He smiled at me in response.
“You,” I whispered before I kissed him again. “Always you.”
Chapter Five
*Present Day*
The young women had no answers for me. It appeared that they were unwilling to kill me outright, but they were wary of me and my motives. I could not imagine the situation in which I would have been able to injury myself so grievously and leave myself in a dark hole in the middle of nowhere. But that fact did not sway them towards sympathy past what they had already offered me.
There was something about this place that felt all wrong. I was learning to pay attention to that feeling. This time it made me keep quiet until I had a better understanding of what was happening here.
The women were quietly busy for much of the morning, though most of their work was hidden from my view. I did see preparations of herbs and the occasional sound of metal dragging, which I couldn’t place at all.
None of these things fit with my idea of twelve light-hearted, even mischievous princesses running away to dance all night, away from the control of their father.
These women were serious. They were frightened.
At the very least they were protecting and hiding me. That wasn’t expected princess behavior.
But from who?
Any attempt I made to ask questions was greeted by silence and sideways glances. They didn’t know how far they could trust me.
So, I decided to be as unobtrusive and unthreatening as possible. I tried to ask fewer questions.
One thing I noticed quickly: these women were extremely organized. They didn’t have to ask each other how to complete their tasks, they just did them, usually in groups of two or three. They moved efficiently and effectively in all tasks.
Most of what they spent the day doing was outside of my view. I knew that they slept at some point, for they announced as much before they disappeared up a long flight of stairs for several hours. And then they returned and hurried around outside of my view again.
What I could see is the girls taking turns treating and bandaging each other’s feet. I wasn’t close enough to see the damage, but from the wincing and hisses, the injuries were more than just blisters. They caught me looking and moved so I could see even less of what they were doing.
One of the girls brought me more stew. This was Caroline, a girl with dark hair that had a band of white curling through it on one side and grey, storm-cloud eyes. She frowned slightly as I ate. I didn’t have much appetite.
She pressed the inside of her wrist against my forehead with an impressive air of competence and then frown deepened. “Where is the pain the worst?”
“My side,” I told her, “right here. And my wrist. And my head, if I move it.”
She bit her bottom lip thoughtfully. “I can wrap up the wrist and splint it to support it, but I’m not skilled enough for your ribs. If only Olivia…” She shook her head sharply. “No. No use wishing for the impossible. Do you want something for the pain?”
I hesitated. I wanted something, badly. I wasn’t sure it was a good idea for me to be fuzzy and muddled in the way most pain draughts left me.
“I guess not,” I decided.
Caroline’s eyebrow rose in what I thought might be surprise and maybe a little approval. She understood the need for mental clarity.
But why?
“We have to go eat with the king,” she said. It was only because I was watching her face closely that I saw the distaste on her face when she mentioned the word king. Her lips twisted as if she were tasting something particularly nasty. “Then we have to get ready for night.”
If I was right about where I was, she had to mean they hand to get ready for the nightly ball.
I had never seen a woman look so bitter and resigned over a night of dancing. I knew she wouldn’t answer my questions, so I didn’t ask.
She set to cleaning my wrist with a bath of astringent-smelling herbs. Once my wrist was clean, she wrapped it with linen strips with a pair of clean, straight sticks to hold my wrist in place. It was a neat, competent job. Obviously, she had done something like this before.
“If you decide you can trust me,” I said spontaneously, “I do want to help. I know you’re not ready, but know that I am willing once you are.”
She eyed me seriously. “It is hard for the people of this land to trust a Fairy Godmother,” she said. That was it. She checked my bandage one last time and walked away.
Her words disturbed me greatly. Here was another land that knew about Godparents and, worse, feared them. What had my incompetent uncle done?
I hobbled back to my borrowed cot in the little room I’d apparently stolen from its usual inhabitant. I drifted in and out of sleep for a few hours. My pain wouldn’t let me stay asleep for long. I couldn’t turn or move without triggering a whole chain reaction until I was breathless from pain.
I wondered for a moment if I might die.
Then I decided that I hadn’t died yet and it was foolish to borrow trouble.
Around midnight I heard rustling and the sound of many feet shuffling or walking slowly.
I crawled out of my cot, hissing a bit, and peeked out of the door into the main hall.
There, highlighted by the fire in the fireplace, shadows trouped across the wall, disappearing from view.
I paused for only a moment. Curiosity and concern outweighed my physical needs. My urgency to understand what was happening here overruled even my pain.
I found a dark cloak on a hook on the wall of the tiny room. It was too big and smelled very strongly of some sort of equine, though strangely sweet and appealing at the same time. I pulled the cloak around me and the hood over my head. As quietly as I could manage, I shuffled after the retreating shadows.
It took me several minutes to catch up with the traveling line of princesses. My ribs protested at my quickened breathing, but I persisted. The princesses were disappearing into a door in the floor when I finally got close enough to see them and not just their disembodied shadows.
