty tricks, especially considering the rivalry between those useless princes and these two worthwhile ones. While she would have liked nothing better than to slap the borrowed tiara onto Belinda's head, yank away the disguise talisman, and send her running into Bayl's arms, Merrigan knew better.
You were right to be cautious, Bib said, after sitting on the end of the table for nearly two hours. There is a fine net of inimical magic that has been woven around those two for so long, it has soaked into them. Thanks to exposure to the pea soup tracking magic, I can verify that this interference spell comes from the same source. Belinda's two sisters want to make sure she and her prince either never find each other, or don't enjoy their triumph when they do.
"What do we do? Is it safe to have Bayl here?" Merrigan whispered. She was so furious over being right, and the nasty spoiled brat attitude of Belinda's sisters, she couldn't focus enough to converse in her thoughts.
I believe as long as he does not identify Belinda, they should both be safe. I will need time to focus and research, and perhaps consult with Bergomass. First, though, I need to study the prince for a good long time. I am sorry.
"Don't be. A delay is far preferable to eternal separation."
In the end, the adults decided to accept the princes' help, on a trial basis. They agreed none of the children would be told the two men were princes, only that they were friends of their beloved Aubrey. Later, after the brothers were taken off to settle them, Merrigan had another thought.
Bryan of Sylvanglade had looked her in the eye. He had complimented her on handling those scoundrel princes so well.
He hadn't recognized her.
Well, how could he? Everyone but Bib and Belinda knew her as Mara, and despite the flattery of her friends, Merrigan knew she looked nothing like the young woman she had been. She had seen her face in the mirror. Bryan would never recognize her.
The years had been very kind to Bryan. Generous, in fact. She had admired the boy he had been, athletic, rugged, cheerful and kind, always smiling. No threat of overwhelming handsomeness. He showed the wear and weathering that was only natural for a prince whose kingdom had been swallowed up by a curse. Merrigan wished she had met the princess Bryan's oldest brother had brought home, in an attempt to sidestep the curse. She would like to take the selfish featherhead and slap her until she finally woke up and thought about others for a change, instead of herself.
Then she would like to find the twit's royal parents and give them a good scolding that would scorch not just their ears but their clothes. How dare they foist their curse off on some innocent king's family, putting his kingdom under the curse they should have been dealing with? Didn't they have any sense of responsibility? Magic was chancy, nasty, and a stickler for the rules. Anyone who tried to get around it got in even more trouble than if they had simply stood up straight and taken their lumps and faced the requirements of breaking the spell.
Oh, but Bryan did look good. He looked like a prince, no matter how plain his clothes, no matter the wrinkles around his eyes, the signs of a life lived on the road, fending for himself. Merrigan imagined he was a great comfort to Bayl, supporting him as he searched for Belinda.
Consider it a fresh start, Bib said in the quiet of the night, after Merrigan was finally able to climb into her bed and let her achy-weary limbs relax. Sleep threatened on dizzy waves that she welcomed with pleasure.
Fresh start in what? Merrigan closed her eyes and wished he wasn't quite such a talkative talking book.
Your friendship with your prince.
He was never mine.
He could be now.
Focus on making everything safe for Belinda and Bayl. They've both suffered enough to deserve some happiness, don't you think?
What about you? Haven't you suffered enough?
Ask Clara. Merrigan rolled over and pulled her pillow over her head. Not that it would really help. But he did take the hint.
~~~~~
THE SEAMSTRESSES SETTLED down to get to work on holiday clothes for everyone in the orphanage. Although the first snows weren't due for several more weeks, they had to get to work now, because there were quite a lot of children to clothe. Merrigan looked forward to the enormous project, with such a wide variety of cloth and colors and all the supplies she would need. The children would be so excited, she knew. They were intelligent and aware enough to know the difference between the abundance of clothes that had been showered on them when Aubrey was restored to his position as prince, and the new clothes they would receive at the winter festivities. The difference between something adjusted and adapted for them, and something made for them. The donations showered on the orphanage warehouse continued, though slowed down to a more manageable flow. They had a nice stockpile of shoes and boots and coats. All the children had a change of nightshirts, so laundry day wasn't a mad scramble to get everything washed and dried by nighttime. They each had an outfit for chores and everyday wear, and an outfit for special occasions, such as when the king and other high-ranking or wealthy friends came to visit.
"What are you smiling about?" Belinda said, her voice threatening to grow loud enough to be a wail.
"I'm sorry—I was just gloating over all the goodies we have to work with," Merrigan said, patting the other princess's hand. "It's funny, but I've never been proud of anything but myself before. I like being proud of our home, of the children, all that we managed to do before we gained wealthy patrons."
"Hmm, I suppose so." She blotted her eyes with a visibly wet handkerchief. "He hates me," she whispered.
"Who hates you?"
"Bayl." Her voice dropped to a squeaky whisper.
"How can he hate you when he doesn't recognize you? You're wearing an illusion spell, remember?"
"But—but—he avoids looking at me. Every time I try to talk to him, he excuses himself and gets away as fast as he can. He won't look me in the eye, even when he's standing right there in front of me." Belinda looked around at the other girls. Her desperate whispers had been covered by the crunching of scissors going through cloth and the excited chatter as the sewing teams matched trimmings and buttons to cloth.
"Don't be a goose." Merrigan gestured with her chin at the girls on the other side of the table, since her hands were full pinning a skirt together for basting. "If you weren't so busy avoiding him half the time, and the other time pushing yourself into his face, desperate for him to recognize you despite that very good illusion spell, you'd notice that all the girls over the age of thirteen are nigh on drooling over him."
"Oh, I noticed." The whine slid into a growl.