Chapter 14
The concentration furrowing Alden’s brow as he muttered to himself while frantically searching through his teetering stack of magical tomes had long grown familiar. He’d deciphered the clue to the next task in record time, but this gain in his confidence was marred by the unsettling ominousness brought by whatever force had suppressed his powers back in the clearing that still lingered like an ever-present spell.
His unease mingled with the magic that hung like a heavy mist in the forest, a location Alden had chosen for its abundance of magical ingredients now that he was paying better attention to the geography of an area and how it affected his magic. The enchantment was potent enough for me to detect it even in my cursed form; it glistened beneath the slanting sunlight, its otherworldly aura lining the foliage like drops of morning dew.
I hopped closer to examine the clue for the next task, the ink that formed each curly letter shimmery against the parchment. The message was concise: Create an Innovative Potion.
I gasped in alarm. “You have to invent a new potion?” I knew such attempts could take years of experimentation.
He shook his head. “No, they merely want me to successfully concoct a known mixture. The test is not so much in creativity as the last one, but in accuracy, as potions can be notoriously tricky.”
I grimaced, all too aware of that truth.
“Additionally, I presume I will be tested on what I choose—what type of potion a future council member would focus on.”
It seemed a straightforward enough task to me, but that wasn’t enough to lessen Alden’s perpetual anxiety.
He slowed his hurried page flipping when a recipe finally caught his attention. He read through the ingredients before nodding once and tipping the book in my direction. “What do you think about this one?”
My breath caught in surprise as I read the title: A Potion to Heal All Ailments. I recognized this advanced brew, thanks to my obsessive study that had made me quite familiar with healing potions; what I lacked in experience to successfully concoct them I made up for in book knowledge. Other than the mystical charm that would be Alden’s reward should he earn a position on the Enchanters’ Council, this was the most effective healing potion in existence, to my knowledge.
I wasn’t sure what potion I’d imagined he’d settle upon for the challenge, but it certainly hadn’t been one I’d obsessed over ever since beginning my magical training, especially when he hadn’t demonstrated much interest in the healing arts before.
“I think that is a very noteworthy potion to create,” I managed once I finally found my voice.
A pleased smile tugged the corner of his mouth. “My apprentice actually prompted the idea.”
A surprised ribbit escaped before I could suppress it. For a startled moment I wondered if even with the curse’s shield he’d discovered my true identity.
Upon noticing my confusion, he hastened to explain. “From the beginning, her motivation to learn magic has been to help her chronically ill brother. At first I admittedly considered such a narrow focus a limit to her potential, but I’m slowly coming to realize my own misguided view. I’ve spent most of my studies improving for my own sake rather than to use my powers to benefit others. I’ve been resentful of my sister’s participation in this competition, believing her selfish focus makes her unworthy of a position on the Enchanters’ Council…only to realize I’m not much different.”
“You’re nothing like her.” On our journey, Alden had explained his history with his sister and her shift in focus in her studies, but I hadn’t needed his insight to discern the dark aura that had surrounded her like a shadow, nor the coldness in her toying smirk.
“Perhaps not to the same extent, but I can’t deny I’ve been selfish. My apprentice was under my tutelage and care for weeks, and yet I did little to guide her beyond basic troubleshooting when her potions failed. If nothing else, I’m hoping my choosing a potion for this task that would interest her will allow me to be a more effective tutor when I return home.”
For another paranoid moment I wondered if Alden knew my identity and was only feigning ignorance. Whether or not this was a formal apology, the words effectively acted as their own healing charm that cured the last of my resentment that had intensified the burden brought by my worry for Corbin already wearing me down.
“You’re willing to focus on a healing potion over another for something as important as the competition?” I asked.
His hesitation was brief before he squared his shoulders. “Yes.”
My heart swelled, not just from his words, but the possibility that if the tonic worked, I could find a way to send it to Corbin whose unknown condition weighed heavily upon me.
With this renewed purpose, I straightened. “Then I will help you.” For all my determination, there might be little I could do to contribute with the continuous failures in the healing tonics I’d attempted, but perhaps my mistakes could be of some use.
