Raphael reached into his pocket for a small bottle filled with what he hoped would be his most important elixir yet.
“Hold out your hands,” he said.
Grimm did as he was told and Raphael tipped the elixir into Grimm’s palms. Having done this before, Grimm knew what to do and rubbed his hands together as he drew in the scent.
“Doesn’t smell any different to the last one,” he said.
Raphael rolled his eyes. “That’s because I tweaked it. I didn’t reinvent the whole thing. Now, spin around twelve times.”
“Twelve! Last time it was only ten.”
“Stop complaining, Your Majesty,” teased Raphael.
“Sorry, Uncle.”
Grimm turned in a circle, counting as he went, his feet getting wobbly after the eighth turn. Raphael walked slowly around him in the opposite direction. It was important Grimm didn’t know which direction the apothecary was located.
“Twelve.” Grimm came to a stop and tried to steady himself as he drew in the scent on his hands again.
Raphael stood quietly behind him, waiting to see in which direction he’d set off.
Grimm sniffed at the air, turning his head from left to right, before taking off in exactly the right direction for the apothecary.
Raphael punched the air. It was working! Grimm had never been so certain of which direction to go before.
“Stop!” called Raphael, just as Grimm walked into a tree. “Sorry!”
“Would you just hold my arm, for goodness sake?” Grimm rubbed his forehead and cursed.
“But I don’t want to accidentally lead you. I need to know you can find your way on your own.”
“You’ll be finding your way on your own in a moment.” Grimm held out his arm and Raphael took hold of his elbow.
He needed Grimm’s help with this. He’d just have to be careful not to influence his direction.
“Smell the elixir again,” said Raphael.
“That love potion you make me had better be good.” Grimm scowled and set off again, walking a little faster now that he had the reassurance of Raphael’s hand.
“I never said I was going to make you a love potion. I’ve told you before that you can’t force love. One day you’ll find a woman able to put up with someone as annoying as you without any need for a magic potion.” Raphael steered Grimm gently away from a tree, careful to set him back in the direction he’d been heading.
“That was my one condition if I helped you with this stupid homing elixir!” Grimm complained. “You can’t back out.”
Raphael sighed, not wanting to argue about this right now. Maybe he’d tinker with some kind of love potion for Grimm when he got back to the apothecary. It couldn’t be too difficult. Just as long as it was one that enhanced genuine feelings of love and not one that manufactured feelings. Their kingdom had experienced enough damage at the hands of such an elixir before and it had nearly cost Raphael his life.
Grimm continued in the direction of the apothecary and with each step they took, Raphael felt his heart beat just that little bit faster. It was working!
But no sooner than he’d congratulated himself for perfecting the elixir, Grimm turned, then continued in the wrong direction. Damn it! Something still wasn’t quite right.
“I’ve stuffed it up, haven’t I?” asked Grimm.
“How did you know?”
“By the way you just huffed!” Grimm tore off his blindfold.
“I didn’t huff.”
“There was a definite huff. A distinct exhaling of air.”
Raphael sighed again and caught himself.
“See! Like that,” said Grimm.
“Okay, okay! I huffed. It doesn’t matter, anyway. You did turn. What happened? Why did you turn? Can you explain it to me?”
“I’m not sure. I started out certain that I was going the right way, but then, I don’t know, all of a sudden, I lost the scent. I doubted myself and made a turn I shouldn’t have.”
“You doubted yourself. Interesting…Maybe we need more bergamot.”
“Let’s get back to the apothecary,” said Grimm. “That’s enough today. I’m starving.”
Raphael nodded. That was fair enough. Grimm was a good sport helping him out. The least he could do was let the poor guy eat.
“You can’t save everyone, Raph.” Grimm patted him on the back as they walked. “Don’t look so disappointed.”
“I know,” he said, thinking of all the children who’d vanished right from under their parents’ noses, including Princess Lily of Forte Cadence. Nobody was safe. “But I have to try something! Jazz is never going to let my poor nephews leave the palace for fear they’ll disappear.”
