Fairy Godmother

Bertram, you and Linette have to look carefree, as if you are expecting no trouble whatsoever.'

'We'll try,' the King replied, and forced a smile onto his face, kissed Madame's hand, and let her go.

Madame bowed, and retreated with Elena still following like a faithful shadow. She moved off a little ways to the side of the throne, and took up what seemed to be a position, or at least, it felt that way to Elena. 'I expect you're wondering what all that was about,' she said in an aside to her Apprentice, as she nodded and smiled to other guests who wandered by, bowed to her, and passed on.

'Well, I know all the things that can go wrong at a Christening,' Elena replied, dubiously.

'And so do Bertram and Linette; in fact, Linette is one of my Princesses, so she's doubly aware,' Madame acknowledged. 'Which is why, when their firstborn turned out to be a girl, they sent word begging me to take care of all of the — special arrangements — at the Christening. Not only did I make sure that all of the desirable magicians of the Kingdom got their invitations, I had Randolf spend a considerably store of his free time covering every square inch of this Kingdom, looking for the Evil Sorceress I knew had to be here. Then I made absolutely certain that her invitation was put right into her hands.'

'But that's no guarantee — ' Elena began, when suddenly —

She felt an inexplicable plummeting of her heart. A chill wind moved across the room, making the candles in the chandeliers flicker, and the guests shiver. Frightened silence spread from a point near the entrance, moving across the crowd like a ripple in a pond.

A shadow passed over the room. People edged away from something that was moving towards the thrones. And in the center of that moving point of silence Elena saw her first Evil Sorceress.

No great surprise, she was gowned all in black. From the shoes to her own tiara, she wore not a single hint of color. Her gown was a black velvet overdress, a black satin underdress, with faceted black crystals winking among the folds. More black crystals made up the tiara in her elaborately-styled ebony hair. Her staff was black, with a black serpent carved twining around it, and it was surmounted by a globe of black obsidian. As she drew nearer, Elena realized with a touch of reluctant admiration that even the black lace adorning her gown was very different from the swags and garlands on everyone else's garb — it had been made in the pattern of spiderwebs.

She glared about her, hostility and anger radiating from her, and it was then that Elena realized that she was, in fact, no older than the King and Queen, or even Elena herself. She exchanged a glance with Madame; hers startled, Madame's knowing. Madame nodded.

Sometimes, the ones who were 'supposed' to have the happy endings go to the bad.... There was so much anger in the young woman's eyes, so much resentment, and so much pent-up pain, that Elena could not imagine how Madame was going to stop this creature from just exploding then and there, like a fermenting bottle —

Then, from out of the shadows where he had somehow been concealed behind the blue-and-white Sorceress, another figure stepped.

It was a young man; he wasn't handsome, and he clearly wasn't all that wealthy, but he had the most interesting and intense face that Elena had ever seen. He, too, wore black; a little threadbare, but not ill-kempt. Clearly, though he might be poor by the standards of the rest of the guests here, he was proud, but with the right sort of pride that will not be beaten by so small a thing as poverty, and insists on what Madame Fleur used to call 'certain standards.' Elena sensed that even if he had to mend and clean his clothing himself, he would be clean and mended. If he had to go without a meal, he would give no hint of it.

He moved into the Sorceress's path as if she was a lodestone, and he a needle. And when she paused in surprise, he seized his moment, and her hand, and bent nearly double to kiss it.

'Madame Arachnia, I presume?' he said, and his voice was so melodious that it made Elena yearn to actually hear him sing rather than speak. 'Madame, I would never have accepted the invitation to come here this day, if it had not been that I knew that you had also been invited.'

The Sorceress was taken so completely by surprise that she could only stare at him in shock. 'You — you did?' she stammered, completely taken aback. 'But — '

'I had to meet you,' he replied, staring into her eyes with hungry intensity. 'And please — could we come away from these — ordinary people?' Now his voice dripped disdain for those around him. 'I sense that we must talk.'

Still in shock, the Sorceress let him lead her, all unresisting, out of one of the double doors that led to the garden.

The shadows and the chill passed from the room with them.

Elena managed to drag her eyes away from them long enough to look at her mentor.

Madame Bella was watching with every evidence of satisfaction, and when the pair had gone out the door into the garden, she smiled. 'That went well,' she said, and winked at Elena. 'I knew I could count on Miranda.'

The celebration went on — presumably, without either Madame Arachnia — that had to be an assumed name! — or the young man. There was entertainment; dancers, musicians, mountebanks. Then, at last, came the moment to present Christening Gifts. And to Elena's horror, Madame Bella was the first of the magicians to grant hers —

'I grant her the gift of a caring heart,' said Madame, and bowed over the cradle. A swirl of lilac mist rose about her, and settled over the baby; Madame smiled and retired, to make way for the Sorceress in blue and white.

'What are you doing?' Elena hissed frantically, as Madame resumed her place beside her Apprentice. 'That creature is still outside! Why didn't you go hide or something, so that when she comes in and curses the baby — '

'You will be the one to turn the curse, because Arachnia has probably forgotten about you completely,' Madame replied, looking completely unruffled, as the Sorceress bestowed 'lips like cherries and teeth like pearls.'