Page 8 of Wickedly Ever After (A Fairy Tale Romp, #1)

Ida

My advice to any young witch—always maintain a polite, friendly demeanor when corresponding with rival witches.

Unless, of course, they are complete assholes.

Magic and Mischief—A Thousand Years of Happily-Ever-After

Ida North

For the remainder of that day, Ida had not known exactly what was wrong with her.

She left the room, feeling vaguely that she’d made a mistake.

Still, it was oddly satisfying to have picked, regardless of the circumstances, the most suitable girl for the position.

Amber, clearly from the most middle of the middle class, a blacksmith with a stable career—and here she laughed at her own bad pun—was as common as common got.

And yet, the girl had an uncommon temper, a fine sense of morality, and clearly cared about the downtrodden. She would make an excellent queen.

But she began to suspect something wasn’t quite right that evening, far too late to save the day.

As usual, Hari was involved.

***

Ida had a frank discussion with her chef about the petit fours in the kitchen. “I really feel serving so many sweets at these functions sets a bad example.”

“But—but you’ve always liked my Angel’s Dream Cake!

” the tearful man protested, twisting his chef’s hat into knots, and glancing around the kitchen nervously.

The cooks kept their attention on the stoves, but the housekeeper left her station where she was consulting with Hari over the folding of the napkins—delicate white swans on a blue bifold—and came over, looking concerned.

“Actually, I’ve never liked your Angel’s Dream Cake. It’s more like a sugar-spun nightmare, in all honesty—how much butter can you cram into a cake before it’s a frosted heart attack? From now on, I want a simple fruit tray and crudités. Is that clear?”

“Yes, my lady.” He sniffed.

“Good,” she said. “Now, if you’ll pardon me, I believe I will skip the princesses’ dinner and ball. Make sure the soup and salad are served first, not with the meal.”

The housekeeper protested. “But, my lady—it is traditional for the Good Witch to congratulate all the girls for their participation! You must attend.”

Ida waved her off. “Gods, can’t a woman buck tradition once in a thousand years?

She touched the rose, the spell is set, and nothing in my job description stipulates I must be present for a dinner I don’t want to eat, and a ball at which I won’t dance; and I simply can’t deal with all the fragrances girls wear nowadays. ”

“But, my lady—”

“Ida. It’s always been Ida. Now excuse me, I have a witch to burn.” Hector’s letter galled her. How dare he write and accuse her of deliberately trying to get him killed? If she’d wanted him dead, she wouldn’t send something like a laughing charm. It was a joke!

Hari brought her a bowl of watercress soup and a beef sandwich for dinner at ten. But he wasn’t his usual self—he tiptoed around the room, hanging up the dress and putting away the gloves that had been set out in the hopes she’d change her mind.

“Are you sure you won’t go down?” he asked, picking up her shoes. “You wouldn’t need to stay long—just make a showing?”

“No! I’m tired, and it’s almost over anyway. I hope they are all leaving right away. I’ve no desire to watch people weep into their tea at breakfast.”

Hari snorted. “Oh, yeah? After this afternoon, I rather thought you enjoyed watching people weep.”

Ida set her sandwich down. “All right. Out with it, Hari.”

He squared up to her, shoulders back. “Out with what? Do you need anything else, my lady?”

She rolled her eyes. “If you don’t say it now, I’ll have to hear it later, won’t I? You might as well speak—I’m not going to bite your head off.”

“I don’t know that you wouldn’t,” he said. “It’s not like you to snap at the cook, and my mother is downstairs crying. You did it in front of the whole kitchen too.”

Unwelcome remorse bubbled up. “I suppose…I suppose I was a bit sharp.”

“I’m not saying you weren’t right—at least about the frosted heart attack—but you’ve never told the man you didn’t like his cake.

Instead, you tell me to feed it to the pigs so you won’t hurt his feelings.

And my mother was only trying to make sure things went right—the girl you chose, Amber?

She wouldn’t wear the dress they brought for her.

Told the hairdresser to ‘get lost’ and given how dutiful our sprite is, she might be wandering around the castle crying because she can’t find her room. Just what was in that letter?”

