"The sisters?" Bryan asked, pausing with his mug of tea nearly to his lips.
"They've had time to seethe and add to their spells. By now, it's a matter of honor to them to wipe out—our friend," Bib said, after a slight pause. Merrigan guessed that Crystal had warned him that the brothers didn't dare to even speak Belinda's name. "She's frustrated their plans and efforts for too long. Despite all Crystal has done, there are a few threads of magic attached to Bayl she hasn't been able to loosen. Her sisters will know when he's found and unmasked her. They have several contingency spells watching from far off, ready to snap into action and separate the two sweethearts."
"Oh, now that's not fair at all," Merrigan said.
Bryan muttered some curses into his tea, then tipped the steaming mug back and emptied most of it down his throat.
"Do we make things more treacherous if we tell your brother our mutual friend is here?" Bib continued after several moments of unhappy silence. "While it might make things more pleasant for him, can we trust him not to confront her? Or try to identify her?"
"I'm surprised he hasn't picked her out already," Merrigan said. "She looks like a much younger version of herself, that's all."
"That's easy to explain," Bryan said. "One spell on us decrees that until she reveals herself, neither of us will recognize her. Even if, as you said, she looked like a younger version of herself."
"A variation of the you-don't-see-me spell," Crystal said, "but woven in such a way it only reacts when the brothers and your friend are close enough to see or hear each other. Rather vicious, if you think about it."
"She thinks he hates her," Merrigan said. "She looked into his face, she talked with him, and he smiled at her and patted her head, treating her like a little girl. No wonder she's on the verge of tears half the time since the two of you arrived."
"It's to force her to confront him. Torture her until she breaks down and makes herself vulnerable." Bryan scowled into his mug. "You can't imagine how it tears him apart to know he probably looks her in the face a dozen times a day and he can't say anything, can't even speak her name, because it would put her at risk."
"Oh, I can imagine all too clearly," she whispered. Then she thought of something. "But she's told him her name. Several times. She isn't using a false name, which is rather reckless. He doesn't call any of the girls by name, now that I think of it."
"That's the really nasty part," Crystal said. "The spell makes him hear every girl say her name is hers. So when he does hear her name, he has no way of knowing it's really her."
"Until she drops her illusion. Oh, I would love to slap that sleeping cap on both of those nasty twits and lock them in a dungeon for the next hundred years or so."
"Sleeping cap?" The magic mirror wobbled from side to side, as if she were trying to sit up. "What are you talking about?"
"We've been busy discussing other things," Bib said. "Forgive me. That box contains some useful bits of minor magic. We used the cap to make our friend sleep during the invasion of the princes. We baited them with an enormous pot of pea soup, to activate the spell. She couldn't sneeze or heave while she was asleep."
"Clever." Bryan's face relaxed into the good humor that Merrigan thought made him so much more handsome.
"Hmm, a stopgap measure," she said. "We can't tell her he's unable to recognize her. It'd just make her more weepy than she already is. Would she risk her life to help him recognize her? How much temptation can she stand?"
"What if you made it clear that he was doing it to protect her?" Crystal suggested. "Let her know he is just as much tangled in enemy magic as she is."
"I would like to give her some hope, ease some of her hurt," Bib said, "but not if it just puts her in more danger."
"Why don't we ask my brother what he wants to do?" Bryan said.
When the others agreed that the older prince should have some say in what was told to Belinda, he got up to go look for Bayl. Merrigan sipped at her tea, watching him walk away, and wished ... she wasn't quite sure what she wished for.
"I was such an idiot when I was younger," she whispered.
"Indeed you were, Princess Merrigan," Crystal said.
"Bib!" Merrigan slammed her mug down on the table, fearful she would drop it.
"I didn't tell her, Mi'Lady," the book responded. "She's a magic mirror. She sees everything."
"Even into the past?" She clutched her hands in her lap to resist the urge to snatch up the mirror and slam her down onto the stone paving of the warehouse. Unfortunately, magic mirrors were impervious to such attempts at breaking them.
