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34

BESSA

In the morning, Cassia found us curled together in Mika’s bed. She flared open the curtains and stoked the fire. I woke slowly, then all at once.

“The frog talked?” I asked, feeling sleepy and stupid.

“Good morning to you, too.” Mika sat up, rubbing her eyes. “Cassia, didn’t you hear the frog?”

“Aye,” the maiden said, bustling around the chambers much too cheerily for daybreak. “I almost peed my gown, I was so shocked. He said he was a prince. What a wee cute thing he was. Wanted me to kiss him and all.”

“A frog wanted you to kiss him and turn him back into a prince?” Why was I not keeping up with this seemingly simple conversation?

Cassia laughed. “I gave his little head a rub with my finger and told him to go back home. Personally, I don’t think the cook simmered all of that alcohol out of the barley stew before she served it last night!”

“No, I heard him, too,” Mika said, motioning for Cassia to help tie her bodice. The dresses we’d found a few weeks ago were finished being tailored, and this one had acorns and oak leaves embroidered on its lace ruffs. “He wouldn’t stop hopping after us, so I took him to the library. I couldn’t find the book I was looking for, but I swear I read about a prince turned into a frog by an evil witch a hundred years ago.”

I blinked, my brain groggy. “An evil witch? That’s strange. Yesterday, Ambrose gave me a memory-wick candle. It revealed him being kidnapped by an evil magician and I just realized something…”

“What?” Mika asked, concern tinging her voice. No matter how outlandish my claims, my sister always believed me.

“The evil magician looked remarkably similar to a certain magician from Skyfold Pass. But that doesn’t make sense. Ambrose of all people would have recognized him immediately. The magician tortured him as a boy! He kept him locked in gold chains.”

Mika and Cassia both gasped. “That’s horrible!”

“I know, and that’s not even the worst of it. Ambrose is from Honeywood Haven. He was kidnapped as a boy by the magician, who either claimed to be his uncle or really is his uncle, and he didn’t escape until he was an adult and found his way home.”

I let Cassia help me into a gown with delicate frost work woven into the lace, all the while urging my brain to wake up and think! “I’m going to find Ambrose and ask him about it. If there's even a chance it’s the same man, I will expel the delegation from Skyfold Pass immediately. Culm hasn’t spoken one word to me beyond ‘hello’. And what need do we have of overland shipping anyway, I ask you?”

“Well, nothing for exports, but it would be nice to have cheaper imports,” Mika began. “Never mind. I agree. Evil magician first.”

“Aye, all good ideas, if I may be so bold, your majesty.” Cassia began brushing out my old stockings with youthful vigor. “You should also talk to Prince Rontu rather soon. From what I’ve heard in the kitchens, he has no intention of proposing. In fact, he’s planning on leaving.”

“What!” I dropped the scented bag of rose petals and galingale that had been a gift from Rontu. Per his instructions, we tucked it into clothing in the morning to keep them fresh-smelling all day. It fell in a heap on the rest of my garments.

“That’s what the servants are saying. He already has a marriage contract with a girl from a small southern outpost in the Salt Sea. No one nearly as fine as your majesty. Not in good breeding, tastes, or looks. In my opinion?—”

Cassia continued about the supposed chieftain’s daughter, but I barely processed her chatter. I felt like I was being strangled. If there had been one suitor less odious than the rest, it was Rontu. Jarth de la Silverwood was already gone, King Culm had a harem, and now Rontu? Who did that leave? Zacan of Coalcrest, who only wanted an heir, and Gillian of the Violent Tides? Oh gods.

Not that I had any intention of actually going through with a marriage, but having Rontu on the hook could have given me at least a year of engagement talk. Delay, delay, delay. Now, the other suitors might get aggressive with my clear frontrunner out of the way.

“No,” I said, even my voice coming out strangled. “Rontu would have said something.”

“It’s true. Your majesty! Wait! Where are you going?”

I threw on a brocade cloak, black and deep as midnight, my hair combed out for the day and falling in loose waves down my back, the net only half attached. I tore it off the rest of the way and threw it on my sister’s bed.

“I’m going to find out. Mika, you find that frog.”