“Absolutely not,” said Queen Maureen. “Oliver, it’s a dangerous world out there.”
“There’s a dangerous world in here too,” Oliver pointed out. “I could fall down the castle stairs. I could get food poisoning from tonight’s dinner.”
The queen’s eyes filled with tears. “This isn’t funny, Oliver. You could die.”
“I’m not Father.”
The minute Oliver said it, he regretted it. His mother bent her head and wiped her eyes. “I’ve done everything I can do to keep you safe,” she murmured. “And you’re willing to throw that away for a girl you don’t even know?”
“What if I’msupposedto know her?” Oliver said. “What if I fall in love with her the way you fell in love with my father? Isn’t it worth taking a risk for love?”
The queen lifted her face and gazed at her son. “There’s something I need to tell you,” she said.
For the next hour, Oliver sat transfixed as his mother told him about a boy named Rapscullio and the evil man he’d become; about a dragon and three fairies; about the gifts that had been bestowed upon him at his birth, and the one gift that wasn’t. “For years I’ve worried that Rapscullio would return one day,” she confessed. “That he’d take away from me the last bit of proof I have of your father’s love.”
“Proof?”
“Yes, proof, Oliver,” the queen explained.“You.”
Oliver shook his head. “This has nothing to do with Rapscullio. Just a girl named Seraphima.”
Queen Maureen reached for her son’s hand. “Promise me you won’t fight. Anyone or anything.”
“Even if I wanted to, I probably wouldn’t know how.” He shook his head, smiling. “I haven’t exactly worked out a plan for success.”
“Oliver, you were blessed with many other talents. If anyone can succeed, it’s going to be you.” His mother stood up, reaching for a leather cord tied around her neck. “But just in case, you should have this with you.”
From the bodice of her dress, she pulled out a tiny circular disk that hung on the end of the necklace and handed it to Oliver.
“It’s a compass,” he said.
Queen Maureen nodded. “It was your father’s,” she said. “And I was the one who gave it to him. It’s been passed down in my family for many generations.” She looked at her son. “Insteadof pointing north, it points you home.” She smiled, lost in her memories. “Your father used to call it his good-luck charm.”
Oliver thought of his bold and daring father, riding off to fight a dragon with this looped around his neck. Yes, it had brought him home, but not alive. He swallowed, wondering how on earth he could rescue this girl without even a sword by his side. “I guess Father never got scared,” he muttered.
“Your father used to say that being scared just meant you had something worth coming back to,” Queen Maureen said. “And he used to tell me he was scared all the time.”
Oliver kissed his mother’s cheek and slipped the compass around his neck. As he walked out of the Great Hall, he resigned himself to the fact that his life was about to get very, very complicated.
