Rosaliy

“What is wrong with everybody?” Cade asked as Rosaliy ducked around a corner to avoid a maid. The last thing she needed was another servant following her around, desperate to do something to please her. Drake was enough of a problem. His face was clouded and confused, but when he saw her look his way he perked up and smiled, happy to be noticed. Poor thing.

“They’re under a spell,” she answered.

“Why would you cast a spell on everyone?” was Cade’s next question.

“Because she’s smart and wonderful,” Drake sighed.

“No,” Rosaliy objected.

Cade snickered. Rosaliy nearly pinched him, but she didn’t have it in her.

“I may be smart and wonderful, but I did not cast the spell.” Well, technically, she did cast the spell. “Not on purpose,” she clarified. “Just come with me.”

Drake happily complied.

Cade snorted and came along out of curiosity rather than compulsion. Thank goodness he was immune to this mess. She led them into the secret passage and around to Daniella’s room. The seeing pool had faded to a very dull green.

“What is this place?” Cade marveled, reaching out to pick up a glass jar that was sparkling with faint pops of light.

“Do not touch anything in here,” Rosaliy exclaimed. “We’re in—” she began, realizing Drake was not only standing uncomfortably close, but he was also smelling a handful of her hair. “Drake, could you back up a little?”

He took a step back.

“And let go of my hair?”

He let her ponytail slide through his fingers and continued to stare at her with adoration.

“Maybe you could sit in the chair.” She pointed to a regal high-backed armchair. “Do something to keep your mind off me. How about that book?”

He complied, scooping up the Curi folk tales on her order. She had tested that book for traces of magic every way she could think of. It probably was not going to ensnare him. Hopefully. She felt a twinge of guilt as he leafed through it. She needed to be more careful. She was already making a mess of everything, and Daniella was ten steps ahead.

“Why are you with him?” asked a still-bewildered Cade.

“Let me start from the beginning,” she sighed.

Starting from the beginning took longer than she hoped, but eventually Cade understood the missing children and the search for Daniella. He was shakier on understanding Drake, but that was what it was.

“You think she—the former Queen herself—came here?” he said.

“I do,” answered Rosaliy, “but…”

He waited.

“It’s too confusing to explain,” she said. “Let me show you.” She grabbed for the hairbrush. “Daniella left this behind. It’s her hair.”

“How can you be sure?”

“Because I found her.”

Cade froze and shot Rosaliy a wordless, nervous expression of panic, an understandable reaction due to the subject matter.

She rushed to explain. “Not in person. With the seeing pool.” She pointed at the large stone basin in the center of the room.

He stared at her.

“Let me try again,” Rosaliy sighed, rubbing her head.

“Do you have a headache?” asked Drake, ready to leap to her rescue. “Do you need something?”

“Keep reading your book,” she grumbled. “Let me back up,” she told Cade.

She backtracked to her arrival in Kianne and the search of this room.

He summarized, “So while I was being unfairly imprisoned, you snuck into the castle and rifled around the queen’s old rooms, dosing yourself with love potion.”

“That’s exactly what happened,” she agreed. “I’m glad you’re understanding.”

“So where does the hairbrush fit in?”

“The hair, actually,” she corrected. “I was able to use it to make Daniella’s evil seeing pool work.”

She chose not to be more specific than that. She had been as unable to contact Athena as she had been the night before. Athena would have told her not to use dark magic under any circumstances, but since the Sorceress was unavailable to provide alternatives and her unavailability brought an extra measure of desperation to the situation, Rosaliy could see no other options. Cade and Drake had been in the dungeon for so long due to Rosaliy’s lengthy personal debate over how ethical using this pool was. Since Rosaliy was using her own blood and an already constructed dark seeing pool, the morality was very gray. The Naxturae were missing. Athena was missing. Anyone could be next. Rosaliy felt the urgency of the situation acutely. Alarmingly absent Athena had no other options for her, so that made the decision.

Rosaliy was glad Naxturaen ethics were so against the use of blood, because pricking her finger had been bad enough once. She withdrew one of Drake’s short knives. Her wound from the first time had just closed up, and she cringed as she went to re-pierce her skin with the tip of the knife. Unfortunately, the knife slid off her hand.

“That’s a fun trick,” marveled Cade.

“It’s not a trick,” Rosaliy muttered, tugging at the clasp of the belt around her waist. “This indiscriminately protects me from harm.”

Cade reached forward to pinch her. Luckily for her and for him, his fingers were stopped by an invisible, impenetrable layer of magic.

“Wow,” he marveled. “Did you cast that?”

“This enchantment is well beyond my skills, but thanks for the confidence,” she said, unfastening the belt and handing it to him.

