Chapter 81
Evie
“ You have a lovely home,” Evie said, because honestly, everyone looked so somber, it was either give an out-of-place compliment or start dancing as strangely as possible.
The king and queen had aged into late adulthood with elegance and grace. Gray streaks were bound with jewels at Queen Brina’s hair, and there were soft lines in her cheeks and at the corners of her eyes. Places where the best and worst parts of your life left their mark.
“Yes,” Trystan added blandly. “My favorite room so far has been the one filled with people who want to kill us.”
Evie winced, shrugging at the soldiers with their weapons raised. “I know he sounds sarcastic, but he probably means that.”
A Lily Pad Knight ran right for Evie, causing her shoulder to tingle and her dagger to pulse underneath her skirt.
She frowned. The dagger didn’t come right to her as it normally did.
“Stop, if you please!” Evie held out her hand, and by some miracle—or perfectly executed delusion—the knight halted.
“Just hold on,” Evie ordered, hopping on one foot, trying to reach the harness at her thigh without pulling her skirt up too far. She’d ditched the pants that went below the skirt back at the barn because they’d been torn off and…ruined.
The entire room didn’t know what to do with the display.
The dagger finally came free, and The Villain’s magic slithered away from it, like shadows receding in the light.
“Got it!” Evie smiled brightly at the knight, who had lifted his helmet halfway up to stare at her, slack-jawed.
Evie winced. “Sorry. You may run at me again. I’ll act surprised this time. ”
The knight in question blew air out through his lips. “Uh, no. That’s all right.”
“Sage?”
“Yes, sir— Ahhh!” Evie yelped as the boss whipped out an arm, dragging her two inches closer as an arrow zipped past where she had just stood.
“Enough.” The king knocked his staff against the floor, and the ground rattled with it. “Bring in the enchantress.”
The enchantress?
“They’re helping us?” Evie asked, holding her dagger high when one of the knights came too close.
“No,” Winnie said hollowly. “No. They are not.”
Evie’s mother had told her many stories of enchantresses. Women who could cast spells and twine enchantments about the land, leaving joy and goodness in their wake. As she got older, the world’s opinion of them had not been as kind, but Evie never lost that vision in her mind.
Of a vibrant, beautiful woman bending the kingdom to her will.
This woman was beautiful but vibrant no longer. Her skin was an unnatural pale, cracked lips in a grimace, light eyes squinting into the small amount of sunset coming in through the large windows.
“Let me die now; if that is your command, I care no longer,” the enchantress Belinda rasped.
“You aren’t dying,” Queen Brina said with firm fairness.
“Not yet.” The queen stood, and everyone straightened as she descended the small steps from her throne to the raised platform.
“What was meant to be a day of justice for my late son has turned into a game of politics. I have missives squawking about a tip that The Villain and his accomplice are trying to save my son’s murderer from execution, and now I have you all spilling into my throne room from an entry point only the royal family has access to. ”
Three knights surged forward, all holding Trystan in their clutches.
“Your Majesty, you don’t understand,” Evie reasoned. “The enchantress did not kill your son! He’s the one who brought us here!”
The king’s face turned red. “You— You dare to insinuate such a thing?”
The queen stopped just before Evie. Her crown was strange. It looked a little like a basket, wicker woven artfully throughout, adorned with lilies.
“Allow me to take them away, Your Majesty,” the leader of the Lily Pad Knights offered. “These traitors are fugitives of Rennedawn, and their crimes were committed there. It will be our responsibility to bring them before the law.”
“I committed crimes here, too,” Evie said under her breath, glaring when The Villain pinched her arm.
“You will not take anyone away until I have my answers.” Queen Brina seemed to possess this rare ability to make everyone feel warm around her—and scared.
Evie loved it, actually.
“My son was killed by this woman in an assassination plot against the crown, and it appears she had help. By those my son called his friends.”
“You’re wrong, Queen Brina.” Clare shut her eyes tight, like she was preparing herself for impact.
She opened them once more, resolve replacing trepidation.
“It was me. I wanted my brother to be anything but The Villain, so I enlisted Belinda’s help to save him from my mother.
But there was an accident. Alexander arrived before my brother, and—”
“I find that interesting,” Queen Brina said, “considering your mother was the one who told us you were coming.”
Amara walked out of the shadows, and Arthur flinched, whispering pain-laced words. “No. Amara.”