She huffed. “Mostly Hector’s raw ass crack. He’s mad about the laughing charm.”

“That’s not what I meant. When you opened it, your whole face changed, like a spell had come over you. You looked…devastated.” He sat on the footstool next to her and took her hand in both of his tiny ones. “What’s wrong, Ida?”

She burst into tears. “I don’t…I don’t know! When you’ve known a man for so many years, even someone as awful as Hector, you expect to keep on knowing them. When he said he didn’t want to even hear from me anymore, I felt like someone died. I know that sounds stupid.”

“It doesn’t sound stupid at all,” Hari said, stroking her hand.

“I don’t like the man. I’ve never liked the man. But I respected the witch, and it was nice to know he’d always be there, at least until he retired, and maybe I’d hex his cabbages to glow pink so he’d remember me. I guess I thought he…”

She stopped. Hari was right. Something was wrong. She shouldn’t be this open with anyone, even Hari, even after two glasses of wine. She always concealed her emotions from her staff, the way a witch should.

Hector. Her lips tightened. “Did the trolls take out the trash yet?”

Hari pulled the letter out of his pocket, still wadded up like a snowball, carefully wrapped in a protective layer of wax paper.

“You didn’t touch it?”

“Picked it up with a fork,” he said.

She dumped it out on her dressing table with care. The paper had been plain and gray. Now it had turned dark and smoky, inked with blood.

Ida donned a white kid glove and flattened out the paper.

One ill turn deserves another.

“Hari,” she asked hesitantly, “did I tell you exactly how I felt about you too?”

He smiled. “Nothing I don’t already know.

You think I’m artistic, funny, and very gay.

You consider me a friend as much as a manservant.

You’re thinking about promoting me to steward, but you haven’t done it yet because you worry you wouldn’t get to be friends with me anymore.

You think I have a green thumb with the roses, but it’s the chicken shit, not me.

And you wish I’d settle down with a nice man and have a family, but I only know that because my mother said you told her. ”

Ida palmed her face. A candor curse! That irresponsible, foolish, deplorable, ancient, old…

witch! He knew the princesses were coming today.

He knew how much she detested the event.

He’d heard her go on about it during Council meetings .

Oh, Gods. She’d elected the wrong girl! Mildred was probably halfway home by now, she’d sob to her daddy, he’d go to the board, and they’d go to the Witches’ Council…

Of course, she could possibly get around that by telling Hector what had happened, how she’d simply gotten tired of the whole thing and decided to throw caution to the wind and let the magic choose, but that would involve telling him and the other witches that for years the committee had made the choice.

Then they’d want to know why she’d done something so reckless as asking the magic itself to choose without telling the Council first, her letter to Hector would come up, and then…

She bit her lip.

“What are you going to do?” Hari asked.

What indeed?

The fact she and Hector didn’t like one another was well-known.

The fact they both wanted to see the other’s expertly crafted and maintained castle and grounds decimated by cutworms and weevils was legend.

But very few people knew they’d been corresponding and hexing each other by mail for centuries.

That sort of thing, if it got out, would bring endless speculation in the kingdom. She could see the headlines.

The Sorcerer’s Star , that horrible tabloid, would probably publish something like:

Elderly Witches Secret Love Affair—Couple Has Hot Phone Sex on Crystal Ball

The Kingdom Wall Journal would read:

Witches, Wizards, and Graft—Corruption at Highest Levels of Magic

Witches’ Weeds would say:

Witch Rivalry Leads to Good/Evil Imbalance In Kingdom: Crop Futures Decline

Sale on Jack-In-The-Beanstalk’s Magic Root Powder!

Shop Cinderella’s Emporium for all Your Giant Pumpkin Needs!

She crumpled the paper up and tossed it in the trash. “I’m not going to do anything,” she said. “Hari, I know it’s late, but would you go find our sprite and make sure she isn’t lost in the north tower again?”

Amber would make an amazing Common Princess. She certainly had the drive, ambition, and good sense to make an excellent queen. Far better than that horrible Mildred.

No one needed to know. Everything would be okay.