He eagerly went to wrap the leather band around his own waist.

“It’s not going to work on you,” she warned. He tried anyway, and his face fell when he managed to give himself a pinch on his arm that was sure to leave a bruise.

Rosaliy dug the tip of her knife into her finger to greater success this time, if making herself bleed could be counted as success.

“You’re hurt!” Drake exclaimed, leaping from his chair to cradle her wounded hand in his.

“It’s just my finger, Drake,” she insisted, “but thanks for caring.”

She extracted her bloody finger from his care and patted his arm with her unwounded hand. “I hope you’re not too mad at me when this wears off.”

“I could never be mad at you,” he promised.

“Where’s the fun in that?” she chuckled.

He could make nothing of her teasing, so he asked, “Should I go back to reading?”

“Yes, please,” she answered, watching him trot back to the cushioned chair and return to the folk tales. She hoped this would wear off. He had been a much better traveling companion back when he had a will of his own.

“You’d think people would have liked Dee more if she had a potion like that,” Cade mused.

“Good point,” agreed Rosaliy. “Maybe we can ask her.”

She held her stinging finger over the faintly glowing waters of the otherwise dark pool. As a drop of blood fell onto the surface of the liquid, it flared, green light spreading from where the drop had vanished into the inky surface all the way to the edges of the wide stone bowl. She popped her aching finger in her mouth while an image appeared.

“What am I looking at?” asked Cade, not impressed. Unfortunately, after the time spent getting to and from the dungeon, the picture was faded and impossible to make out.

She grabbed another strand of hair and dipped it in the sap. When she dropped the gooey strand of blond hair into the pool, an image sprang into focus—a woman. The image of the woman tapped her lips with her fingers, then grabbed up her pen and wrote another line on the paper in front of her.

Cade whistled softly in amazement. “Is that—?” He leaned forward.

“Careful,” Rosaliy warned. “The last thing you need is to be covered in whatever’s in there. And, yes, it is.”

The woman was garbed in simple clothes, hair wrapped in a tight bun, but she was unmistakably Daniella.

“Can she see us?” Cade whispered, backing away from the pool. “Hear us?”

“I wouldn’t put anything past her, but she doesn’t have anything nearby for two-way communication.”

Cade stopped backing away from the pool, but he did not come any closer either. “Where is she?”

Rosaliy sighed. She did not want to answer that question, so she dipped her fingers in the water and pulled back the image until the building was in view. It was nestled in a wall of rock, the bulk of the building constructed inside a wide cave.

“That looks like…Taragon?” he said.

It did look like Taragon.

“Can you read that sign?” he asked, craning forward now that Daniella was out of view.

By adjusting her fingers, she was able to get close enough to read the sign on the building. It was in rough, Taragonian script, but the words were Terran: “Gemstone Trade and Tavern.”

“So are you going to Taragon?” asked Cade.

Absolutely not.

“Rosaliy,” Drake interrupted cautiously. “Would it make you happy if there was a note from Lillya in this book?”

“What?” she stammered. “Of course. Wait, is there a note from Lillya in the book, or are you just telling me that to make me happy?” Her head really did hurt.

He proudly handed over the book. On the back cover, scrawled in Lillya’s familiar bubbly handwriting was a short letter:

Mama & Papa,

I love you! Don’t worry about Tans and Duck. I’ll look out for them. If the baby comes soon, I’m sad I don’t get to see him right away. I hope he doesn’t sneeze fireballs. Actually, that sounds pretty funny. I’ll see you when everything’s safe!

Lots of Love,

Lillya

Hearts were drawn around the words. This was definitely from Lillya.

“Safe from what?” she muttered.

“Safe from Daniella?” Cade suggested. “Maybe they escaped.”

That made no sense at all.

“What am I to do now?” she said, half to herself.

Cade pointed at the fading seeing pool. “I’m not a magic expert, but go to Taragon?”

Rosaliy bristled. If she went to Taragon now, the book won. Daniella was waiting for her in Taragon.

In the shimmering image in the seeing pool, Rosaliy watched people come and go from the trading post, and she sighed. Daniella was waiting for her in Taragon. She had to go.

“I wish I could talk to Hale without, well, that happening.” She gestured toward Drake, who was starting to turn red and splotchy. Great, she was a disease.

“Hale is gone,” Drake told her cheerfully, thrilled to have more information.

“Gone?”

Cade nodded. “He’s right. The warden said Hale was out of town.”

“Out of town? Why?” This was too much of a coincidence.

“I’m sorry.” Drake frowned at her distress. “I’ll never leave you.”

That poor man. She hoped whatever spell he was under would leave him with no memory of the events of the day.