“Nobody’s going to take those little horrors away from Jasmine,” said Grimm, laughing. “They’d return them in five minutes flat. Especially Clary!”
“Leave Clary alone.” Raphael laughed, although he knew Grimm loved those three boys as much as he did. They were spirited, that was all, mainly due to the fact their mother watched over them like a hawk. It wasn’t natural to keep young boys so cooped up. They wanted to run in the fields and climb trees and throw rocks at each other. Their father, King Ari, wasn’t much better, hovering around them—the brooding hen to Jasmine’s hawk.
This was why the homing elixir was so important. He had to find a way to protect the children so the next child who was taken would be able to find their way home. Jasmine wanted him to invent one that would tell them where Princess Lily was, but that seemed impossible. She’d been gone for too long now. Besides, there was only one of her. He needed to protect the many children within his reach, not chase after one missing girl. Just because she was a Princess, it didn’t make her any more important than an ordinary child. Both their mothers would miss them equally.
“Food!” said Grimm, when the apothecary came into sight.
“This is why you could never be an Alchemist,” said Raphael. “You’d eat all your ingredients before you could make a single elixir.”
“Harsh!” Grimm laughed. “But probably true.”
Surrounded by lush gardens bursting with colorful flowers and fruit, the apothecary was a stark contrast to the dark forest. Raphael was certain he could find his way back here from anywhere in the world, with or without an elixir. This garden was a part of him, just as he felt like he was part of it.
“You go on to the house.” Raphael pointed to the small home he’d lived in all his life. “There’s plenty of food in the kitchen. Come and find me in my workshop when you’re done.”
“You want anything?” Grimm quickened his pace. “You could look like me if only you ate a bit more.”
Raphael shook his head, laughing, not at all keen to swap his lean frame with Grimm’s rounded belly. “I’m fine, thanks.”
The friends parted and Raphael went to the apothecary, smiling as he passed the women working in the garden. They smiled back, with genuine love in their eyes for their Alchemist.
That was how his life was. He was surrounded by love, yet he sometimes felt like the loneliest man in the kingdom. Because when he saw Jasmine with her King, he couldn’t help but wish for the same kind of relationship for himself. Someone special he could love, who would love him in return. Not because he was her Alchemist, but because he was the one who set her heart alight.
Perhaps Grimm’s love potion idea wasn’t so foolish after all. At any rate, it might keep him quiet for a while.
He went to his workshop and studied his shelves, removing several small bottles and setting them down on his bench.
He picked up his favorite mixing dish and added a few drops of neroli, then some rose and ylang-ylang. Taking a sniff, he watched the oils mingle with each other on the dish. It wasn’t quite right. He went and got some lavender, adding that to the mix, and on a whim, he reached to the back of his shelf for some oil of the lily flower, quietly thanking the missing princess for reminding him of this rarely used fragrance.
Taking a small spoon, he stirr
ed the oil, breathing in the fragrance as he went. It was beautiful. One of his most delicate elixirs yet.
Closing his eyes, he leaned over the bench and drew in more of the scent.
Then it hit him. Not the scent but an image in his mind so clear it was impossible to ignore.
A girl with long red hair was calling to him. She was wearing a pale blue dress and sitting on the sandy floor of an ocean, the raging sea above her and a purple crystal glowed in her hands. Her hair was floating in all directions and desperation leeched out of her eyes. She was so sad, so beautiful, so… clear. And as vivid as she was to him, somehow, he knew he was just as vivid to her. Almost like she could see him, standing in his workshop staring into a dish.
She reached out to him and the dish dropped from his hands and clattered to the ground, spilling the elixir on the floor and filling his workshop with what was unmistakably the scent of a Princess who needed his help. Because there was no doubt in his mind that his vision had been one of Princess Lily, almost as if his earlier thoughts of her had somehow conjured her into his workshop.
