by Allison Tebo
“Someone’s arrived.” Burndee looked around wildly. “I’d—I’d better go see what’s happening.” Burndee could feel his eye twitching almost uncontrollably.
“Now wait a minute—”
“Hide in the rose bushes,” Burndee ordered distractedly as he hurried away down the path. “And don’t talk to anyone, or even to yourself. I’ll be back.”
“Burndee, you can’t just leave me here like this!” Colin yelled after him, utterly ignoring his godfather’s instructions to be quiet.
Burndee charged through the grounds again, panting and disheveled. He rounded the corner of the Hall and paused by an ornamental hedge to catch his breath and take stock of the situation before him.
A carriage was parked in the driveway with a manservant sitting at the reins. A gentleman dressed like a magistrate and a youth in messenger’s garb were standing in front of the carriage.
A man in the dark clothes of a butler greeted them. Burndee recognized him as Kreek, Windslow’s majordomo, but only because he had seen Windslow giving him frantic orders earlier, all of which had seemed to end with a shrill, “Did you get that, Kreek?”
As Burndee hurried up to them, Kreek turned with his deliberately stiff formality. “Ah, milord. May I introduce you to Magistrate Valyns? Your Honor, Lord Burndee Rosedale of Rose Hall.”
It still felt strange to hear people attributing a last name to him; Burndee had taken Ella’s last name when they married to better maintain his disguise as a human. He hastily inclined his head towards the wispy magistrate.
“A pleasure to meet you, Lord Burndee,” Valyns said with a benign smile, bobbing a graying-blond head that seemed far too large for his narrow shoulders.
“Er—er, a pleasure,” Burndee mumbled with an awkward cough.
“I can’t think what’s keeping Sir Windslow,” Kreek said with a nervous flutter. “I’m sure he’ll be here in but a moment, Your Honor.”
Noting the butler’s anxiety, Burndee did his best to assist him. “Yes, I’m sure he’s . . . around,” he offered lamely.
Kreek gazed at Burndee for a brief moment, taking in his bedraggled appearance, but when Burndee glared at him, he looked discreetly away and refrained from commenting. Valyns appeared to be biting the inside of his cheeks.
The young messenger was not as tactful. “What the blazes happened to you?” he asked with a mixture of curiosity and mockery, tacking on a belated, “Sir?”
“None of your ruddy business!” Burndee snapped. He took a closer look and realized the upstart was wearing a subtle decoration at his collar that Burndee recognized as fairy livery. “Eh.” Burndee took a step backwards, suddenly uncomfortable. “Who are you?”
The young fairy smirked at Burndee’s reaction—Burndee briefly considered pulling the boy’s nose right off his face—and held out a sealed envelope. “Excuse me, milord.” The boy gave a conspiratorial wink as he teased Burndee’s secret identity as a human nobleman. “I have a private message for you.”
Burndee reached out a hand for the letter the way he might reach for a hot coal, but when he saw the boy’s amused expression, he tore it from the fairy’s hand with an abruptness that induced a satisfying flinch from the youth.
Now what? Burndee thought uneasily, glancing at the envelope. Could it possibly be from Ella? Or an official report about Ella’s training progress?
Burndee turned towards Valyns with a desperate stab at politeness. “Your Honor, would you excuse me for a moment?”
“But of course.” Valyns smiled and offered a small bow. “I was about to have a word with my manservant.” And he turned back towards the carriage.
Burndee had started to swing away when he noticed the messenger still standing there, grinning at him. “What are you waiting for?” Burndee asked snidely, disdain dripping from his voice. “A tip?”
The messenger’s mocking expression disappeared, and he flushed with embarrassment and annoyance. “Any return message?” he asked in a more subdued voice.
Burndee could think of several messages he would like to send to the Council, but he swallowed them back and merely growled out, “Go. Away,” with a look that sent the boy retreating towards the front gate with satisfying rapidity.
