Marigold nodded.
“Seems a lot like the choice I made, the reasoning.”
Marigold turned to Finn.
“So there you have it. I can hardly expect someone with a life as charmed as yours to understand.”
Melinda held up a finger to warn Marigold.
“Your eccentricity is your strength,” she said. “It’s no good to be jealous of others.”
All of a sudden Finn stood up, his fists clenched in anger.
“You think I’m so simple?” he asked. “You think I never experience doubt, confusion? Sometimes I wish I were driven to desperation that caused me to make choices without constraint, without duty pulling on my neck. Everyone says I am so simple and good. So I perform it for them. But I would like a very different life.”
Just that moment, the door to the parlour swung open and a client for Melinda had arrived. Melinda tried to insist that Finn stay, but it was too late: he was already charging out the door.
Marigold was angry with him. Why wasn’tshethe one making the outburst? Was she supposed to rush after him, when her whole world was yet again turned upside down? But then, she supposed, if Finn had never had an outburst in his life, perhaps he was unable to restrain himself.
Restraint. Freedom. Those were the themes of her own transformation. She wondered what Finn would do if he felt free.
Melinda begged her to stay, but Marigold decided she would look for Finn, after all. She exited the parlour and went onto the street.
She felt…self-conscious. Many passersby were holding pamphlets that may well have been the news from the fire kingdom, which included a drawing of her.
In addition to the usual crowd of townspeople and farmers, people with hair in various shades of blue dotted the streets. Refugees, maybe, who had fled when the siege on the water castle began. The locals eyed the newcomers with suspicion, clearly.
But it was curious, Marigold thought, weaving through people in search of Finn and taking the first left down an alley toward Finn’s usual pub–the water king was feared and even hated by his subjects. So they would likely rejoice in the fire kingdom’s triumph. Did that mean that the water kingdom subjects who travelled here didnotrejoice in the fire kingdom’s triumph? Did that mean that they had foughtagainstTopaz and his insurgents? And in which case, were they dangerous?
At the door to the pub, she turned around and sighed. Two blue haired men had followed her.
So, she had her answer.
She knocked on the door to the pub and screamed and yelled, but it was no use: one of them was a shifter. They had her loaded on the back of the dragon just in time to see Finn come out of the pub. She rose into the sky.
He watched as she was spirited away.
Chapter Ten
Finn
Finn felt foolish, he felt weak. Or at least, those were the things he felt when he was even capable of feeling anything other than stunned.
Marigold was gone. Captured. She didn’t go willingly, of that Finn was sure. She had screamed when she left and then, there was so much unfinished business here. He ran through the streets, following the arc of the dragon’s flight. He ran right by Hestia, who shouted after him, who asked if that was really how he wished to treat his fiancee, who could have her pick of the men in this town if she wanted.
He mounted his horse, and he rode as far as he could while the dragon was in sight. But eventually it rose up into the clouds beyond where he could see. Finn cursed and screamed alone in the middle of a field. Was he really powerless to help her? And what was their object, anyway, with Marigold?
Perhaps they would ransom her to the fire king. But would they have their way with her first? Torture, beat…rape her?
It was awful, it was unthinkable. Finn needed a plan, and fast. He could not fly. He couldn’t breathe fire or make water…His only option was to ride to the fire kingdom and alert King Topaz.
Finn didn’t want to waste any time, but he also didn’t see any way around telling his family where he was going. So he rode home fast and hard, and stumbled into the kitchen completely breathless.
“Marigold has been captured,” he shouted to Rosemary, Freddie, and William, who were each working on domestic tasks–cleaning, sweeping, organising. “There is no time to spare,” he emphasized.
“Marigold?” William asked, standing up. He still had not given up his suit of Marigold–but rather had deliberately slowed it. To ensure success, William told Finn, he would have to let Marigold settle in, and, in so many words, “find herself.”
“Taken by who?” William asked.