"I see you as you are now. I can see the magic strangling you, and how you truly are—the face of your soul and spirit and heart," Crystal said. "Pick me up, Princess. If you please?"
"Why? I know what I look like."
"You know what you've seen. I can show you what you can't see."
She hesitated. After all, how long would it take for Bryan to find his brother and bring him back here to talk? If she didn't comply, Merrigan suspected Crystal would take matters into her own metaphorical hands. She might even reveal the truth about Clara's curse, Merrigan's identity, even the travesty of her marriage to that charming but foolhardy schemer.
"Very well," she muttered, and reached over to pick up the mirror from where she lay against Bib. The silver and ivory hummed under her hands. Sparkles of blue and green and purple magic spun around the surface of the mirror, down the handle, then traveled up Merrigan's arm and enfolded her. For several seconds, she could see nothing but the sparkles. When she blinked them away, she saw her own, her real face.
Yet not her face. Her features were all sharp-edged and glossy, like jewels. She was young and beautiful and regal, but with an overall impression of coldness.
The image of herself reminded her of the Fae she had encountered before going into Smilpotz.
"That is the woman you used to be," Crystal said. "Here is the woman you are now."
The image softened. There were still hard planes, but no sharp edges, and the glitter and gloss of polished jewels had faded into warmth. The colors and tones were flesh and blood. Merrigan shivered when she saw she did look older—of course, how could she expect all the travel and working to support herself not to age her? Yet there was something regal and admirable about the woman who gazed somberly from the mirror. A sense of warmth and mischief, where the jeweled woman had been chill and her humor had a malicious edge to it.
"What will I be in the end?" Merrigan whispered.
"That depends on the choices you make. I thought you said your princess was clever."
"She is. But everyone is clever in different ways," Bib said. "They're coming. Wipe your eyes, Mi'Lady."
Merrigan nearly snapped that she hadn't been crying, but she blinked and realized that yes, there was dampness in her eyes. She put Crystal back where she had originally been.
"Does he—he doesn't mention me at all, does he?" slipped out before she could tuck that errant, totally ridiculous thought back into hiding.
"When he's tired and lonely and jealous of his brother's happiness," the mirror said.
"Happiness?" Merrigan flinched, thinking she heard footsteps.
"Men are silly sometimes, when they're being heroic. Bayl finds much of his strength in knowing that even though he can't be with his princess, he's serving her, and proving his love. He has the hope of winning her freedom and her love someday. He's clever enough to realize her sisters targeted him because she did feel something for him. If you want to hurt your enemy, use someone who has already touched her heart."
"I never gave him a bit of hope, did I?" she whispered. Yes, now she did hear footsteps.
"When you were young. You changed and he was gone too long, and what chance does he have, really, as the youngest prince of a kingdom that nobody will ever rule again?"
"Don't tell him, Crystal. Please. Promise me."
"Don't tell him what, exactly?"
"That it's me." She tapped her b
reastbone. "Inside this—this—old hag."
"Mi'Lady," Bib said, a touch of laughter in his voice. "You were more a hag when you were beautiful. Now, you're simply lovely. And you're not half as old as you think you are."
Then the two princes stepped into the sewing room. Merrigan watched Crystal from the corner of her eye the entire time they talked, terrified the mirror would reveal that Mistress Mara was Princess Merrigan of Avylyn. After all, she hadn't promised.
In the end, speaking in euphemisms so they wouldn't awaken the inimical magic wrapped around Bayl, they agreed on what Merrigan would tell Belinda. Bayl couldn't recognize her, and he begged her not to reveal herself to him until they could be sure both their curses had been entirely undone. Crystal and Bib believed Belinda would be comforted by the news. Bayl only cared about not hurting her, while Merrigan thought about what a featherhead she had turned into since her prince arrived.