Burndee swiveled on his heel and walked away, still tearing at the envelope, which would stick and delay his opening it, serving to make him increasingly nervous. As he moved away from the drive, he was aware of Windslow running down the front steps, shouting regrets and welcomes at the top of his voice.
Burndee stepped into the relative privacy of an arbor and finally tore the envelope open. He cast a wary eye over the document.
Master Burndee. It has come to the attention of the Committee of Internal Affairs that you have directly violated the Fairy Creed.
What the blazes are they talking about? Burndee thought irritably.
You are hereby charged with deliberate emotional harm to a human citizen, one Batenum P. Barnsworth, a highly respected town official, in direct violation of the standard bylaws of fairy magic, by willfully endangering a human citizen with said magic without just cause.
Just cause? Burndee fumed as the image of that revolting man resurfaced. That ridiculous little public official had behaved like a positive brute to Ella, railing at her in a completely uncalled-for manner. I had more than enough cause!
Burndee, covered in flour and soot from head to toe after the Magic Pumpkin Bakery’s ancient oven had blown up yesterday morning, had still been too stupefied by the explosion to interfere sooner. Perhaps if he had, the official might have shut up about Ella breaking the noise ordinance, and Burndee mightn’t have lost his temper. But the official had lost his own temper after a piece of dough had fallen from the ceiling and destroyed his hat, and he had begun bellowing in Ella’s face. The single tear of humiliation rolling down Ella’s face had caused Burndee to leap into action. The official hadn’t even known what had hit him.
This citizen, Batenum P. Barnsworth, turned himself in at an asylum last evening, pleading insanity. He claims to have been hallucinating after finding himself in the middle of Andvar’s harbor with a baby octopus entangled around his neck with no recollection as to how he got there. Our board of investigation has traced the occurrence back to you.
Burndee realized the paper was glowing—gradually getting harder to read. He had thought it was a trick of the sun.
According to standard procedure, you are hereby sentenced to a restraining order to be put in place immediately upon receipt of this message. You are subject to serve said punishment for the next twenty-four hours. Further violation will result in suspension—
The paper was suddenly hot in his hands, and Burndee started to slap the letter shut, but he was too late.
He was nearly blinded by a flash of sparkling light—a flash he knew was invisible to anyone but him as it filled his vision. It hit him with a physical force, smothering his face. Spell dust. He felt his mind and body grow sluggish and muddled.
Oh no. No. No, no, no!
Like a fool, he automatically rubbed the paper across his face, grasping at the inane thought that if he could just somehow recapture the dust and fold the letter shut he might reverse the spell . . .
He suddenly realized he was not alone. Valyns, standing beside the arbor and arrested in the middle of admiring some nearby flowers, stared at Burndee with astonishment. When Burndee stared back, Valyns colored and said politely, “I . . . just love scented paper too!”
Burndee answered him by tearing the note to shreds and scattering it like confetti before turning and storming away.
3
O f all the most diabolical luck. If he had simply waited ten minutes to open the blasted note, Colin would have been restored to his natural state and Burndee would still have some magic to spare.
He brushed spasmodically at his shoulders, but he couldn’t rid himself of the slightly sick feeling that was part of the Fairy Council’s spell.
What would Ella say if she found
out that Burndee had had a restraining order placed on him as if he were a naughty child forced to wear a dunce hat in school? He writhed inwardly. A squirrel started out of the rose bushes near him and leaped for a tree branch, chattering at him. The rodent sounded somehow mocking, and Burndee threw a stick at it, forcing the beast farther up into the tree.
He realized he had been pacing violently around the same flowerbeds for several minutes. He took off at a run, back towards the fountain where he had left Colin. A twenty-four-hour restraining spell still allowed him to perform one or two acts of magic during the time of punishment, in case of emergencies. No fairy would ever strip another fairy entirely of his or her last reserves of magic. He had just enough left to put Colin to rights and then, to be on the safe side, he would not lift a finger for the rest of the day. Weddings were always full of emergencies, and he might need his magic.
