Angelique glanced down at her feline friend then across at Gabrielle. The hero-turned-princess watched her with an even gaze.They need the truth because they’re going to fight this. “It’s bad,” Angelique admitted. “It’s a powerful, multi-layered curse. I don’t know how to modify it, or I would have tried at the time. A more experienced enchanter or enchantress would be able to do something, but I’m not well versed with curses. The only option I could see is to attack Clotilde. If she dies, the curse willend.”
“And if we fail?” Gabrielleasked.
Angelique pressed her lips into a thin line. “If we can rattle her enough, I think we can weaken the curse, but that is all. I am in contact with a powerful enchanter. I can get word to him to help us—he will be more than a match forClotilde.”
“Who?” Puss asked. “Unless, have youfound…?”
“No,” Angelique said, the word falling heavily from her lips. “I meant EnchanterClovicus.”
“Evariste’s old mentor? I see.” Puss twisted so he looked back atGabrielle.
Correctly interpreting the motion, Angelique passed the black and white cat back to hismistress.
“While it’s true he would be more than a match for Clotilde, you forgot one thing,” Pusssaid.
“What’s that?” Gabrielleasked.
Puss reclaimed his perch on Gabrielle’s shoulder. “That to get permission to come here and use his magic, he’ll have to struggle through the painfullyslowmachinations of the Conclave. He won’t be cleared to fight Clotilde for several weeks, if not more than amonth.”
“I’m aware of the time it would take,” Angelique said. “But I thought I would make the offer. Based on the strength of that curse, I’m not up to Clotilde’sstrength.”
Gabrielle nodded, but Puss stared at her, his bronze eyesglowing.
Angelique could see the same truth in his eyes that she knewherself.
She was more than a match for Clotilde—if she used her warmagic.
But I can’t. I’m willing to break Conclave law and use magic in a no-magic zone and interfere in country politics if it means saving a life…but I can’t use my war magic. Ican’t.
The metallic taste of panic briefly filled her mouth as she recalled the times she had used her core powers. She had injured Evariste, and in a pre-test for her Enchantress examination, the raw form of her war magic had nearly flattened avillage.
Then again, if she had used her war magic, she could have stopped the black mages who tookEvariste.
But shecouldn’t. She couldn’t shake the feeling that if she did start to freely use her war magic, it would lead her down the path of carnage and blood, and it would turn her into the monster the Conclave seemed to think she was.I’ll do everything in my power to help people, but I can’t let this last piece of me go. I can’t throw away the last proof I have of myinnocence.
“As it stands,” Gabrielle started, “I don’t think we can wait for this Enchanter Clovicus.” The prinzessin’s gaze turned hard. “If we let her sink her claws into Arcainia without fighting back, Clotilde will bring the ruin Carabas saw on the entirecountry.”
“I am inclined to agree,” Puss said. “Even if all we do is waylay her plans, it will help. If we let her carry out her plots without stopping her, it will make it that much more difficult to end her later, and Arcainia might not recover from her actions for decades. Additionally, I don’t believe she is as strong as you seem to think she is,Angelique.”
Angelique frowned. “Why do you saythat?”
“Because the curse she cast on the princes was not her power,” Puss explained. “She has a magical artifact that oozes black magic. She used it to cast thecurse.”
“So if we can separate her from the artifact, we can win.” Angelique thoughtfully tapped her lips with a finger as she thought. “That does changethings.”
Gabrielle grinned, looking more like the reckless hero she was than the gorgeous princess she appeared to be. “What do you have inmind?”
Angelique narrowed her eyes. “I’m thinking…atrap.”
* * *
Angelique crouchedwith Gabrielle in a narrow hallway, stretching her invisibility illusion to cover the prinzessin as well—a slightly more difficult task given the naked blade the blonde brandished. They waited at a cracked doorway, which opened up into the throneroom.
Clotilde apparently possessed an enormous ego, and as such, spent a great deal of time preening on thethrone.
While it made Angelique roll her eyes, it also made it quite easy to spring their trap. After several days of planning and plotting, all they had to do was wait for the witch-queen to retire for the evening, then they could enact their plans easily and without the fear of beingdiscovered.
Regardless, Angelique’s nerves still prickled as they sat in the servants’ hallway, waiting for the wretched woman insilence.
