Chapter Three. In Which the Girl Meets a Prince #2
“Another witch,” whispered a guard.
“A witch?” Prince Javi considered Risa, eyes alight with curiosity. She realized that they were the most expressive part of him and—with a sinking dread—that they were his most attractive feature.
Well, she supposed she’d have to avoid ever gazing into his stupid eyes, then.
“You’ll both have time to grate on each other’s nerves later,” Brunhilda interrupted. “Let’s get on with it.” She beckoned Risa with a flick of her wrist.
Risa did not want to move. While she was determined to use this ill-advised adventure as a way to rid herself of her bad luck, she knew it was a farce.
Eventually, someone—whether general or guard or the prince himself—would figure out her secret, and she’d be cast out.
Then her heart would still and she would be dead, an outcome she wished to avoid as much as she wanted to break her curse.
Before she could turn on her heels and run, a familiar zap of heat erupted across her skin.
She fell onto her knees, fuming as the witch appeared at her side, pried open her rucksack, and soundlessly dropped in a velvet pouch.
When Brunhilda was finished, Risa was forced to stand and toddle toward the prince.
“This is uncalled for,” she told the witch. She fought against the compulsion with more fury, but whatever fluke had let her break out of Brunhilda’s previous spell was gone. Instead, she drew closer to the prince, who watched with unbridled delight.
“Very well, witch,” General Van Houten spat. He regarded the old hag like she was scum beneath his military-issued boots. “Explain yourself.”
Brunhilda didn’t even blink. “I do not owe you an explanation, Van Houten.”
The general opened his mouth, preparing some nasty retort, but the prince held up a hand that silenced him.
“Brunie, if you wouldn’t mind…” He trailed off, his voice like honey, deep and luxurious.
Brunhilda grumbled, “She’s a magical girl.”
All the men turned to look at Risa. Not in the way that most would a beautiful creature, but in the way wary men regarded a stray girl: with suspicion and doubt.
Prince Javi frowned. There was an intensity within the depths of his eyes that made her squirm, like he could see right through her.
Alarm began to prickle at her skin as her heart hammered away in her chest, spurred by the fear that he would be able to see her curse.
“I thought we were here for a spell or something,” he said.
“She’s better than any charm I can give you,” Brunhilda told the prince. Then, turning to the general, Brunhilda continued, “She’ll be able to catch the prince before he can even think of disappearing, because she has the gift of good luck.”
Apparently Risa didn’t need to fail her part of the agreement or try running away—her heart was going to give out right then and there.
Prince Javi kept staring. Brunhilda must have cast another spell, because heat rose along her skin as he gazed at her—not in fear like with the townspeople or his guards, but with curiosity, as if she promised intrigue.
He began to walk around her. An amused glimmer sparkled in his eyes.
“She doesn’t seem very impressive,” the prince declared.
“Nothing about her suggests good luck. And she doesn’t look like a witch,” he continued, stopping once they were face-to-face.
He didn’t quite tower over her—he had only a few inches to her striking height—but something about him was almost imposing.
Looming. “No crooked nose. No giant wart.”
Risa glared at the prince. “I’m standing right here.”
The prince cocked his head. “No terribly crocheted shrugs in sight. Which reminds me.”
He revealed a sad beige mess of yarn and held it out to Brunhilda, who took it with a genuine smile that morphed her wrinkled face into something terrifying.
She layered her new shrug over her shoulders, where her other shawls and mantles sat looking more like bark and moss and various forest-adjacent things than clothing.
The gift, made of shimmery gray fabric, appeared at home around the witch’s neck, blending in with her collection of rags as if it had always been there.
The witch flicked at an imaginary bit of dirt as she spoke to no one in particular. “I helped her mother give birth to her and can assure you: Nothing bad happens to her.”
Risa supposed the witch was right. Nothing bad happened to her.
She merely made bad things happen all around her.
To her home. To her town. To the people she loved.
It was why she never spent too long in one place while she trailed through Barrow like a ghost; why she hadn’t hugged her mother since her twelfth birthday; why she had stopped waltzing into her father’s office to pester him about her studies the way she used to as a child.
If disinterest might convince her bad luck to ignore everything she cared for, then she would have it.
But the bad luck still struck sometimes, and always unexpectedly.
It was sure to happen with the prince, no matter how much she already disliked him. Her detestation didn’t seem to sway her luck either way.
“Well then, I’m satisfied,” Prince Javi said confidently.
Risa scoffed, incredulous, a thousand retorts ready upon her tongue. “That’s it? You’re not going to question this old bat any further?”
A smile curled around the prince’s perfect bowed lips. “I trust Brunie. She’s a witch, after all.”
“Famous last words,” Risa grumbled.