The first step was to procure the ingredients. Thankfully Alden didn’t vacillate long between accepting or ignoring my offer to help before concluding that my assistance in foraging wasn’t the same as contributing my magic to the creation of the potion itself, and therefore including me was conscionable.
We divided the list, not evenly considering I was only familiar with two of the ingredients and had to limit my search to those that could be found closer to the ground.
The first was hypericum erectum, a basic herb with dainty yellow flowers. Though I had used the plant in many of my basic potions, there wasn’t a convenient patch to forage from here like the one growing near the castle. I glanced around the forest, seeming even more vast from my diminutive perspective, that contained an abundance of foliage, each with its own properties and uses in various enchantments that were foreign due to my inexperience.
I’d worked with hypericum erectum enough to recognize its magical makeup, but the thick magic shrouding the woods made it difficult to search through the layers enough to locate the unique properties comprising the ingredient I was looking for. A tracking spell would prove useful, yet the curse blocking access to my powers made me unable to cast it. Seeking Alden’s help would only distract him rather than assist him.
Thankfully, hypericum species grew in abundance in this wet habitat and were quite variable in habit, which meant I’d be able to find them either as trees, shrubs, annuals, or perennials. They rarely stemmed from woody plants, so I kept my focus on searching the clumps of shrubs scattering the undergrowth for the erect or spreading stems rather than roots that touched the ground.
I kept my vantage point lifted as I hopped along the soft undergrowth, missing the advantage of human height. After much searching, I found an abundant patch growing in the soft hues of golden sunlight. I painstakingly gathered several and brought them back to Alden’s growing pile of ingredients, evidence of his own productivity.
Discouragement prickled my warty skin that I likely wasn’t helping him as much as I wanted, but I pushed these emotions aside to focus on the next ingredient on my list—pueraria, a kind of kudzuarrowroot plant said to contain powerful antioxidant abilities.
Roots buried underground made them trickier to locate and would require me to explore the soft hum of magic filling the air above them in order to locate the precise spot in which to dig. I closed my eyes and tried to reach out to the power flowing beneath my skin, as Alden had taught.
At first it remained barely discernible, so suppressed by the curse as if to almost not be there at all. But after a bit of poking and prodding, I discovered a crack in the curse’s barrier wide enough to access just enough magic to form the most basic tracking spell; the pinprick of light led me to a plant with lilac buds. My small, weak body and clawless hands made the task of digging them up difficult, but not impossible to accomplish.
By the time I returned, Alden had found the remainder of ingredients and was hard at work preparing them—he’d already steeped the leaves from the various gathered herbs to extract their juice and was finely chopping the hypericum flowers and ginseng.
He glanced up with a warm smile when he saw the pueraria I carefully balanced on my back. “Thank you for finding that. Would you mind peeling off the skin and chopping it into thin slices? It needs to dry in the sun before we boil it, but we can speed the process along with some fire magic.”
I did as he asked. Even midst his own tasks, Alden often paused to supervise my work, his comments encouraging despite my movements being made more clumsy with my webbed hands. When he wasn’t directly tutoring me, he walked through each of his own steps as he performed them, satisfying my never-ending thirst for knowledge that had centered around this very spell.
With each bit he imparted he lit up, a recaptured portion of the joy magic brought him by sharing his enthusiasm with one as interested in the subject as he was. I was fascinated by the expert way he brewed the potion, soaking up his every movement and magical technique like an under-watered plant—from prepping the ingredients, to the manner in which he added them, to the method he employed to stir them over his conjured flame.
From my limited experience Alden had brewed the potion flawlessly…yet when it finished steeping, it wasn’t the fern color or bubbly consistency as illustrated in the potions book, but instead a soft, pearlescent pink.
By Alden’s bulging eyes of disbelief, I didn’t even need to ask to confirm that he’d messed up. “This is not the healing tonic.” Even with the evidence before him, he seemed reluctant to admit it.
“Which potion did we brew instead?”
