Fading sunlight tinged the clouds vivid orange and pink as I settled down upon the rock.
To wait.
However long it took.
The blue moon had come again, and I was determined. This time, I would find her. This time, I wouldn’t let her slip away without me.
Lorraine banged on the witch’s front door until her fists hurt, crying and calling her name. It finally flew open, and Jessamine jerked her inside.
“You have to give me more!” Lorraine sobbed. “It’s wearing off!”
“Child, I told you, love spells are temporary. You can’t bend the heart forever, and you can’t stop true love.”
The squat, knobby she-troll brandished a teapot in one hand and motioned for Idra to sit with the other. “Something bracing, yes?” she rasped.
Idra nodded as she settled onto the spongy toadstool opposite her hostess. With a tip of her gnarled hand, the she-troll filled a china cup with strong, black tea, then offered it up.
I clenched the fistful of grass while trying to ignore how my hands now appeared. My feet ached as I trudged up the desolate path, but a worse anguish lodged in my heart, threatening to overflow.
A few places in the kingdom might offer me refuge, yet here I was, heading to the one place I’d never be welcome.
Where the beast came from, I had no idea.
I was only passing through this kingdom. A gentle breeze threaded through my loose braid, and I’d been enjoying the quiet and the view, in spite of the large, bare patches dotting the green fields alongside the dirt road.
I peer through the scope of my crossbow. From my vantage point in the rafters, I’m as good as invisible to the royal family below. As if being a male peasant doesn’t make me invisible enough already. But all that is about to change.
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Other than the cramped quarters and questionable smell, the carriage ride was a welcome change from the dungeon I’d just spent nine months in. And even though my soldier escort refused to talk, I had plenty of practice making conversation with myself until we arrived at a half-hidden hut beyond the castle walls.
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The barbarian exploded from the folding table launching dice, game pieces, and potato chips in every direction.
Tony, Piper, and Bart dove to the carpet for cover.
“What did you do?!” Piper screamed at Tony.
“What did I do?!?” Tony army crawled away from the disaster.
“Yeah, you butthead. You rolled!”
As I finish the preparations to remove the sweet child I had raised, my eye catches on the glinting of the crown. I want to smash it. If he hadn’t been royal, he’d be alive. The crown seems to agree—if I didn’t know better, I’d say it was weeping.
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“You’ve got to be pulling my ever-loving, god-forsaken tail.” Jasper Throe grumbled upon seeing the Gray Book. He unceremoniously plopped down the groceries.
The apples were going to be awfully bruised.
This vellum-covered grimoire had the audacity to splay itself on his kitchen counter as though it were a cookbook.
The man came to a stop in a beam of sunlight struggling through the dust-smeared windowpane, and the glow peeled a mask of shadow off his face, revealing white skin pulled tightly over his skull and teeth visible through paper-thin lips.
I clutched the countertop to keep from staggering. Okay. Not Indy. “What are you?”
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I’m not seasick—I live on this ship, so you can bet I’ve got my sea legs—but the old hag I stole the chalice from at New Providence must have been a witch. Her nasty shout as I ran made me smirk, but… I’m turning green. She must have cursed me!
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