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The wizard shot a sharp glance in my direction as he ducked under a wild swing of Yudit’s sword. That’s right, you scarlet-robed fuckwad, I thought. I’m the dangerous one. Much more of a threat to you than frogs.

I was running out of time. There were too many ways for this to go wrong. Everything would fall apart as soon as the noblemen realized that, in spite of my threats, their bones remained unshattered and their skin unflayed. They wouldn’t stay scared of me forever.

Just as that thought crossed my mind, Trebalh’s forehead wrinkled and he took a tentative half-step forward. I readied myself to parry his strike. There wasn’t much I could do about the overwhelming onslaught that would follow when they all piled on.

But then Yudit’s sword was ripped out of her hand, following Winifred’s into the darkness, and the wizard spun around to point his wand at me. The ruby tip was already glowing.

I threw myself flat to the ground, the lightning bolt passing so close above me that it singed my hair. It blasted the stones of the wall apart, sending rock shards flying and leaving a fist-sized hole in the masonry.

“Winifred!” I shouted across the room. She didn’t require an explanation. With a grating rasp of stone, the hole wrenched itself into a full-sized floor-to-ceiling window.

My nostrils were filled with the scent of my own burnt hair. I looked up to see the point of Baron Trebalh’s sword directly in front of my face. I couldn’t spring to my feet without impaling myself in the eyeball.

“Treasonous, am I?” he snarled at me. “I’m not the one dragging Tailliz into depravity. I’m not the one who…who’s a…a…A-CHOO! ”

His sneeze was followed by another, and then a third in rapid succession. Behind him, the nobles and the Red Empire wizard succumbed to sneezing fits as well. Nicki peered through the new window, a fiercely intent expression on her face. Seven people at once was stretching the limits of her powers, but she could manage it for a short time.

I don’t know if you have ever attempted to swing a sword while in the middle of a sneeze, but it isn’t easy. Perhaps a truly first-rate duelist could manage it. The Tailliziani noblemen weren’t that talented. Trebalh’s sword dangled uselessly from his hand as he gasped for breath. I glanced at the wizard; he was bent over double, clutching at his ribs, snot spraying onto the floor. It looked like they were all well and truly down for the count, thanks to Nicki’s quick work.

Drusilla and Alexandra stepped through the opening and helped me to my feet. “Ye all richt?” Drusilla asked, brushing a bit of pulverized stone off my shoulder.

“I’m fine. For the most part. A couple of close calls, but—”

I saw her eyes widening even before she shouted, “Look out!” Whipping my head around, I took in the glowing wand aimed straight at us, clenched in a trembling hand. The ruby was blindingly bright, on the cusp of unleashing its deadly spell. Swords might no longer be swinging, but the wizard had somehow managed a quick bit of spellcasting between sneezes. Maybe he was a first-rate wizard. Unfortunately for us.

Alexandra sprang into action while the rest of us were still gawping. She leapt forward, her jaw unhinging to an unnatural width, and tore the wand out of his grip with her teeth. With a single gulp, she swallowed the whole thing down.

Small tendrils of red lightning arced out of her mouth during the long, resounding burp that followed. The wizard flinched back before his face was fried off, but his beard and mustache were left smoldering.

He sneezed explosively once again and surveyed the scene with watery eyes. The six of us stood arrayed against him. His allies, who had by now collapsed to the floor, were struggling for breath. A small army of amphibians hopped around them.

With a muttered curse, the wizard snapped his fingers and transformed into a wisp of dark smoke, which poured past us through the opening in the wall, out into the night.

My sisters and I said nothing for a time, keeping watch for the wizard’s return, our silence punctuated only by endless achooing and the loud croaks of frogs and toads. A rather noisy silence, really. The poison frog was nowhere to be seen; probably it was hiding in the other room. They’re shy creatures.

When our wordless, wary vigilance had stretched on for so long that it didn’t seem likely the mage was coming back anytime soon, Yudit said, “Aw, I was hoping we could take him prisoner. He was cute.”

As well as I know her, sometimes I find Yudit baffling.

“Anyway,” she continued, “I really, really need to find a privy.”

“Go oot, then,” Drusilla told her. “Plenty of room in the woods.”

Winifred had recovered her sword, but the impact with the wall had bent it like a horseshoe. She frowned at it and tossed it aside. “What do we do with them?” she asked, nodding her head toward the nobles. “Nicki won’t be able to keep this up much longer.” My youngest sister was already drooping with the effort of keeping half a dozen men preoccupied, her own breathing labored. We weren’t prepared to take prisoners, cute or otherwise; this was supposed to have been an observe-and-report mission.

“Tie them up with vines?” Alexandra suggested to me. I definitely needed to bring rope next time.

“I’ve got a better idea,” Yudit said as she made her way outside, heading for the woods with small but hurried steps. Her throat worked, and she opened her mouth to disgorge a large mottled-brown toad with smooth leathery skin.

“Meet your friend and mine,” she called back to us as she hobbled onward, “the psychedelic desert toad.”

Chapter Four

An Unexpected Guest

I wound through the mazelike back passageways of Castle Tailliz, sticking to the quieter corridors. Since I was going to meet with royalty, I’d changed into my fanciest tunic—butter-yellow linen with purple-and-white trim. It was a hair shy of scandalously short, stopping just above the knees, and with black woolen hose underneath, I considered it a decent compromise between a shirt and a dress. Much better than the gowns I was sometimes obliged to wear during formal state dinners, anyway.

Taking the long way around through the back halls had been a deliberate choice on my part. I wanted a chance to get my thoughts in order before I saw the king and queen. And enjoy half an hour of solitude. My siblings possess many virtues, but keeping quietly to themselves is not among them. It wasn’t hard to find places where no one else liked to go; the castle was still undergoing repairs after last year’s attempted coup. The majority of people preferred to avoid picking their way over piles of rubble or skirting past gaping holes in the wall.