He leaned forward to better examine the color and experimentally sniff the floral fumes rising up in swirling clouds. Perplexity furrowed his brow and he dipped his hand into the rosy liquid, rubbing it between his fingers to test the consistency. His conclusions only seemed to deepen his confusion.
“Which potion is it?”
He slowly met my gaze. “A love potion.”
A love potion? I hopped closer to the book to better study the recipe, but even with my perusal I couldn’t determine where the mistake had been made. “Did we get one of the ingredients wrong?” My own cursed condition testified how much damage even that simple error in magic could create.
“I must have, but I’m not familiar enough with these types of potions to discern where the mistake was made.”
He summoned the spellbook from where it had been snoozing in a patch of sunlight flitting through the canopy of leaves and opened to the love spell so he could compare the recipe side by side with the healing potion. The perplexity creasing his brow only deepened.
“The two potions are nothing alike.”
I hopped onto his shoulder so I could better see. Sure enough, the two potions didn’t share a single ingredient. I cast the pink potion a dubious glance.
“Are you certain that’s a love potion?”
“Positive.” Despite his assertion, I detected a hint of doubt.
“You seem rather confident. Did you become familiar with this particular potion by frequently brewing it for all the besotted women of the court?”
I hoped my lighthearted teasing would compel him to smile, but though a partial one tugged his lips, they didn’t truly curve upwards. “Unfortunately my title proved far more effective than even the most potent love potion.” He summoned a handful of magic and cast an analysis spell over the potion, one of the first charms I’d acquired in my own basic arsenal. “Without a doubt this is a love potion, but how we could have brewed it instead…I don’t understand.”
In his confusion he became lost in further study, causing him to miss the spellbook’s frantic fluttering in a way I’d come to recognize—it wanted to attract its master’s attention. I concentrated on the subtle ripples stirring the magic in the spaces dividing us.
“Alden?”
He didn’t even look up from his perusal of the hefty tome Common Potion Brewing Errors. “Hmm?” he murmured distractedly.
“Does the communication spell you cast grant me the ability to communicate with anything, not just humans?”
That captured his attention. Interest rather than frustration furrowed his brow as he glanced up. “Why do you ask?”
“I seem to be able to sense your spellbook’s emotions. Is that a side effect of the spell you cast?”
“If so, it wasn’t intentional…unless I inadvertently made the spell more potent than I realized.”
And the man believed himself unqualified for the competition. Despite what should be a promising boost to his confidence, the assessment only deepened his frown.
I analyzed the spellbook’s emotions. It seemed frustrated as it repeatedly glanced sightlessly back and forth between me and the prince. When it noticed my attention, it fluttered about in excitement that it’d found an audience for whatever information it was trying to impart…only to slouch in disappointment when I couldn’t immediately understand it.
Though I sensed some of its soundless words much as I had during the entrance challenge when it’d given me the hint that had helped Alden enter, it wasn’t enough to understand whatever message it seemed desperate to convey.
It drooped as if in a silent sigh. After a moment’s consideration, it flipped through its own pages before tilting itself in my direction. It’d turned to a section of common errors in brewing potions, this one specifically focusing on the method of preparation. I’d no sooner began skimming when it drew my attention near the bottom of the list by illuminating a particular passage:
When brewed with an abundance of power, in specific circumstances a potion can take on a form that reflects the emotions of the caster.
I reread the words several times before its meaning and how it fit our particular situation settled over me. I gasped. “Absolutely not!”
My outburst drew Alden’s attention. “Are you alright, Mae?”
“I’m fine.” It seemed like the most grievous lie I’d ever spoken.
He remained unconvinced; tilting his head, he studied me with a confused air, a focus that caused heat to engulf my entire body. I felt something travel across our connected gazes, a deep emotion I couldn’t even begin to decipher but which set my heart pounding.
What was this feeling?
The magical connection between me and the spellbook seemed to work both ways, making it as attuned to my thoughts as I was to its delusional fancies. It ruffled the page bearing its startling conclusion to draw back my gaze.
When brewed with an abundance of power, in specific circumstances a potion can take on a form that reflects the emotions of the caster.
