“Allow me to take those, Your Highness,” an attendant said, holding out their arms for the books.
A second attendant took my stack from me, and I murmured a quiet thank you. My former master would have raged over any form of politeness shown to servants, but I remembered how difficult the job was.
I turned back to Fitz and waited for him to invite me inside.
He took a deep breath and said in a rush, “Would you like to go shopping with me tomorrow? There were a few new releases the library didn’t have that I’m hoping to find.”
It wasn’t the invitation I wanted, but I forced my lips into a soft smile and said, “That would be lovely.”
“Wonderful. Would you like me to pick you up or—”
“We can meet here,” I said.
If he was upset I’d interrupted him, his wide grin didn’t show it. “Then I will see you tomorrow morning.”
Once we finished our goodbyes, I walked away and found a quiet side street with no witnesses so I could teleport back to the lair. When I arrived in my bedroom, I took off the bent glasses and tossed them onto my nightstand. They’d need to be fixed later so I wouldn’t be lopsided, but I’d worry about that in the morning. For the first time in weeks, I finally had a quiet evening to myself—
“Wilde!”
I squeezed my eyes shut and took a deep breath. How had I forgotten about the minions? “What is it?”
“We can’t find the master—”
As their worries poured through the door, I imagined crawling under the sheets and ignoring everything. Somehow, I’d forgotten that resetting the timeline affected the lair and the minions within it. I already knew why they were here.
I opened the door before the imps resorted to throwing each other at it. “The master is away on a top-secret mission, and he’s left me in charge.”
The three imps straightened to attention and gave me sharp, misaligned salutes. “Yes, ma’am, Mistress Wilde!”
The change of title startled me until I remembered how I was dressed.
“Will you be conducting the interviews then?” Bop asked.
And we were back to that. I sighed and leaned my head against the doorframe. “How many have applied?”
“One-hundred-and-twenty-three!” Mimsy shouted with glee, bouncing up and down so that its wings smacked both of its companions.
Where hadtwenty-threenew minion applicants come from? Or had the imps rounded down before when they’d said there were a hundred?
Sour dread pooled in my stomach. Over a hundred minion-hopefuls, crowds in the streets, endless lines in the library … these people didn’t belong here.
“Mistress Wilde?” Bitsy floated closer and touched my hand gently, careful not to scratch me with its tiny claws. “Are you alright?”
“Just tired,” I said, the truth. “Gather the applicants in the throne room and tell them I’ll be down soon.”
“Yes, ma’am!” The imps raced off to follow my orders, shoving each other so that they spun and rolled faster and faster through the air.
Once they were out of sight, I went over to the wardrobe. I didn’t have time to fully change, but I needed to meet my future minions as an evil mage, not a demure young lady. I wrapped a floor-length black cloak around my shoulders and pulled the hood up.
Then I teleported into the middle of the throne room. Dizziness washed over me, twisting the room and the crowd into a blurred mass of colors. I breathed carefully in through my nose and out through my mouth to steady myself before any applicants could sense my momentary weakness.
When the throne room came back into focus, I wasn’t sure what I would find. I hadn’t been there since Trey’s almost death. I half-expected the floor to be destroyed, roots punching through it, and a pool of wet blood to glisten from the base of the throne. Instead, I found the floor polished to a pristine black, undisturbed.
When I looked toward the throne, my breath caught in my chest.
The twisted branches and roots forming the cursed throne had withered, becoming brittle, broken shadows of their former glory. Some clung stubbornly to the wooden chair they’d originally grown around, though they all shied away from the deep slash in the back where a sword had once pierced them.
The shock faded into relief. If the damage to the throne lingered even after I’d altered the timeline, it would be permanent. Nothing could restore the cursed thing to its former glory, and it could never hurt Trey again.
