“Let me work on a couple of versions of this at home, okay?” Amaritha says.
We’ve settled on the new design by the end of the week, and I leave it to Sasha and Amaritha to direct the removal of the old sign—which I decide to store in my back garden for the time being—and the creation and installation of the new one. Sasha ropes Driz and Yenny, and several of Yenny’s trumpeters, into the project, and assures me that Bash, when not inside drooping about my staircase, is out and about irritating everyone and not helping at all. The knowledge that he’s outside, being just as useless as he is inside, fills me with a funny kind of buoyancy, one I ignore as undignified.
While they all work on finalizing the new sign, I practice a spell to allow me to copy it onto fabric; I practice with old rags until I’m happy with the result, and then try it on a canvas bag Sasha gave me; the spell works, and I stand back and smile at the result:The Green Dragon Bookshop, written in beautiful flowing script, with our unofficial mascot, Piggle, asleep on a stack of tragic romances beneath it. I run my hand across the rough fabric.Here it is: a thing I’ve made with my own two hands, more or less. And the help of two enthusiastic teenagers. I hang it on the wall behind the desk and write a letter to a canvas merchant Honey located for me, someone who supplies canvas for sails. She’s apparently got a sideline in selling used sails to small businesses who make aprons and tea towels; now she can sell them to me as well, to make bags.
My friends troop in late in the afternoon, and I usher them all upstairs to the third floor for tea and biscuits and cake—they’ve brought the biscuits and cake; I provide the tea. Sasha tells me they’ve left the new sign under a cloth, and is full of plans for the grand reopening in a week’s time; Amaritha can repaint and redecorate everything that’s not already repainted and redecorated before then, after school. Amaritha suggests I leave the store closed for the week—and shutter the windows, too, to really create an air of mystery; Sasha is instantly full of ideas about how to decorate the windows for our reopening. Yenny offers the use of his fanfare trumpeters for the actual opening ceremony, despite the fact that he’s the only one calling it a ceremony, and Sasha accepts on my behalf. Driz drinks too much mead and makes a speech, and at the end of the afternoon, when I shoo everyone away and close up, I find that Bash has stolen one of my practice rags and left me a braided wheat figure in the shape of a fish.
All in all, I think, as I wash up and get into bed, a good day. And if I’m very lucky, neither of the two remaining princes will show up for ages.
I am, of course, not lucky. Two days before our grand reopening, Sasha and Bash and I are sitting in the darkened shop, drinking tea, when someone knocks at the door.
“That might be Ama,” Sasha says, perking up immediately. “I’ll get it.”
I glance at Bash, who shrugs at me. He’s been around so much recently that I’ve more or less stopped expecting princes to appear in his wake, but my instinct is still to worry first, relax after. I know I can’t trust him to give me any warning. I flip the enchanted rock to “open,” and Sasha pulls the door open, making the chimes jingle.
“Uh, Tandy?” a familiar voice calls, and I stand up, my heart sinking. Bash looks up at me with wide eyes.
“I’m back here,” I say, smoothing my dress, suddenly very nervous. Of all the princes of the realm, Calla is the only one I’ve ever really been truly friends with—but never in anything approaching a romantic way.
In the darkened shop—since we’ve shuttered the front windows, the only light comes from the bluecap-covered chandelier and a few lamps I’ve scattered about—I can only just make out her figure in the short traveling gown of the Mezothin people, which both men and women wear, primarily to display their ceremonial daggers. All Mezothins receive a dagger from their parents, or whoever raised them, on their tenth birthday, and a second from their closest friends on their twentieth. They wear one strapped to each calf; to have both is a potent symbol of wisdom and maturity in Mezothin culture.
The daggers are also quite, well, good-looking; tragic romances generally feature an attractive Mezothin character with flashing eyes and sharp daggers in a significant role.
“Calla,” I say, and drop a little curtsy. We’ve never been much for formalities before, but since she’s here to kiss me and potentially break my curse, I ought to be polite.
“Tandy,” Calla says, bowing. “Shall we get this over with?”
I smile. “Not feeling optimistic about your chances?”
“You know how I feel about curses,” Calla says, waving a hand.
I do indeed; the main tenet of Mezothin philosophy boils down to something like “always awake, always aware,” and only one who’s not always awake and aware would be so foolish as to fall under the power of a curse. Calla is a little less unbending on the subject than many, and was very understanding when I was cursed, at age thirteen, to dribble out the side of my mouth whenever anyone uttered the word “scrofulous”—one of my sister’s tricks, I’m afraid, during one of her more reactionary periods.
I step out from behind the desk. My heart’s hammering in my chest; I’ve never kissed afriendbefore. Is one always meant to feel this nervous?
Calla glances around. “We have an audience, I see. Who’re you?” she says to Bash, who’s stopped lounging and is sitting to attention on the stairs.
“Barn Pirate,” Sasha says, then coughs. “Your Highness.”
“None of that,” Calla says. The Mezothin are also not much for formality. “And you?”
“Sasha,” Sasha says.
“My assistant,” I add.
Calla turns back to me. “You’re cursed to remain in a bookstore with a shop assistant and a…barn pirate?” Mezothins are also very literal.
“They come and go. One of them I can’t seem to get rid of. I’m the only one who can’t leave.”
“Until true love’s kiss?”
“Until I unlock my heart’s desire,” I say.
“Ah,” Calla says, chuckling. “Your parents weren’t clear on the details.”
“Well,” I say, and then, unsure how to add to that rousing sentiment, I fall silent.
“How many of those idiots have already come by?” Calla says.
