The king smiled at Barinon. “I’m glad you came. I had worried that the mages wouldn’t send anyone despite the princess’s pleas.” The king was a tall and thin man, but not frail. His mouth was framed by a brown and gray beard. Barinon genuinely liked him. Everyone had to pretend to like the king, but something about the his straightforward manner or the mischievous glint he got in his eye reminded you that this was not just a king, he was a man who was doing his bed to run an entire kingdom.

“Thank you for having me, your majesty.” Barinon bowed, hoping that he was presentable.

“Don’t be like that,” the king said. He stood next to him and spoke in a low whisper. “I know yo don’t really want to be here, but you might as well enjoy it. My daughter has spent so much of her life with the mages, that she wanted to have at least one here.” He smiled at Aurora with such fondness, it was almost heartbreaking.

A gray aura hung around the child, reminding Barinon time was running out. He shouldn’t be sitting here, eating cake and making small talk, he should be doing something. Still, he didn’t know what that would be. He rubbed at his eyes. If it were up to him, he would return to his home and collapse on his small bed. No, that wasn’t true. If it were up to him he would still be working on spells. Something had to be able to undo the curse. He hadn’t been getting much sleep lately, none of them had. The closer this day came, the fewer hours of sleep they all got.

“Get yourself some tea,” Barinon. “You look terrible.”

The king was probably right, but Barinon doubted there was enough tea in the world to make him feel truly awake. Still, he walked to the small table at the edge of the room and poured himself a cup of tea. The hot liquid did make him feel more awake and it felt good on his throat. He closed his eyes savoring the slightly bitter flavor.

Barinon sat at one of the chairs watching the princess chat with her friends. They whispered behind gloved hands, looked around the room and then squealed in delight. Barinon did not see the point to this game and it hurt his head. Even the queen was cringing. The king sat down next to him. “Do you really think that something will happen to my daughter? She has been a healthy, exuberant girl since she was tiny.”

They had been over this before, but Barinon didn’t want to upset the king too badly. “It’s why there are so many of us here. It is better to prepare for the worst and not have anything happen than to ignore it and be caught unawares.” All of the mages but Barinon were meeting in the study to discuss last minute options. His stomach twisted at the thought.

All these years, all the work that had gone in to undoing the princess’s curse and nothing had come of it, but as he watched the princess, he could understand the king’s unconcern. Millicent had said something to the child, a curse was placed on her, a curse that the king himself would not be able to see and nothing had come of it. The princess had not even been sick as often as some of the children he knew.

“I still don’t think anything is going to happen,” the king said. “You worry too much.”

“It’s not just her life that’s at stake here…”

The look the king gave him cut him off. “I know. The powers of the heir, the good of the kingdom, the invasion of the fairies. I am the heir, too, you know.”

Barinon did know. He scratched at his cheek and realized he had missed a spot when he had been shaving. He knew that if he weren’t so tired, he wouldn’t even have brought it up. The king, more than anyone knew the risks to the kingdom. He had to get his mind to work clearly again.

“Barinon.”

He looked around to see how had been calling his name. Alyssa stood in the doorway motioning for him to follow. She was beautiful despite the new lines around her eyes. She blinked constantly as if that would help her feel more awake. They were all exhausted.

Barinon stood and swayed for a moment. “I will return.” He bowed to the king who shook his head at him.

“You better and then you better get some sleep.”

“Why did you come for me?” Berinon asked, though he felt relief at the opportunity to leave the party. The hallways in this place were wide enough for eight men to walk together through them.

Alyssa looked back at him with dark, sorrowful eyes. She was one of the most beautiful women he had ever seen. She had dark hair and high cheekbones. She walked ahead of him, leading the way. He always thought that the robes of the mages looked better on women than they did on men. They certainly looked better on her. The dark blue contrasted nicely with her coppery skin. It made his skin look pale. Tears were streaming down her face. “Conrad is dead,” she said.

He took her hand in his as they continued to walk. “What happened?” She had always been so determined, so in control of herself and her surroundings, that it was almost shocking to see her cry. She scrubbed the tears away. “He tried to cast the death spell on a goat. He said it wrong and now…”

Barinon wrapped his arms around her. She trembled against his chest. It was hard to believe that someone as powerful as Conrad could make such an obvious mistake. It was a death spell, after all. You had to be careful with those things.

“Come on,” she said, pulling away from him. “They will be waiting for us.” She pulled out a handkerchief and dabbed at her eyes and blew her nose.

He shook his head. He was having trouble imagining the community of mages without Conrad. He had been so willing to listen to Barinon’s crazy ideas. Who would he go to with them now? All he felt, knowing that the man was dead, was numbness, an unwillingness to believe Alyssa’s words.

It suddenly felt a long way to the study and he didn’t want to go, didn’t want to see his friend lying dead on the floor. Alyssa pulled on his hand. He hadn’t realized that he had stopped walking. He swallowed his sorrow and continued.

The study was one of the more beautiful rooms in the castle. Ornately carved bookshelves filled all of the walls. Not all of the shelves were filled. Even kings didn’t have that many books, but there were more than there were in the mage’s study.

Today it felt stuffy and confined, though it was large enough for them and many more people to meet. Grimoires were opened on the table and some of the more studious mages were leafing through pages, ignoring everyone else around them. He looked at his friend lying on the ground, a permanent look of surprise on the old man’s face. The goat “baaahed” and walked around the room on spindly legs. It was a young thing and everyone was ignoring it and his mentor. Didn’t they care about Conrad at all? But then he remembered. The entire future of the kingdom was at risk, not just one man’s life.

Alyssa stood net to him, still holding his hand. He hoped he was at least some comfort to her. “Look at what happened to Conrad,” Reimund said. He was the oldest mage in the room and the one that everyone generally deferred to. His white beard was tangled and there was a stain down the front of his robe. His voice boomed out over the others. “We are not trying that again.”

“I know, Reimund,” Gwendolyn said in her nasal voice. She was a large woman in her forties. “I’m not saying that we should try to cast it on the goat, we should just try to move the spell to the goat.”

“The magic is not going to accept moving the spell to an animal. It will know the difference,” Peter said. His young voice did not sound anywhere near as commanding as the other two.

Gwendolyn turned to stare at him. “The magic doesn’t know anything. That’s like saying that a hammer knows not to try to pound something into water.”

“You’re wrong,” Peter argued.

“And you’re a fool,” Gwendolyn said.

“Enough!” Reimund roared. “Do you think that this is the best use of what little time she have left? Are we a ragged bunch of children calling insults? We are the best this kingdom has to offer and if we don’t figure this out, no one else will.”

Silence and terror filled the room. They all knew what was at stake. Finally Alyssa spoke beside him. “The problem is that we are back to square one.”