It confirmed Angelique’s suspicions: Clotilde herself was nearly powerless. The artifacts were the bigger threat. It was also worrying, however, because if Clotilde was such a poor magic user…where had she gotten theartifacts?
“Can you tell what your attack did?” Gabriellewhispered.
“Sorry, I was thinking,” Angelique admitted. “Just a moment.” She blinked as she let her sight expand and began picking up on more shimmers of magic from herself, Puss, andClotilde.
It took Angelique a couple of moments before she saw the occasional glitter that represented the curse which held the princes in Clotilde’spower.
As she had hoped, her fire spell had damaged it—but in a rather strangeway.
“Well?” Rolandprompted.
Angelique squinted at the curse then leaned closer to the magic cat and Prinzessin to whisper. “I simultaneously damaged it less and more than Ithought.”
“How?” Gabrielleasked.
Angelique paused as she tried to think of an accurateexplanation.
Seeing her expression, Gabrielle started to edge away from the balcony and motioned for Angelique to follow her. They crept from the balcony and slipped back into the hallway from which they hadcome.
As Gabrielle waved to the guard and they retreated farther away from the throne room, Angelique sifted through herthoughts.
When she used the fire spell, she’d beenattemptingto do what she had done to Severin’s curse: destroy the part that cursed the princes to forget their true selves and have the mind ofswans.
She hadn’t succeeded to that end, probably because the spell was built more in layers than in separate chains like Severin’s curse hadbeen.
Instead of destroying just that part of the curse, she had sliced through and damaged the bottom layer—the part that kept the princes in swanbodies.
“Think of this curse like layers on a cake,” Angelique finally settled on. “I was hoping to scrape off the top layer of the spell, but instead my fire cracked all the way to the base, and it removed a slice ofit.”
“How will it affect the curse?” Gabrielle leaned against another door, pushing itopen.
The room inside was undecorated and held several cots and a few chairs—the break room for soldiers guarding the floor,likely.
“It hasn’t gone into effect yet because I’ll need to yank on it, but once I do, the curseshouldloosen up enough so that after sundown, for one hour every night, the princes will transform and become their trueselves.”
“Only for an hour?” Pussasked.
“I’m afraid so, yes.” Angelique frowned as she sat down in one of the sturdy, plain chairs and rested her hands on thetable.
Gabrielle nodded thoughtfully. “What does that mean for the curse? Can you modify it, as you modified Prince Severin’scurse?”
Angelique tapped her fingers on the table. “Icould, but I’m not sure it’s the bestoption.”
Puss hopped off Gabrielle’s shoulder and sat on a chair, his head just clearing the table top. “Explain,” he ordered in that instructive-but-bossy tone he used to use on her when Evariste sent her out to practice spells on the dummy in theyard.
Something hot clogged her throat for a moment, and she had to blink before she could continue. “I can see there is a thin slice where I could use the same modification I used on Severin: the curse will break if one of the princes fell in love, and the girl he loved returned the feelings. The princeandhis lady would have to be mutually in love.” She carefully enunciated the rules, given the disaster that had occurred the last time she hadn’t been socareful.
Gabrielle hopefully bit her lip. “Will it work if we’re already inlove.”
“I’m sorry to say it won’t. The spell requires the power that comes from the kindling of a relationship, not the ongoingblaze.”
Gabrielle exchanged a look with Puss, furrowing her forehead. “Ahh, yes. That might be a problem. Two of the princes are in love already, but thelady…”
“The Bumpkin Head would kill them first,” Puss said. Catching Gabrielle’s arching eyebrow he added, “That is, Prince Steffen would killthem.”
“Even when he’s a swan?” Angeliqueasked.
“Some things transcend magic,” Gabrielle carefullysaid.
