“What did you do to your dress?” Esmerelda looked horrified.

“I needed to get something from the storage room.”

“And so you went yourself in one of your nicest dresses?”

Hailey shrugged one shoulder. “It’s what I wearing at the time.”

Esmerelda rolled her eyes. “It’s a good thing that I’m back. Maybe I can keep you looking like a proper mage.”

“Your own clothes are covered in mud, and what is that smell? You have nothing to complain about.”

Esmerelda smiled ruefully. “I was helping with the goats.”

Hailey shook out her skirts and a puff of dust floated into the air. She refused to acknowledge it, though. “I need to head to the kitchen to get some herbs. Do you want to come with me?”

“You shouldn’t have to ask,” Esmerelda said, turning to head the same direction as Hailey. “I’m your lady’s maid, remember?”

A lady’s maid that was chastising me a minute ago about getting my dress dirty, Hailey thought.

“How was your visit?”

“Refreshing. Mother wants to teach me to care for animals, which might be fun, even though it is very smelly work. It doesn’t matter, though. Spending time with her was wonderful, even if we were walking through sheep dung.” She stopped walking for a minute and turned to Hailey, giving her a tight hug. “It’s one of the nicest things anyone has ever done for me. Thank you.” She let go, and Hailey noticed how content Esmerelda seemed. It was a rare emotion for her friend. Esmerelda had always been scheming, always trying to get a better job, earn more money. That’s probably why she jumped at the chance to be Hailey’s lady’s maid.

“I’m sure you two had a lot to catch up on.” Hailey felt a stab of jealousy for the first time. She had never known her own mother, never known what it might be like to have a family. She was happy for her friend, though.

They reached the kitchens and Hailey asked for bay leaves and thyme. The busy cook frowned at her. “You’re going to run me right out of bay leaves.”

“I might be able to bring it back.”

The cook looked horrified. “No. I don’t want magic in the soup, thank you.” She thrust the herbs at Hailey, looking frustrated and then curtsied, maybe to make up for the glare.

“Beware the angry cook,” Esmerelda said.

Hailey chuckled. “I know. I feel bad taking all her herbs, but if I can wake the princess, it’s worth wasting every herb she has in her larder.”

Esmerelda grinned. “So you figured it out?”

“I think so. I think I was missing a piece.” She began to explain to Esmerelda about the foci and the runes.

Before she even explained the herbs, Esmerelda held up a hand. “I am glad I’m not a mage. I didn’t realize that it was so boring.”

Hailey stopped walking. “It’s not boring, it’s incredible and complicated.”

“Says the girl who has spent the last six months with her nose in a book. I can help you set it up if you want, as long as you don’t explain to me how all of it works.”

“You know, I could use help setting up the candles.”

Esmerelda grinned. “Do you remember the time that we stole candles from Miss Forester? She was so angry. I’m sure she knew we did it.”

Hailey laughed. “She was so angry and she knew who had done it, too. She kept checking our room, until Lavina told her that it wasn’t us.”

Esmerelda chuckled. “Poor Lavina.”

Lavina had watched over them when they were little and had trained them to work in the kitchen when they got a little older. She did not let them bend the rules, but the girls tried to get away with whatever they could. They had used the candles to stay up later than they should have. Lavina had never let them have candles in their room because they might burn the whole castle to the ground. Also, they were supposed to be sleeping, but they had stayed up anyway, telling each other stories about princesses and far away kingdoms.

“Sometimes, I’m surprised that they let us stay here,” said Esmerelda. “We were always sneaking around the castle, getting into mischief.”

“Yes, but we weren’t always caught.” Hailey grinned.

Esmerelda laughed. “I think Lavina knew it and punished us twice as hard when she caught us doing anything we shouldn’t because she knew we were getting away with things we shouldn’t.”

Hailey laughed. “I’m sure you’re right. It was hard not to feel a little guilty about some of their antics, but they had had so much fun and Esmerelda and Margaret and even Lavina were the closest things that she had had to family.

King Theodric looked worse by the minute. Isabella had thought that maybe giving him sufficient rest would help. She could sense a healing power nearby, but it wasn’t going to be enough. All the talking and everything he had done, along with what she had done to him would kill him in the end.

“I should let you rest,” she told her brother. We can catch up some more when you’re feeling better.

“BB, don’t go.” Every time he said that name, flashes of memory lit up in her mind; their entire family traveling in the winter, she and Theodric playing games and causing trouble when they were supposed to be paying attention to the tutor.

“Are you sure you don’t want me to heal you? I might be able to do something that the other mages haven’t been able to do. My magic is a little different.”

He coughed, bringing up blood, and wiped it away with a feeble hand. She cleaned his bearded chin for him again. “The old mage that used to be my friend, Barinon, said that you were a little different, that your magic wasn’t tied to the well in the same way that his was.”

She nodded, not wanting to think about what she had done to the mage. If he was one of Theodric’s confidant’s than it made her feel that much worse.

He sighed. “You can try, but I think the borders will be better protected if the power of the heir goes to you.”

“You don’t think it will wake your daughter, then?”

He shook his head, ever so slightly. “I doubt anything will be that easy. Barinon didn’t seem to think that it would, since the spell that is protecting her protects her from magic as well. It would mean that the power of the heir would shift from me to you. I am weak and dying, sister. You would be able to do more for the kingdom than I.”

“I doubt that I would make a good ruler, though. It’s better if you stay. I can help the mage free your daughter. Since I cast the original curse, it ought to be much easier for me to take care of things.”

She looked at him and saw the stubbornness in his eyes. He wanted to die, wanted to stop suffering and she couldn’t say that she blamed him, each cough and wheeze sounded painful and he no longer wanted to fight. He thought she could save the kingdom, thought she could make everything right, but he had no idea how easily Lillith had gotten into her mind. She still didn’t remember everything. She knew she didn’t.

“Part of me knew, that it was you who came to the castle, that day,” he said. “I didn’t want to admit it, didn’t want to go through thinking that this girl was my sister all over again, only to find out that you were a fake, like the others who had been sent away.” He gasped for breath, and she squeezed his hand.

“It’s ok,” she told him. Damn him, he was making her cry all over again. She did not want to lose him and the kingdom would certainly feel his absence, but she would not force a healing on him if he did not want it. “I survived, and you became a good king for your people, a good father.”

“I wish you would have had to more time with mother. She never really got over losing you, you know?”

Isabella smiled. “She met me at the market every week. She brought me money and shopped with me for things I needed.”

“That’s where she went. I am glad to hear it. Father never could reconcile your disappearance. He figured you had just died and that was the end of it. He was so frustrated.” He coughed again, and she waited for him to continue. “So frustrated that she would even believe that her daughter was still alive. They couldn’t talk about you without getting into an argument, and so they never did.”

Isabella patted his hand. She knew that her father had loved her. He had had to move on with his life. He had looked for Isabella, had scoured the countryside himself, but was never able to find her. She had grown too much in the time that she had been lost in the forest. She had become thinner and dirtier and no longer fit in the gown she had disappeared in, and so she hadn’t worn it back to the castle. It was just too much for her father to take when she reappeared.

Theodric gasped for breath, bringing her back to the present. “I’m glad you are here with me in the end. I forgive you.”

She kissed his brow. “I’m glad I am here too. I have missed you, you know.”

“Me too,” he said. He took one final breath and was still.

Isabella’s heart hurt, watching him die. Then, a rush of power filled her, bringing with it emotion and memories. Everything she had done came flooding back to her. She gasped, bunching the blanket in her hands blanket.