I managed to rush ahead and catch the trapdoor right before it latched again. My ribs screamed as I strained to hold it open long enough for me to be able to follow the young women undetected. Once I thought they would be far enough away, but not too far, I heaved the door up and slipped inside.
Thankfully, there I found a series of stairs, not ladders, leading the way into the depths. I wasn’t sure I could be able to climb down a ladder in my condition. Stairs I would manage.
I followed the sounds of their rustling skirts and scuff of dancing slippers on the stone floor. I hurried ahead, clinging to the wall in case someone might glance back see me. Either one of the women or anyone else who might be involved. If anyone was hiding in the shadows, I didn’t want them to notice me.
Familiar as I was with the way this pattern was supposed to work when it was done properly, I was not surprised to find myself trailing behind the girls on a sharp path surrounded on both sides by strange fruit trees with leaves, flowers and fruit growing of the most exquisite jewels and gems.
I broke off a small branch, the way I had in my dream. When I looked down, it looked exactly like the branch that I had held when I had awakened from that dream. The thought made me dizzy. Or maybe it was from all the walking. My body was begging me to rest, but I couldn’t stop.
I was close enough to the women now that I could see they truly looked like princesses, far more so than they’d appeared when in their day dresses. They were all wearing spectacular ballgowns now, each one more brilliant and opulent than the next. They were dripping with jewelry. Gems hung from their gowns, from their fingers and necks and ears, and were braided into their hair. This meant that every beam of light, no matter how faint, lit the princesses up as if the lights themselves were living, breathing, stars right out of the sky.
It was a breathtaking spectacle.
Leigh, the youngest princess, looked back over her shoulder. Her curls had been gathered up on the top of her head an
d adorned with diamonds and pearls. Her dress was white and pink froth, echoing the ornaments in her hair. I thought for a moment that she had seen me, but she made no indication if she had. She didn’t call out to her sisters or slow her step.
So, I followed on.
The princesses came to a long lake. The shore was lit by a series of lanterns, which reflected against the still water. In the lake there awaited, not the series of small boats that I had expected from tradition, but one larger ship. It had a long, graceful prow and was set on all sides with rows of oars. I tried to believe the face of a dragon set on the prow was a sign of good luck.
One ship would make things easier for me, I hoped.
I whispered out to Magic. I could feel it in this place, for the first time since my injury, but it felt strange, restricted. Still, it was a relief to feel again, even so constrained. If I could take the place of the usual hero, spying on the princesses, then maybe I would be able to get onto that ship unseen.
Whether it was Magic, luck, or some other force at work, I followed the princesses up the wide gangplank and was able to sit in the shadows on the ship unseen as it set off on a hundred unmanned oars towards the distant shore.
Up until now, everything had been done in the dark. The pathway had been unlit. Other than the few lanterns on the shore, the lake was also unlit.
But there was no mistaking where we were headed. Our destination was lit up so brightly my eyes stung and teared up when I first looked upon it. Columns and arches, dripping with jewel-flowered ivy, surrounded a great pavilion.
Even from a distance, I could see the enormous house-sized chandeliers which lit up the floor of the ballroom below. The floor was made of polished stone framed by veins of gold.
The distant vision became even more decadent and brilliant the closer we came. Rich fabrics billowed out on a breeze that blew out over the lake. I could see velvets and brocades and silks…. The princesses had looked overdressed on the path, but now they seemed dull and plain in comparison to their surroundings.
The princesses swept down from the ship and I followed like a slightly deeper shadow among the others the chandeliers threw.
Each of the princesses was met by a handsome man dressed to match his partner. Leigh, I saw, was met by Gabriel, as unrecognizable in his fine breeches and tunic as the lady was in her wide skirts and made-up face.
While the partners were distracted, I hurried into the shadows outside the pavilion and found a place between two curtains where I felt sure I could hide and not be seen.
The ball proceeded just as I had seen it in my dream. The princesses smiled and danced, twirling and swaying with their heads held high. Their posture was perfect, their movements full of grace.
The walls were lined with banquet tables loaded with food and drink. I could smell the exotic perfumes and spices from here. But none of the dancers ate or drank anything.
I rested my chin on the hand with my good wrist and watched.
In the hours that followed, I saw the beauty stripped bare to show what this display truly was—these dancers were being tortured. Their smiles never slipped from their faces, their steps never faltered. Their slippers fell to pieces as they danced, but they danced on until their feet bled. And still they smiled, still they danced, beautiful agony in every line.
They had no choice. They were caught in a very tight, very precise piece of advanced spell work. I had missed it at first, but soon it revealed itself to me. This place was a factory, and the dancers were providing the power.
To what end? I could not tell. All I could see was that Magic bound the dancers here, and that an enormous amount of Magic—dark, tainted power—was being generated and siphoned off. To where, I could not determine.
When the night was gone and dawn approached, the princesses walked back to their ship, while I followed after. Up the path we went, through the trap door, and into the room where I had first seen them.