A form that reflects the emotions of the caster…but this had become a love potion, which meant it could only transform through an emotion of love. I gave my head a rigid shake. There was no possibility…the idea was positively ridiculous.
Yet the realization haunted me long after Alden finally caused the failed potion to vanish with a wave of his hand with the dejected conclusion we’d have to start over. Discouragement lined his brow as we returned to the forest to forage.
Gathering the ingredients went much faster now that we’d already located them, allowing us to spend more of our focus on the prepping and brewing the potion itself. Alden carefully examined each measurement before adding them and continuously double checked the recipe to ensure his method of preparation was accurate.
Despite my own best attempts, concentration was difficult for me to firmly hold with the riddle niggling my focus: when brewed with an abundance of power, in specific circumstances a potion can take on a form that reflects the emotions of the caster.
Though Alden had done most of the work in creating the potion, I’d still contributed; though mine were currently suppressed powers, they remained part of me, likely just enough that our brewing the potion together had created the magic needed to cause the potion to transform. Yet it wasn’t as if I’d offered my aid with any romantic intentions, nor had he with his thoughts undoubtedly consumed by the competition.
Which meant there had to be another explanation. But no matter how much I silently cajoled the spellbook as it studiously watched us, it didn’t offer any additional possibilities for the peculiar phenomena than the ridiculous assertion it’d already made.
Despite our greater care and my intense determination to avoid any thoughts of attraction to Alden as I worked, the second potion we brewed ended with the same results. Discouragement mingled with Alden’s bewilderment as he stared at the simmering love potion before his shoulders slumped with a sigh.
“I don’t understand.”
“I’m sure you’ll get it right in our next attempt.” I wanted to supplement my encouragement with a reassuring pat on his arm, but the spellbook’s conclusions that my growing feelings for Alden had been what had tampered with his potion left me too embarrassed to touch him.
He managed a reluctant smile that was too tight to seem sincere and lifted his hand to erase this second failure…only to pause long enough to cast me a bemused glance.
“Though it’s a failed healing tonic, it’s a flawless love potion. It’d be a shame to waste it; are you sure you don’t want to bottle some up for any frog sweethearts you’re particularly interested in?”
I didn’t think it was possible for the fluster heating my cheeks to deepen. “Despite my current form as a frog, as a human I have no interest in amphibians.”
He chuckled. “Then you could save it for one of the humans you harbor feelings for?” He wriggled his eyebrows with a wicked glint. “Perhaps there’s a beautiful witch that has caught your eye, or some other maiden?”
Though he already stood in front of me in all his handsome glory, an image of him bombarded my mind with so much force I was left breathless, as if my heart was desperately trying to tell me something I’d ignored for far too long.
No, not him. Not only was he a prince, but he happened to be my mentor in an apprenticeship and he’d made it abundantly clear he had no interest in romance. If none of the noble women of the court had managed to capture his attention, a frog certainly wouldn’t…nor would his common apprentice once I transformed back into myself, especially after I’d spent the majority of our acquaintance riling him for my own amusement.
He tilted his head. “Are you alright, Mae? You’re rather…pink. That can’t be healthy for a frog.”
Despite his frequent absentmindedness throughout most of our acquaintance, the man chose now of all times to pay attention? It was as if my fluster acted as its own spell of notice, a shining beacon when I wanted nothing more than to hide.
I gave a nervous croak. “I’m fine.” For all my denial, I couldn’t deny that my perception of him had been steadily changing for quite some time…but surely it couldn’t be love. Yet no matter how much I tried to dismiss the notion, its persistence made it impossible.
I needed distance, which I obtained when we returned to the forest for attempt number three…which ended in the same disaster. Even so, Alden was determined to try again. Hours melted away as if siphoned by the same sinister force that had affected his powers.
The air began to cool as night drew closer. With my body’s ability to adjust to the environment I scarcely noticed the drop in temperature, but I couldn’t help but be aware of Alden’s own shivers, strangely more attuned to him than my search…but not because I thought of him in that way as the spellbook seemed determined to repeatedly convince me of as it floated after me.
