Angelique stared at Elle for a moment, until laughter finally bubbled past herlips.
Yes, Severin and Elle will be just perfect for eachother.
Severin glared at his lady, but even Angelique could see the gleam of humor that sparked in his eyes. He shook his head, then turned his attention to Angelique. “I wanted to talk to you again, Lady Enchantress. I’ve finally gotten the entire story out of Oliver, and he told me of the mountainhag.”
“I find it hard to believe one had shuffled all the way to southern Erlauf,” Elle frowned. Gone was her humor. Instead, she narrowed her eyes, and Angelique could almost see the wheels turning in hermind.
“Erlauf has also seen an increase in goblins,” Angelique said. “A few mages have theorized that since Carabas has been purged, the goblins that used to be there movedon.”
Severin narrowed his eyes. “You don’t agree with thetheory?”
Angelique shrugged. “I am acquainted with Prinzessin Gabrielle, who is also the Marquise of Carabas. Shehuntedall the goblins in her lands and eradicated them. If any escaped, I’m certain they were few in number and not nearly enough to account for this suddenincrease.”
“It’s said the princesses of Farset have been cursed,” Elle added. “Alltwelveof them, though no one knows exactly what the curse is, only that they wear through their shoes eachnight.”
“The witch who cursed me was never caught?” Severinasked.
“Not to my knowledge,” Angelique said. She paused, then added, “It’s been a strange past fewyears.”
“Yes,” Severin acknowledged. “We can only hope that it’s merelystrangeand not the start of somethingworse.”
Chapter 10
Angelique crouchedbehind her desk in Evariste’s workshop and suspiciously eyed her latest attempt at the complex search spell Stil hadfound.
All winter she had worked on it—between continuing her research and sending messages to Clovicus asking if there were any updates on Evariste from the committee. (Thereweren’t.)
And despite the long winter months that had passed into spring, Angelique hadn’t gotten the spell to work correctly. Or rather, in the beginning, she had made tiny errors that always made the spell deflate or fizzle; but the last few times, she had done everything perfectly…but after the spell whizzed off to search for Evariste, itcrumbled.
“But this time, this time I think I finally have it,” Angelique muttered to herself as she eyed the flower-shaped, silvery spell. “Or at least I have the start of something that might work.” She glanced worriedly at her bracelet—a silver thing with a blue glass bead encased by a silver cage—that sat on her desk directly below thespell.
It seemed to Angelique that the spell crumbled when it hit whatever defensive magic the black mages were using to hide Evariste because it lacked the power to pushthrough.
Angelique theorized that she could supplement the spell by adding her bracelet—a gift from Evariste to her whichalsocontained the added benefit of a locating charm. She hoped it would give the spell the extra oomph needed to make the distance. So, she added a bit of her own spellwork that brought the bracelet into the magical circuit the spellcreated.
I hope I’m right, or I’ll have to give up on this spell, too, and go back to combing the countryside for sparks of blackmagic.
The thought made Angelique sag, but she shook her head in determination. “This will work,” she stubbornlysaid.
She shuffled her feet to adjust her crouch so her thighs didn’t burn quite so much, but she didn’t dare stand. (This spell had knocked her over on more than one occasion, and once she had set her dress on fire when she took a candle down withher.)
“Okay…here we go.” Angelique took a deep breath, then cautiously spoke the release word in the language ofmagic.
The silvery spell glowed brighter and brighter as the script twining around her magic turned white-hot.
A silver mist encased the bracelet, and for a moment everything wasstill.
Abruptly, the spell veered off, shooting through the wall of the house anddisappearing.
“Thank goodness,” Angelique breathed a sigh of relief. “I was half-worried it was going to blow the house up with the bracelet added in. Now I just have towait.”
Search spells were not instantaneous—it took time for the spells to cover land. Based on how previous iterations of the spell had gone, she had approximately an hour tospare.
She stood up and walked around her desk so she could sit down in a chair. She busied herself with reading more books in search of other helpful spells, but after half an hour, she gave up pretending to get anything useful done. The spell was a faint tingling sensation in her mind as it chugged along, following thebond.
She stiffened as she closed her eyes, immersing herself in her magic. Her heart thudded in her chest as she waited andhoped.
Angelique wasn’t entirely sure where her spell was, but she felt it when it thumped into something—this was always the moment when it faltered and was then snuffedout.