He reminded himself of all the other children who needed his help and instead of believing in his heart that this was where his focus should be, for the first time a slither of doubt crept in.
“Lily,” he said, aloud, testing her name on his lips. “Lily.”
LILY
THE BEFORE
Lily brushed her hair, being careful the brush didn’t catch on any of the numerous knots she’d acquired while diving under the ocean. She had the same long red hair as Mother, which was no doubt why Father had selected her to be their daughter.
But apart from their hair, she really didn’t look even a bit like Mother. Mother was short and rail-thin. Lily was tall and lined with fine muscle from her swimming and chores. Mother had a long pointed nose and Lily’s was…normal. Mother’s eyes were the palest of blue—almost translucent. Lily’s eyes were dark. Mother’s skin was white like the foam on the ocean. Lily’s skin had been kissed by the sun and glowed like the golden calcite stones set into the window frame in the kitchen. Once Mother’s hair turned gray, there’d be no similarity between them left. And that was exactly what Lily hoped for.
“I want my treasure back,” Mother whimpered.
“We’ll find it one day.” Lily removed another knot from her hair. “Would you like me to brush your hair? It might make you feel better.”
“Don’t touch me! You know I don’t like to be touched.” Mother’s voice turned hard. Her moods switched more frequently than the tides of the ocean and with far less warning.
“I’m sorry, Mother.” Lily continued to brush her own hair, hoping the tide would drag them into less treacherous waters.
“I’m ready for my bedtime story now, Angel.”
Lily returned the brush to its place on Mother’s curved dressing table, remembering a time when her real mother had told her stories as she’d fallen asleep. If she ever managed to get back to her, she was certain her mother wouldn’t ask Lily to make up any stories. Her fake mother didn’t seem to know if she wanted to be the mother or the child and oscillated between the two roles with as much ease as her moods.
Mother lay down on top of her circular bed, which had been shaped to fit snugly into the curved wall of the lighthouse. Most of the furniture was the same, having been custom-built for a Queen who refused to live anywhere else. The room itself was decorated mainly in blue quartz to calm Mother’s nerves, although the color gave off a rather cool effect. Lily preferred the red jasper stones that lined the walls of her own bedchamber.
She went to the window and closed the shutters, then sat down on the quartz-lined chair next to the bed, deciding which story she’d tell Mother tonight. Sometimes she made up her stories and other times she recited the stories her mother had told her as a child. Her mother’s favorite was the story of a girl with long hair locked in a tower, a story that Lily could certainly relate to, but her own favorite was the story of another girl who was desperate to escape.
“Once upon a time, there was a beautiful girl named Ella. She lived with her mother and father in a faraway kingdom…” Lily paused, pushing away thoughts of the time she’d also lived like this.
“Go on, Angel.” Mother’s eyes were wide and eager to hear a story she knew by heart.
“But sadly, one day Ella’s mother died and her father remarried a young widow. They lived happily together until the day Ella’s father also died and she was left in the care of her stepmother.”
“I like this bit.” Mother’s eyes twinkled.
“Almost immediately, the stepmother started bossing Ella around and making her do the chores in the house, all the time complaining and moaning about how she was doing them wrong.”
Lily paused and looked at Mother as she always did in this part of the story, wondering if maybe she’d recognize herself in this sad tale. She never lifted a finger in this lighthouse, making Lily do everything for her.
“What a horrible person,” said Mother. “Poor Ella!”
Resisting the urge to roll her eyes, Lily continued. “One day, there was a ball at the palace and all the young ladies in the kingdom were invited as the Prince was looking for a bride. He was a handsome Prince, with golden hair that shone like moonbeams and eyes the color of the sky.”
“The Prince has black hair!” Mother crossed her arms and pouted. “He’s always had black hair.”
“He has golden hair now,” said Lily. “And fair skin and sad eyes and a tall, lean frame.”
“You can’t change the Prince.” Mother’s pout deepened.