To her surprise, Belinda was quiet and thoughtful when she gave her the news and explained the dangerous situation. Merrigan took her for a walk to have that discussion, despite the rain that fell in a cold mist all day. The two walked close together, gray enclosing them so it felt as if they were the only ones out on the streets as afternoon turned to evening. Every sound was muted with the hissing of rain and the gurgling of water in the gutters.
"Would it be ..." Belinda stopped and tugged her hood back a little to look up and down the nearly deserted, foggy street. Most shops had already closed. The ones still open were dim blots of golden warmth through watery air. "Would it be dangerous if I wrote him a letter? Would it awaken the magic if he wrote to me?" Her mouth trembled, and for a moment Merrigan feared she would burst into tears again. Then Belinda squeaked a laugh and threw her arms around Merrigan for a brief, wet hug. "He's been looking for me—he remembers me. Oh, I don't deserve him, not after all this time, all this work and suffering and ... but I'm a horribly selfish person. I want him!"
Merrigan made a point of repeating the conversation to Bayl when the five conspirators met again the next morning, while the clatter of the kitchen crew starting breakfast preparations covered their whispering conversation. The glow in the elder prince's face created a twisting, aching, almost weepy sensation in her middle.
The first exchange of letters was carried out with all the stealth of spying in enemy territory among goblins and trolls. Bib and Crystal examined Belinda's letter for anything that might trigger the inimical, watchful spells on either side. If she wrote anything chancy, they had her rewrite it. Then they did the same for Bayl's response. That became the standard practice. Merrigan counted that necessity as another strike against the two vicious enchantresses: Belinda and her sweetheart couldn't even pour their hearts out to each other in writing. To ensure that Bayl had no chance to guess which girl among the orphans was his Belinda, Merrigan and Bryan acted as intermediaries. Belinda gave her letter to Merrigan, who passed it to Bryan several hours later. When Bayl wrote his letter, Bryan passed it to Merrigan, then kept his brother busy so he wouldn't see Merrigan give it to Belinda.
The job of intermediaries threw Bryan and Merrigan together. If she wasn't constantly watching for him, waiting for the signal that he had a letter to give her, he was watching for her signal in return. Then when the recipient was busy reading the latest letter, the sender wanted to be alone for a while. Merrigan thought it somewhat silly and melodramatic, and Bryan agreed when she mentioned it to him after three weeks of exchanging letters.
"Still, he's in a much better humor than he's been for years now."
Bryan leaned back against the support post of the pavilion where they had taken shelter from the rain-becoming-snow, on the edge of the festival grounds in the center of the city. He had offered to accompany her when she delivered a set of gowns for the christening of the twin daughters of Lady Geramia. Talking about their mutual concerns and friends was easier away from the orphanage, even if they still had to talk in euphemisms.
"To have hope ... it's painful, but it's a welcome pain. Compared to no hope whatsoever."
"Certainly a handsome young man such as you has some hope? One day soon, this whole ugly tangle will resolve and your brother and his sweetheart will be together, safe, settled—you aren't going to spend the rest of your life looking after them, are you?"
"Oh, yes, a favorite uncle, growing old by the fire." He shuddered with mock horror, and for a moment they paused, caught in each other's eyes.
Merrigan ached for something she couldn't put her finger on.
"I find it hard to believe there isn't a princess out there, pining for you," she said, and a moment later wished she had cut off her tongue before saying something so foolish.
"Once. Where she is now ... I hope she's happy and safe somewhere." He gestured out across the silvery sheen of sleet that threatened to cover the festival grounds in ice. "I am just selfish enough to hope she thinks of me, once in a while. Maybe even wonders where I am. And yes," he let out a single chuckle, "I'm selfish enough to hope that sometimes, no matter how happy she is, she wonders what would have happened if I had been brave enough to ask, and she had said yes."
"She would have been an idiot, a featherhead, to say no to you."
"It doesn't matter, does it? I didn't ask. I had nothing to offer her, even when Sylvanglade was free of enchantment. Now, who knows what her fate is? I feel as if I failed her. We were friends when we were children." He sighed. "Yes, I failed her."