Only then did the Magic let them go. Only then did they groan and weep and limp. Then, they sat with the bundles and herbs they had prepared all day, and they bathed and treated their feet and drank and ate as if they were on the point of expiring.
From what I had seen, that was nearly the truth.
I pushed back my hood, full of what I had seen, trying to see a weakness in the web they were caught in.
“Well, Godmother?” Diedre said, turning her head towards me. Her face was drawn with exhaustion. She did not appear surprised to see that I had followed them. “What do you think of what you saw?”
“I have never seen such a great perversion of Magic in my life,” I answered immediately. I hobbled to the closest available chair and sat down. I hadn’t even been one of the dancers, and yet I was exhausted. My whole body was trembling with fatigue and pain. “This is not the way this tradition works.”
Bella snorted softly. “Nothing here is as tradition would suggest,” she told me.
“We should never have been called to this path,” Erika muttered, wincing over a particularly bad gash on her foot. I winced, wondering if it might need stitching.
“We are not princesses,” Isolde said, bending over her bleeding feet and washing them carefully.
“And we are not sisters,” Kayla added.
“We are prisoners,” Joette said.
Caroline turned to stare me directly in the eyes. “Do you still think you can help us?”
Chapter Six
*Days Earlier*
“Please see me later,” Dallan said, his lips hovering only a slight space from mine.
I smiled and kissed him quickly. “Once I am done checking on my newest kingdoms, I will be home. I’m planning on flying by just a few places. Maybe I can figure out what Ferdie did to mess things up. Even for him, the incompetence is astounding.”
“I don’t care how late it is,” Dallan murmured with a rare lapse of his usually nearly dour personality. His expression was fully earnest. “I just want to spend time with you.”
I was afraid my responding grin bordered on lunatic in width. I felt at least two centuries younger when he looked at me like that. I felt… giddy.
But my mother’s criticisms still rang in my ears. She didn’t believe that I could handle Ferdie’s kingdoms. Not without the help of much older and more established Fairy Godparents. Much as I wanted to linger here with Dallan, I needed to prove myself. I didn’t want to become someone because of him. I needed to do it myself. I wanted to be acknowledged for my own successes, so we could always see each other as equals.
Not that I would ever measure to the same grand heights as Justice and Mercy. But I wanted to stand tall enough on my own feet that no one could accuse me of using him to advance myself.
Not that he would ever believe such slander.
I just… never wanted it to become true.
We were sitting in my carriage, just outside of my house. Dallan sat across from me, on the very edge of his seat so that his knees and mine touched. He held both of my hands in his, between us. His short-cropped hair fell across his strong forehead like a shadow.
The expression in his silver eyes stole my breath and reason. What did the look mean? I desperately wanted to know.
Thankfully, my self-control was not to be tested just now. I would probably have failed dramatically. Dallan respected my words and moved to open the carriage door. “If you don’t mind, I’ll wait here for you,” he suggested, closing the door behind him and leaning through the window. “If you and the house don’t object, I may even explore the library.”
“That sounds marvelous,” I agreed. “I will be back as soon as I reasonably can. You know me, there’s nearly always something going awry.”
“That is never your fault,” Dallan said seriously.
“At least, not so far.” I leaned forward to kiss him again. I couldn’t resist. The way he smiled at me when we parted made me feel young and girlish.
I watched out the window as we pulled away from my house again. I could see Dalla
n stand there until we were out of sight.
It was strange how delightful it felt to have someone there to miss me and to look forward to my return.
I spent the rest of the afternoon visiting the kingdoms that had once been under Ferdie’s management. In each place, I made sure to disguise myself so I could get a feel for each spell and how the kingdoms were progressing. There were issues there, silly ones, really. They were the sort of problems that seemed too idiotic to be genuine, but too absurd to fake. And to what purpose?
I saved my favorite spell on the list for last. It was a simple path, designed to find a good king for a land. It required a young man, usually a soldier, to follow some princesses around for three nights, while solving some very simple puzzles and avoiding some traps and pitfalls. The man would then report to the king and marry a princess and the land would get an influx of new blood and a king who was slightly more competent than most who were born to the throne.
Magic loved to reward deserving young people, especially if they were clever.
Even Ferdie, I figured, could not have utterly mishandled this spell. How could he? It was simple and straight forward. There was nothing that could go wrong. He literally only had to show up with a tip for the potential spell-breaker and the Magic would take care of the rest.
I wasn’t familiar with the territory that I entered. It was set in an archipelago with a long rich history, but one that did not usually include fairies. I’d heard tales of great warriors and almost-gods or almost-fae that lived in these parts.
But I had never visited myself.
The area was made up of thousands upon thousands of islands. Most of them were small, the inhabited ones serving as home for a few families at the most. The area where I was headed was a series of twelve islands that were much closer together than the others. From the air, they formed a crescent shape, like the shape of a dwindling moon. Ships of all sizes and silhouettes filled the center of that three-quarter ring of great islands. I could see ports on each isle, with abundant cities.
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