“This is how he’s always looked.” Lily did her best to smile in a reassuring manner. “I just didn’t realize it until now.”
“Go on then, Angel! Get on with it.” Mother didn’t like it when her pauses stretched out. “But the Prince really does have black hair.”
“Ella desperately wanted to go to the party, but her stepmother wouldn’t let her, afraid that if she left the house, she’d never come back and who’d mend her dresses and sweep her floor and cook her meals if that happened? So, Ella stayed in her small room in the attic and looked out at the palace from her window.”
“Then the Fairy Godmother came!” Mother clapped her hands and sat up on her bed.
“That’s right,” said Lily. “Ella heard a noise in her room and when she turned around there was a Fairy Godmother standing there, holding a wand with a purple amethyst on the tip.”
“My lost treasure,” said Mother, looking toward the window, as if a Fairy Godmother really had her amethyst instead of it lying between some rocks on the ocean floor.
“The Fairy Godmother waved her wand and a puff of smoke filled the attic. When it cleared and Ella looked down, she was wearing a beautiful dress and a pair of slippers made from crystal that the Fairy Godmother said would fit only her feet.”
“What kind of crystal?” asked Mother, even though she already knew.
“Leumarian seeded crystal to reawaken her spirit,” said Lily.
“Rare.” Mother shook her head, with a greedy look in her eyes. “I only have a dozen of them. I need more.”
“The Fairy Godmother told Ella she must return by the time the moon reached the highest point in the sky, otherwise her dress would turn to soot and her slippers would become stuck to her feet. Then she waved her wand again and Ella found herself flying out her window directly to the palace. She was set down outside the ballroom and went immediately inside without looking back once.”
“Then the Prince saw her!” Mother held her breath, waiting.
“That’s right. He saw Ella and fell immediately in love. They danced and danced and Ella was so happy, until she caught sight of the moon dangerously high in the sky. She dashed from the ballroom and into the garden to take off her slippers. The first one came off easily, but the second was stuck fast. She ran behind a tree just as her dress turned to soot, leaving her cold, dirty, and naked, wearing only one slipper.”
“Poor Ella!” Mother looked genuinely sad for her as she shook her head.
“Yes, poor Ella had no choice but to pick up a fallen branch to cover herself, accidentally dropping her slipper in the process.”
“Her leumarian slipper,” corrected Mother.
“That’s right.” Sometimes Lily thought Mother knew the details of this story better than she did.
“Go on,” urged Mother.
“Hearing the Prince calling for her, she ran all the way home hoping nobody saw her.”
“She must go back for the slipper!” Mother raked at her hair. “She should never have left it.”
“She did go back,” said Lily. “Early the next morning, she snuck out of the house and went back to the palace hoping to find a way into the garden. Although the slippers had been comfortable when she’d worn them as a pair, it was difficult to walk wearing just one of them.”
“The slippers are a pair.” Mother’s voice was wistful. “They belong together.”
“Ella was surprised to find a long line of women queuing at the palace gates. She joined the queue, hoping to sneak inside. But as she got close to the front, she gasped to see the guards were holding her missing slipper! The guards were asking each of the women to try it on, but no matter how much they tried, they couldn’t get it to fit. A few of the women noticed Ella wearing the matching slipper and they pushed her to the front of the line, where she eased her foot into the shoe. The slippers sparkled to be back on her feet, together once more.”
“Did they shine with bright light?” asked Mother.
“They sparkled,” said Lily, wishing Mother would listen more carefully. Every time she told this story, Mother would ask this question and Lily was determined not to change it from how her mother had told it to her.
“The slippers sparkled and Ella found her one true love.” Mother smiled, looking toward the window, as if her own true love was coming for her.
“That’s right. So, the guards called for the Prince and he came running from the palace and swept Ella into his arms. They got married and lived happily ever after. And not once did Ella check to see what became of her awful stepmother, who’d been right about not wanting to let her out of the house, because she never went back.”
The Kingdoms of Evernow Box Set Page 91