He would fix this mistake and be everything the Council wanted him to be—everything Ella expected him to be. The spell would be removed in the next twenty-four hours, Ella would be happy and proud at how he had behaved himself during this event, and everything would be all right. No one but the Council had to know about anything about this; he could hide it from Ella and everyone else. He had to.
He made his way back to the fountain where he had left Colin and was startled to find Valyns and his servant standing near the fountain and admiring some rose-covered statuary half-hidden in the hedge. That blasted magistrate was starting to get underfoot.
“Hello, milord!” said Valyns, tactfully not mentioning their earlier encounter. “I just wanted Bains to observe these very fine roses before he returns to my estate. I really have no idea why we can’t grow them as fine. Do you have roses at your estate, Lord . . . uh . . . Burndee?” His voice disappeared into a startled peep as Burndee sank to his knees and thrust his head into the rose bushes.
“Hey, are you in there?” Burndee called, peering deeply into the undergrowth. Something skittered down his neck, and he batted it away. “Come out!”
“Have you . . . lost something, milord?” Bains, the manservant, asked tentatively.
Burndee extracted himself from the roses and brushed leaves irritably from his hair. “Yes,” he growled, then crawled on his hands and knees to a wall of rhododendron bushes and shoved his arms into the branches, parting them savagely. “And he’d better come out too!”
“He?” Bains echoed.
A branch snapped back, and the bush ejected Burndee from its depths like a slingshot, causing him to tumble back onto the pavement. Valyns gazed at Burndee with bewilderment.
“Um, it is hot today, isn’t it, Lord Burndee?”
Burndee stared at him and then he lowered his head and thrust it into the rhododendron bushes again. “Are you in there, you fool?” he bellowed.
“Who is he again?” Valyns whispered to Bains.
“Brother-in-law to the prince.”
“Dear, dear—I hope . . .”
“Oh, they’re not related by blood,” Bains whispered.
Burndee swarmed through the rhododendron bushes, much to the detriment of their blooms, Finding nothing, he wrangled himself free and began wading through a decorative hedge. “Come out this instant, or I swear I won’t be responsible for the consequences!”
There was a long silence and then a hesitant step behind him as Valyns reached out to take him by the arm. Defeated, Burndee let the magistrate pull him away.
“Ouch!” The magistrate jumped at the sharp charge of magic he received by touching Burndee, but apparently his pity was stronger than his pain. Valyns guided Burndee carefully around the fountain as if he were afraid Burndee might faint. “I’m sure you’ll feel much better after you’ve had a nice, cool drink.”
Burndee glanced at Bains. “I’ll pay you a day’s wages if you’ll help me find a—my—skunk.”
“Oh, is that what you’re looking for?” Valyns looked as if he didn’t know whether to be relieved or not.
Bains gave Burndee a look as if to say a week’s wages wouldn’t convince him to crawl around the grounds looking for such a smelly creature. “I’m sorry, Lord Burndee, but as soon as we get you inside, I have to be going.”
Valyns steered Burndee along as if he were a piece of fragile statuary. “If you’ll just sit down for a few minutes inside the Hall—”
Burndee shook Valyns off impatiently. “I don’t need to go inside, I need to find my skunk!”
A high-pitched shriek from the rear gardens caused all three men to snap their heads around.
“That must be him!” Burndee exclaimed, and he took off running, certain that where screaming was located, Colin couldn’t be far away—he knew that from years of experience.
Valyns and Bains did not follow, but he heard them whispering again as he vaulted over a flowerbed and out of their sight.
When he burst into the rear gardens of the Hall, he got a glimpse of a long trestle table overflowing with flowers, food, and dishes. Maids were running—gasping and shrieking—into the bushes. Kreek was also present, and a movement on one of the tables caused him to turn and run. He moved with a speed that did not seem to coincide with his silver hair, which he clutched with the instinctive gesture of someone whose hairpiece was slipping.