I was in the middle of digging up another armful of the kudzu plant when I felt a drop of moisture against my warty back. I glanced towards the sky. The earlier sunlight was now masked behind a grey shroud of clouds and the once caressing breeze had escalated into a biting, damp wind. Another drop fell, then another, before it began to rain at a steady pace. I searched for somewhere to take shelter.
“Mae!?” The sound of crashing branches followed Alden’s frantic exclamation before he burst panting into view.
I took in the dripping hair plastered across his brow, his widened gorgeous grey eyes, the softness of his expression even midst his worry. My stomach gave an unexpected flip. Oh no…
He rested his hands on his knees and fought for breath as he cast his frantic gaze around the undergrowth before finally spotting me. “There you are. I’m so glad I found you before the storm worsened.”
His concern deepened the potency of my bewildering feelings that only further complicated matters. Oblivious to my inner turmoil, he used a swirl of magic to maneuver the branches of the nearby trees, forming them into a makeshift roof, and then conjured flames to create a flickering pool of warmth. Then he shifted, as if to discard his wet clothes.
Panic surged. Keep your shirt on!
But as if the man meant to kill me from an overdose of humiliation, my silent pleas went unheeded as he tugged off his soaked shirt to spoil me with a full view of his bare chest that was much better appreciated in the settling dusk than the dim starlight when I’d last seen it.
The shock rendered me still long enough for him to reach for me. Too late I realized his intentions.
With a startled ribbit I tried to hop out of his reach, but he plucked me from the air. His fingers curled gently around my middle, creating the sensation that he’d stepped up from behind to wrap his arms around a human body, similar to the affections I’d witnessed from Father towards Mother.
As much as I willed the image of a couple away, it wouldn’t leave. Blasted love potion. Could it have worked its magic upon me just from its wafts of floral fumes? I could think of no other explanation for my befuddled thoughts…except the one I refused to consider.
Alden thankfully remained oblivious as he held me. His touch felt much different than it had the last time he’d picked me up; this one was almost electrifying, as if a force stronger than magic pulsed between us. I tried to wriggle free, but he cradled me against his chest, his arm pinning me in place to shield me from the wind and rain. I became instantly still.
Well, this was quite the predicament. I made another valiant effort to escape, but all I managed to accomplish was his tightening his hold until I feared I’d melt from the sensations created from his seemingly innocent gesture. I made another desperate attempt to wriggle free.
“Don’t hop away, Mae; you need to warm up. I don’t want you catching cold.”
With the heat of the blush engulfing every warty inch, I doubted I’d ever feel cold again. Our scandalous proximity had come at the worst time with love so prominent in my thoughts.
I opened my mouth to inform him that frog’s bodies regulated the temperature around them and thus I was perfectly comfortable without his assistance…but the moment the comforting warmth from his hand gently draped over me as he held me close, I lost all ability to speak, let alone protest the embarrassing arrangement.
All that emerged was a helpless croak. Mistaking the source of my distress, he gave my head a reassuring pat.
“It’s alright, I’ll keep you secure until the storm passes.”
I found my voice just enough to croak, “No, that’s not it. I—”
“Oh. Right, this is a rather awkward position, considering you’re human. But at the moment, your protection is more important. The last thing I want is for you to take ill—not only would I not wish sickness on you, but that would doubtless slow us down, which we cannot afford. Besides, it’s not uncommon for soldiers in cold conditions to huddle together for warmth; this isn’t so different from that.”
My fluster left me in no condition to protest further. Time passed at an agonizingly slow pace as we lay beneath the shelter of leaves shielding us from the elements. Pressed this closely against him, I could feel every beat of his heart against my body, each soft breath as his chest gently rose and fell in a soothing rhythm, lifting me with it. Each moment felt precious enough to bottle in order to preserve it forever.
Goodness, was I actually falling in love with the eccentric but kind and thoroughly handsome wizard? I willed the emotion to leave, but it only escalated the frantic patters of my heart, a confirmation without words I’d do anything to deny.
With this alarming realization came a new mission: however I transformed back into myself, I had to ensure that Alden never found out that the frog he currently held in his arms had been his apprentice the entire time.