"No, you didn't. She failed you." She wondered if the odd aching in her head and in her throat was what people meant when they talked about twisting a knife a little deeper.
"I wish I could fall in love with someone else, but I am doomed to be the loyal friend, sacrificing all for the sake of the hero." He tried to laugh. "Mara? Are you all right?"
"Of course. Why wouldn't I be?" She fought the urge to wipe at her face with her mittens, afraid to discover the hot ache in the back of her head had escaped in the form of tears.
"It must be the dying light. You look so pale." He offered her his bent arm. She accepted the silent suggestion that they continue their long walk back to the orphanage.
"You make me wish ..." She waited until they had come down the steps from the pavilion and started down the icy brick-paved pathway. "I think there must be some truth in the saying that it is better to have known true love and then lost it. The sweetness, however short-lived, makes up for the pain."
"If I ever thought she loved me, maybe I could agree with you."
"Oh, no matter how selfish and spoiled your princess might have been, somewhere deep inside, she did love you. As much as she was able. No one could be so utterly self-centered and stupid they wouldn't recognize your fine qualities and love you. Even if just a little bit," she vowed.
"Thank you." He caught up her hand where it was tucked into his elbow, and pressed a kiss in the gap between sleeve and mitten, before settling it firmly back in place. "Where were you when I was soothing my broken heart with plans to hunt dragons and gryphons and make a heroic name for myself?"
"Making mistakes of my own." Merrigan laughed with him as they trudged down the pathway to the main street.
"All of youth must seem foolish and selfish, looking backwards, I suppose." He sighed, and they walked along for several minutes in companionable quiet. "What was he like, the man you loved and lost?"
"I didn't know how to love. Truly love. Before ..." She gestured at her face. Let him assume she meant when she was young, rather than before the curse hit her. "I was married, for a short time. We ... understood each other, as much as two nasty children could. We thought it was the two of us against the whole misguided world. Suddenly he was gone. He was so viciously clever that he became inexcusably stupid."
"You started to love him. Enough to hurt for him."
"That was a lifetime ago, when I was a very different person."
"He was a fool for not loving you completely," he said, resting his hand over hers in the crook of his elbow and squeezing
it.
"You, Prince Bryan, are gallant and flattering and I don't know whether to laugh or cry."
"If only ..."
"Yes." She turned enough to see past the sagging sides of her deep hood, and found him smiling a little sadly at her. "If only."
THE DAYS PASSED, BECOMING another week, and Merrigan scolded herself for being a sentimental, selfish twit. She fell into more and more situations where she and Bryan were together, walking somewhere in the increasingly wet, cold weather. Running errands for the orphanage. Escorting children to lessons or visits with possible adoptive parents, or simply needing to stretch their legs and get some fresh air.
As the weather grew increasingly unfriendly, the children spent more time indoors. The noise of children seeking new entertainment irritated Merrigan more than she liked to admit. She swore she could hear them chattering and shrieking and laughing, knocking over building blocks or singing their nonsense songs and chanting puzzle rhymes at each other even in her sleep. She longed for some place she could go for solitude, and some peace and quiet.
Nearly every time she escaped the orphanage, just for a short walk, hungry for some solitude, she usually found Bryan ahead of her on the street. Or she turned, with the sensation of being watched, and found him following her. He waited for her, or she waited for him, and they talked and walked, sometimes for an hour, or two. Many conversations drifted to their regrets, wondering where that "someone" in their pasts might be right that moment. She admitted to Bryan that she had come near to loving a boy, but had let herself be persuaded that he had nothing to offer her. She remembered aloud for him those few short, sweet times they had spent together as children, yet with as few details as possible, so he wouldn't guess. When he remarked on how similar her memories were to the ones he had of his princess, she fought not to laugh because she feared she might weep. Her only consolation was that he smiled when he talked about the girl she used to be. If he had cursed her for her cold heart, Merrigan didn't know what she would have done.
The Kindness Curse Page 30