The crash was a tray of food that Esmerelda had dropped on entering the princess’s room. A small roasted chicken leg, and potatoes lay atop a broken plate. It smelled amazing, and Hailey’s stomach grumbled, reminding her how long it had been since she had eaten. “Guards,” Esmerelda shrieked.

Isabella frowned. “Stop her, or I will.”

“She’s my friend,” Hailey said, feeling relief wash over her. If Esmerelda was still running around then the fairies hadn’t gotten past the shimmer. She hurried out into the hallway. She could see Esmerelda running, about to turn down the main staircase. “Extollo,” Hailey said, lifting her friend and pulling her back to the princess’s room. She wanted to keep an eye on Isabella, and she couldn’t do it if she was chasing Esmerelda all over the castle.

“Don’t let her get me, Hailey.” Esmerelda’s eyes were wide with fear.

Isabella stood in the doorway. “You could shield her and tie it to the floor.” Isabella sounded impatient. “We don’t have time to be distracted now.”

Hailey did so, almost certain that Esmerelda would run again if she got the chance. Hailey didn’t blame her, but she did need to concentrate right now. She needed to do what she could for Taivalon. “But the army. How do you know that they are coming? It doesn’t make sense for you to know just because you live in the forest.”

Isabella looked exasperated. “You said that you would trust me to undo this spell.”

“And I want to make sure that my trust was not misplaced.”

Isabella sighed. “Don’t you think that if I wanted her dead, I could have managed it by now?”

“Not without my help, otherwise, you’d fall unconscious trying to kill her, and then it would be easy for me to kill you.”

Isabella looked so weary, so tired. There were lines around her eyes and mouth. “You have to understand, I have done a lot of things in the past few decades that were beyond my control.”

“You mean someone else was making you do what you did?” Hailey asked. That didn’t seem likely. Everyone knew that Isabella was a powerful mage. Barinon has said that even the mages in his time had feared her.

“Exactly.”

“How do I know that they won’t seize control and make you kill the princess once she’s free?”

“You don’t. My enemy has been pulling strings in this kingdom for a long time now, and I’m only one of those strings. For the first time in decades, I am away from her, able to see clearly and I see all the manipulation, all the subterfuge, all the lies, but I also see the effects of the things that I have done and for that I am deeply sorrowful.” She paused. Her brows were furrowed and the corners of her mouth turned down.

If she isn’t upset about what had happened to the kingdom, then she’s one hell of an actress, Hailey thought.

“I know that saying I’m sorry doesn’t fix anything, so I will do whatever it takes to help right the wrongs that I have done. Right now, I need you to trust me. She looked into Hailey’s eyes and Hailey couldn’t help it. For no reason other than the sorrowful look on Isabella’s face, Hailey decided that she would trust her.

“Esmerelda, I need you to trust me, too.” Hailey let the shield go. “I need to to tell Aaron about the invading army of fairies. He should be back in the castle right now. If he’s not there, tell Captain Derrick. We are about to be overrun with fairies, and they need to be prepared.”

Esmerelda’s eyes grew wide. “Are you sure?”

Hailey knew she was asking a lot of Esmerelda. She hadn’t signed up to deal with soldiers and fairies. “I’m sorry to ask you to do this, but I need someone to start the army preparing. I am going to be busy for a time with this spell. Can you do this for me.”

Esmerelda nodded.

“Good. They will be here at midnight. We need everyone who can hold a sword, and we need the men who are patrolling the shimmer to know and be prepared as well. Esmerelda had always been the fastest of the three girls.”

“I will go, but Hailey, be safe.” And with that, Esmerelda turned and ran.

Isabella paced the princess’s room, thinking over how exactly she was going to undo the spell that was tied to the princess. The one the mage’s had used was one she was not familiar with, but since it had been tied to the original curse that she had placed on the child, she should be able to undo it.

The young mage watched her with a little wariness still in her eyes. She was so young to be the only mage for an entire kingdom, and she was surprisingly strong for one who had not finished her training.

At least she had decided to trust her, but still, what she was asking of Hailey would require a little more trust than she seemed willing to give at the moment, and so while the back of her mind worked to figure out the spell, she told Hailey about her life up to this point.

“I think I was actually pretty easy for my enemy to trap. I went in search of my daughter, who was taken from me at a very young age.” She did not tell her that she had agreed to the crazy idea of letting go of her own flesh and blood child, that she had regretted that ever since she looked at her daughter’s tiny, round face. How could a mother let go of something so precious.

“Sylphana told the that a woman named Lillith might know where my daughter was, and so I made the long journey to Lillith’s home. I did not have a portal there at the time, but rather than telling me where my daughter was, she demanded that I do things for her and then she would tell me. When those things became to awful for me to comply, she took hold of my mind and bent me to her will. I have spent months wandering the black castle, thinking that it was richly furnished and that I had servants to do my bidding, but I’m pretty sure that every person I saw was one of Lillith’s henchmen.” She left out the part about the dragon. It would be better if Hailey didn’t know that was her. The girl was barely trusting her now as it was.

“That is awful,” Hailey said. “How did you get free?”

“I ran. Memories of my past life woke me up. I kept having dreams and memories and eventually I decided that I had to go, had to get away from her influence. The problem was that I was trapped for a very long time. The armies were amassing from my castle, so I knew they were coming but I thought that it was Taivalon that was invading us.”

Hailey looked horrified. Isabella shook her head. You have no idea, she thought. As she thought it might, the answer to undoing the spell came to her when she wasn’t thinking about it. “This is actually a rather easy spell to reverse.”

The young mage pulled something out of her pocket. She was a pretty little thing, now that she wasn’t trying to kill Isabella.

“I have been dumping magic into this, if it helps.” She held out an amulet. A large, clear crystal on a chain.

Isabella was surprised. “Where did you learn to do that?”

“It was in one of the books.”

“But that’s not human magic.”

Hailey looked up in surprise.

“Batteries of this nature were specifically avoided for a reason.” That is so typical. Mages write things in their books, but what they don’t write is how much it takes from the person casting the spell. You must have been exhausted. She handed it back to Hailey. “You might need this later. Hold onto it for now.

Just then, she heard steps thumping down the hallway. “What is going on here?”

Isabella didn’t hesitate. She put her shield in place, but made it bigger. It was large enough to cover the princess, and both mages.

It was Endolynn, queen of all Taivalon and the current ruler. “We are waking your daughter,” she told the queen, and then, taking Hailey’s hand, she concentrated.

Everything the young mage had set up made it that much easier for her to find the foci of the spell and detach it. She didn’t need the power of the young mage, but she had obviously worked so hard to be able to undo the spell that she wanted her to be part of its undoing.

She concentrated, feeling the power of the other mage and her own power mingle together, and then she reversed the spell. “Amitto,” she said, opening her eyes and watching the spell vanish from off of the princess.

Aurora, her niece blinked her eyes and sat up, looking around the room, but her eyes lingered longest on Hailey. “I know you,” she said.