“I’m going to go ask Corin where Hale is,” she decided. “And for another horse and some supplies to reach Taragon,” Rosaliy said, making no move to do so.

“You could probably get half the kingdom while you’re at it,” Cade teased.

“You’re leaving?” panicked Drake.

“Just to—” she started to answer, then noticed his skin was even more flushed and his eyes were glazed.

She put a hand to his forehead. He was on fire.

“Cade,” she called. “Keep an eye on him please. Maybe—maybe being away from me will help.”

“No,” whimpered Drake. “I don’t want to be away from you.”

His pale blue eyes were pathetic and slightly bloodshot. She hesitated. “I’m not thrilled about leaving you like this either. Especially because this is all my fault. What you need is an antidote.”

“An antidote to you?” asked Cade.

Basically.

Just when she was about to search Daniella’s stores, she was up in the stars. She reeled backwards, her feet suddenly resting on nothing. A woman-shaped glow caught her arm.

“You don’t have long,” the woman warned Alexander. His solid form was jarring against Kalilya’s vague, glowing one, both set against the background of darkness punctuated by distant pinpricks of light. “I’m a little surprised I was able to pull her at all. I’ll go fetch Rinna away from…” Kalilya did not finish her sentence, but she waved a glowing arm off in the distance.

Katyrinna’s back was to them, facing a huddle of glowing women. Her arms were waving, and Rosaliy could just make out some of her words: “If you think I’m going to sit here while the people I love most in the world need me…” Kat’s powers must have been useless in the world of stars, because her level of anger would otherwise have spawned a lightning storm.

“We need good news,” Alexander told Rosaliy just before his nose wrinkled in sudden distaste. “Why are you coated in Serena’s awful love potion?”

Serena? From the little Rosaliy knew about the traitor Sorceress who had once colluded with Daniella, the fact that she would make such a potion made perfect sense.

“It’s not affecting you?” she asked, hopeful for a cure.

“Oh, it’s affecting me,” he replied dryly, crossing his arms. “I want to hug you and rip out your hair all at once. I don’t have fond memories of that smell.”

“A smell? Do you know how to counteract it?”

“Dampen, sure. Counteract, not really.” He shrugged. “The effects will fade and wear off after a few days.”

“A few days,” she moaned, “but I’m hurting Drake already.”

“Hurting?” He tipped his head and narrowed his eyes slightly.

“That’s not normal?”

“Well, no, but you did bathe in the stuff.” He made another sour face. Then he snapped his fingers, and his green eyes widened with a memory. “Wait, that chef’s assistant. Oh,” he trailed off. “How bad off is Drake?”

The look on his face and the cautious way he asked the question told the story, but she asked, “What happened to the chef’s assistant?”

“I’d rather not elaborate, but the potion basically activates a drive to please the wearer, to make you happy.”

“I’ve noticed,” she muttered.

“It’s hard to describe, but if someone has the overwhelming feeling they can’t please you for one reason or another, the results are not healthy.”

Alexander seemed to have a lot of experience with this potion.

“Would it help if I stayed away? Left him behind?”

“At this point, no,” Alexander disagreed. “That would be painful.”

A still fuming Kat had finally been pulled away from the star ancestors by her glowing mother. “This is the last chance,” Kat argued with her. “The next time the moon is in position will be—”

“I know, dear,” Kalilya told her in sad, soothing tones, dark lines drifting down her shimmering body of light. “A moon cycle is nothing to them and a broken heart even less. Thena will do her best for Issabeth, and I was able to pull Rosaliy one last time.”

Kat’s foul mood dissolved in proximity to Rosaliy. “Rose,” she exclaimed, enveloping her in a tight hug. “I’m so happy to see you!”

“I don’t have much good news,” Rosaliy admitted.

“Seeing you is good news,” Kat replied cheerfully.

“You only have seconds,” warned Kalilya.

“I found Daniella,” Rosaliy rushed. “And this.” She shoved the book containing Lillya’s note into Kat’s hands. “I don’t know what any of it means, but I will find out. I promise.”

“I know you will, Rose,” said Kat, beaming. “I trust you.”

“Lemon juice, fish, garlic, perfumes,” said Alexander as Rosaliy disappeared in a shimmer. “Any overpowering smells should lessen the—”

With that, Rosaliy was standing back in the room next to the wide stone basin. She nearly tumbled headlong into it.

“Where did you go?” exclaimed Cade.

“I told him,” mumbled Drake, huddled on his chair, cheek pressed into the arm, looking worse than ever.

“You kept saying something about the sky,” Cade blustered. “That is not an answer.”

“Kind of was,” she disagreed. “Stay here. I need to go track down some things that smell and figure out how to get to Taragon.”