“Stop—by the law of the Veneno Conclave!” the manshouted.
He slowly closed in on her—drawing Angelique’sirritation.
After all of the physical training Evariste shoved at me, I would have thought I’d be able to outpace him!Sheer determination drove her up a quiet street, even as her lungs burned.Instead, I meet the human equivalent of ahorse!
Finally, she started to hear the hustle and bustle of the main street that divided the city in half and went from the central gate to the palaceentrance.
Angelique zipped in that direction, narrowly dodging when he lunged forward in an attempt to grab ather.
She shot into the main road, frightening a few caged ducks and barely avoiding an oncoming oxcart.
“Angelique—stop!” the mageordered.
Angelique cast about for an appropriate spell.I can’t do anything harmful—for both him and the city’s sake, but what would—oh.
She’d done the spell enough times that her powers sprang readily into the necessary form. She whispered a few words in the language of magic, then turned around and stabbed a finger at the oncomingmage.
Abruptly, the main road was an eruption of chickens. White ones, gold ones, dark red ones, black ones—chickens of all size, shape, and color filled the street, making it impossible to hear with their clucking. Their heads wobbled on skinny necks while they studied the world with buggedeyes.
A bunch of them gathered around the feet of Angelique’s chaser—pecking at his shins and tripping him as they continuously jostled to beunderfoot.
Angelique would have laughed if the situation were any different, but she settled for a quick grin before she hurried on, running down the street.Puss will be horrified when he finds out that move was actuallyuseful.
She threaded her way through the busy street, panting in a very unseemly manner by the time she burst out of the city. She had paused for a moment to suck in more air when she thought she heard a faint, “Stop—ApprenticeAngelique!”
The cry threw her into action again, so she shouted, “Pegasus! It is I…” When she turned around and saw the short, squat mage about a block down, the rest of the reverent speech fled from her memory. “It’s me, Angelique, I need a ride—now!”
Before she could finish babbling, Pegasusanswered.
In the blink of an eye, he crashed to the ground—not in his usual grand and fancy way, but in a ball of blue flames and a crash that made acraterin theground.
Oohhh, Puss is going to complain about that,too.
Pegasus’ black wings were still attached to his shoulders, and the blue flames that danced at his hooves hadn’t gone out yet, but Angelique awkwardly threw herself onto his back, struggling through the material of her skirts to sling her leg over hisback.
“Angelique!”
Pegasus snorted and turned tightly as his black wings started to disintegrate. He swiveled to face the oncoming mage, snorting and pawing at theground.
“No, no, no, no.” Angelique recognized the signs of his rage, even as she got a face full of his black feathers. “We’re not attacking; we’re fleeing.We’rethe villains here—wait.” She paused at the rather ungraceful framing of her explanation, but Pegasus brought her back with a slight crowhop that threw her onto his neck but also slid her into place on hisback.
He took off at a gallop, the last few feathers of his wings spiraling away as they fled CastleBrandis.
* * *
After a short stopon the Loire/Arcainia border to send off her response to Enchanter Clovicus (it only took a few moments to fold the letter into the butterfly spell that would make it mobile and self-delivering) Angelique headed northwest, toVerglas.
Verglas was a land of cold. Its people risked hard winters with abundant snow and ice but were repaid with beautiful summers, plentiful rivers fed from mountain glaciers, and safety. For Verglas had been the home of the Snow Queen—the first enchantress ever who had imbedded her magic into her country, forever safeguarding it from any dark and malicious magic and from the enemies she had fought: TheChosen.
Unfortunately, the magic couldn’t guard the people from their ruler. King Torgen was known to be mad, but the land was gentle and the water was sweet, making the country idyllic despite its crazedmonarch.
Angelique spent more time in Verglas than she wanted to, mostlylookingfor Elise and her seven swan brothers. After she finally found them in the early evening hours—witnessing the brothers’ temporary return to normalcy due to the crack in the curse—she explained to them the failure that was the attack on Clotilde and the intricacies of their alteredcurse.
I think I’m beginning to understand why Gabrielle and Puss were also against using romantic love to break this curse, Angelique mused as she watched the seven princes of Arcainiaargue.
All of them were fair haired, handsome, andexcessivelyopinionated on whether their foster-sister should or should not attempt to break the curse by knitting shirts of stinging nettles. It was fairly hard to tell them apart in the glittering moonlight—though their varying heights and builds helpedsome.
Angelique sighed and pushed her locks of hair—which had tumbled free of her pinned hairstyle during her run from Castle Brandis—over her shoulder. She was positive she had at least a brush or two of dirt on her cheeks—though her dress wasspotless.