Amara folded her arms. There was a small crack in her composure as she looked down upon the people she had so easily betrayed. “I had an obligation, Arthur. To save the king and queen from what my children had become.” The king nodded at Amara with admiration.
“You will be rewarded for your service to our kingdom, Mistress Maverine.”
Amara smiled like that was exactly what she was hoping for, and the group watched as Arthur’s heart broke at the betrayal.
Trystan moved, placing a hand on his father’s shoulder. Arthur’s eyes gleamed into his as he nodded an acknowledgment of the gesture.
There was a way to fix all this.
“He’s a frog,” Evie blurted. Finding Kingsley in the corner, she hurried over to him, but she was stopped by a very tall Lily Pad Knight. “Can you scooch a little to the left, please?”
The knight did, causing a wave of murmurs among them at the sign of deference. “Gotcha!” Evie put both hands around Kingsley and held him up for the entire room to see. “Behold! Prince Alexander Kingsley.”
“That is a frog,” one of the Lily Pad Knights whispered, before getting elbowed in the gut by the bigger one.
“How foolish do you think we are, Ms. Sage?” The king descended to stand next to the queen. His eyes were tired, his posture that of a man who’d been beaten down more than once over the years. “That we would believe such a farce?”
“It’s true,” Evie pleaded. “Look into his eyes. Can’t you tell? The enchantment Belinda conjured was an entrapment. He’s been stuck like this for ten years, and only she can undo it. Belinda?” Evie asked the enchantress. “Show them. Undo his curse. Give her the wand, Winnifred.”
Belinda was frightened, flinching, but stared up at her daughter with wide, searching eyes. “Winnie?” She took three steps away, and one of the knights pressed an electric rod against her back. She cried out, sinking to the floor.
“Mother!” Winnie rushed to her, handing her the wand. “Do it. Change him.”
Her mother shook her head. “I cannot, Winnie. You don’t understand.”
“You must,” Trystan gritted out. “There is no alternative.”
“Trystan Maverine,” Queen Brina called, then folded her lips inward. “It’s hard to believe that such a sweet, quiet boy would grow up to become one of the most feared men in Rennedawn. In all the continent.”
“It shouldn’t be. I won Most Likely to Do Bad Things at the village school’s graduation,” Trystan said frankly. Evie couldn’t tell if he was joking.
Queen Brina contemplated them all, then the frog in Evie’s grasp. “Prove that this is my son trapped in the body of a frog. Prove it, and I’ll allow the enchantress to go free—after she reverts him into a man.”
Evie smiled, feeling hope. “I have just the way. Sir, a sign?” One was already in her hand before she finished her request. She removed a vase from a pillar, then placed Kingsley atop the marble pedestal so he could be eye level with his parents.
“Go on, Kingsley. Show them—show your parents that it’s you. ”
There was a surge of sweeping anticipation, the entire room quieting, everyone waiting with bated breath.
But Kingsley did nothing.
“Alexander,” Trystan called, but there was no answer. Just a wide-eyed frog staring back at them, through them. He was blank, no gold left in his eyes—only black. “No,” Trystan bellowed. “No. Alexander, come back. Come back now .”
But there was no answer. No blinking to awareness, no sudden startled awakening from the magic that had faded in him. There was no Kingsley; there was no prince.
There was only a frog.
“Is he gone?” Clare’s eyes welled with tears. “Is that it? He’s not going to come back this time?”
“I’ve had enough of this farce!” the king cried. “This was a brutality. Dangling the possibility of our son before us and then taking it away. Let it be over.”
“Gavin,” Queen Brina said hesitantly. “Please calm.”
The king looked to the Valiant Guards and the Lily Pad Knights, ignoring the queen’s request. “Kill the enchantress. It is done.”
It was only a second after the order was given, with no time for protests. No time to react. No time to beg or scream or ask kindly that they don’t.
Because in one moment, the enchantress was thrown to the ground, and in the next, she was turned…to stone.
Winnie screamed, and Tatianna wrapped her arms around her, dragging her away. “Don’t look.” This was worse than death. Her mother frozen forever on her knees, with the fear of her final moments displayed for the entire room.
The queen shook her head, like the whole scene was distasteful to her. “Take them away to the dungeons and send missives to King Benedict that we have his Villain in custody.”
One of the Lily Pad Knights ran for the large open doors, but he only made it three feet—
Before the windows above the throne room shattered and a large creature came hurtling through.