Pulling his gaze from the distraught staff, Burndee surveyed the stone courtyard, which was in the middle of being prepared for the wedding rehearsal supper. The willow trees were strung with lanterns, the flowerbeds bordered with colorful miniature flags, the long trestle table covered in lace-edged linens and silver. It was a pleasant enough picture—except for the table’s unusual centerpiece.
Colin had enthroned himself in the middle of the table. For a moment, in his fine clothes and tucked in amongst the china, he had almost looked like some kind of odd, stuffed ornament. That is, until a closer inspection revealed that he was eating cinnamon rolls—Burndee’s custom-made cinnamon rolls—steadily and with a decidedly grim expression.
Burndee glanced at the bushes again and then approached the table slowly.
“I like to unroll mine as I eat them, don’t you?” Colin remarked calmly as he pulled his cinnamon bun apart.
Burndee stared at him in utter consternation. “What are you doing?”
“Stress eating,” Colin said as he looked down his muzzle at Burndee. “Do you have any idea what it’s like to be magically transformed? It’s not pleasant.”
There was a shivering sound of bushes parting, and Burndee turned to see Kreek sliding towards the table, apparently scraping up enough bravery to offer his assistance—or perhaps he was ashamed to be hiding in the bushes with the maids.
The butler stopped at a safe distance and gazed at Colin with perplexity. “We have our share of small pests on the estate, but what I can’t understand is why that creature is wearing clothes!”
Colin stood slowly on his rear paws, scraping up a surprising amount of majesty as he threw down his napkin and opened his mouth.
Burndee lunged forward, grasping Colin around the muzzle and shoving him back down in the same movement. Looking around, Burndee grabbed a silver dish, slid it under Colin, and then slammed the domed lid down on top of it, effectively hiding him—although the piece of silverware could do nothing to muffle the outraged squalling.
“Why, it almost looked as if it were about to speak!” Kreek said in astonishment. “And I’ve never seen a skunk stand on its hind legs before.”
“He’s highly trained.” Burndee coughed. He lifted the dish and its dome off the table and spread his cloak over it, hoping to muffle the sound of Colin’s protestations as he dredged up a sickly-stiff smile for Kreek and the astonished maids, who peeked at him from behind the bushes. “I’ll take care of this.”
The maids popped out of the bushes as if by magic, and a snub-nosed servant bobbed up by Burndee’s elbow.
“You can’t take that dish!” she protested. “We only put out the silver for Mister Kreek to approve the table settings. I have to take that one bac
k to the kitchen; that’s the one with the family crest. We’ll be serving the pig on that one!”
Burndee felt his eyes roll slowly around to locate her. “Are you . . . joking?”
The maid put her hands on her hips. “Here, we’ll bag the creature in something else, but you let him out immediately before he sprays the inside of that dome and ruins it forever!”
“It’s just a piece of silver,” Burndee said, wrapping his arms around it like an avid parent hugging a child. “Use another one!”
The maid shot him a horrified look. “We can’t use another; it’s tradition. Sir, I must insist, please. It could be worth my job if Sir Windslow saw us serve the pig on anything less than that dish.”
“Bother tradition!” Burndee thundered. “Windslow needs a personality, a life, a hobby—something!”
“Sir!” the maid gasped.
There was no possibility that Burndee could dare let Colin out of the dish. From the caterwauling still emerging from its tinny space, he knew Colin would come out not only swinging, but also speaking at the top of his lungs. Burndee couldn’t possibly lift the dome until Colin had passed out from lack of air, if such a thing were even possible for the prince.
The cacophonous blatting of a tin horn nearly made Burndee leap out of his boots, and he and the servants turned to gape at the crowd that streamed into the courtyard, a crowd which consisted of seven people, two gypsy wagons, and a parade of animals.
“It’s the traveling troupe Sir Windslow hired for the wedding’s entertainment!” Kreek exclaimed in a strangled voice and then he turned on the frozen maids and hissed. “Back to your duties!”
They scrambled madly back to their individual tasks, and Burndee slammed the tray down on a table. He adjusted the dome to allow some air to reach Colin, and then propped a heavy candlestick against it to prevent the prince from escaping.