Fairy Godmother

wouldn't be harsh —

— surely —

The Tradition demanded a dramatic entrance, and Elena obliged.

'So!' she cried in a cold voice, stepping out of the darkness in a flash of greenish light. 'Thief!'

While she wore the widow's face, she also wore the sweeping black gown and winglike cape that the Sorceress had worn, the cape streaming out behind her in a self-created wind. Rosalie's husband dropped to his knees, his face transfixed with terror, the plants falling from his hands.

He might not have been very clever, but he was brave.

He might have blamed Rosalie, but the explanation he babbled out held no touch of accusation for his wife. In fact, he begged only for mercy because Rosalie was with child and would need him; he said nothing of her craving for the magical rampion.

There was no doubt in Elena's mind at that moment why Rosalie loved this man, who would willingly sacrifice himself to save her. But The Tradition had a certain momentum of its own, and it demanded the child. She felt it impelling her on.

Well, she already knew what she would do about this — The Tradition demanded that this child become a part of one of its tales. Very well. She would give it a tale.

A different tale. Not Ladderlocks.

'You will take me to your wife,' she decreed, sternly. 'You have stolen my property; there must be restitution, and there must be punishment. I know that your wife's hunger for my plants brought you here. She must pay, as well as you.'

He, no less than she, was impelled by the weight of The Tradition. He could not have disobeyed her if he had been possessed of a stronger will and more wits than he actually owned. As if he was sleepwalking, he rose. His face a mask of despair, he led her to his little home, the lovely garden now shrouded in snow, the lights of their home streaming out into the darkness from the open door. Rosalie, now heavily pregnant, stood in the doorway; she was expecting this, and praying that the woman who followed her too-loving husband was Elena, not a stranger.

Still The Tradition demanded this child, and in that, it was too strong even for a Godmother like Bella to withstand. So, the child would be Elena's to do with as she pleased. In that much, The Tradition would be obeyed.

The man stopped, and Elena pushed past him, imperious, and unstoppable. 'Come,' she said coldly, and head hanging, he obeyed.

One month later, Elena stood again in Rosalie's cottage, this time to look down into the face of a tiny baby. Elena had seen her share of newborns over the years, and most infants looked like wizened, red-faced old men with sour dispositions. This child was enchanting, with a perfect little pink rosebud of a face, and wide blue eyes that stared blankly up at the Apprentice.

This only made her feel terribly guilty about what she was going to do next.

'I'm sorry,' she murmured, then took a hard, dried pea, jamming it with her thumb into one of the baby's tender little buttocks, whispering a spell that she knew was going to bring pain, until the infant's face crumpled and the mouth opened in a wail of discomfort.

Elena instantly left off torturing the poor little mite, and after making certain that the offending pea was going to leave a satisfactorily livid bruise, handed the baby back to her mother.

And she felt the power shift again. The pea in her hand became oddly heavy, and when she dropped it into the little silver casket she had brought, it nestled into the velvet like a jewel. The Tradition felt what she had done, and had begun to alter its impetus. And even as Elena stood there, she could see the glowing drifts of power leaving Rosalie and beginning a slow, circling spiral towards the baby.

'That's all?' Rosalie whispered, bouncing the baby and hushing her with kisses and petting.

'That's all,' Elena replied, then added, as she had to. 'For now. You'll lose her when she turns sixteen, of course — ' It was, almost as cruel a fate, in a way, but —

Rosalie sighed, and bent her head over the baby. She probably thought that Elena couldn't see that she had wiped a tear away, surreptitiously. 'It could be so much worse. And we would lose her to a husband anyway, eventually....'

But it was clear that Rosalie was only waiting for Elena to leave to break down weeping. Who could blame her? Hearing that you will lose your child after only sixteen short years is never easy.

But it could have been so much worse. She could have had Clarissa snatched out of her arms to be locked away from her forever.

Elena left, quickly. She could not bear to be here a moment longer; there was relief in this little cottage, but there was pain as well. When little Clarissa turned sixteen, something would happen to her that would mean that her parents could never see her again, except at a distance, and that was a hard thing for a mother to learn.

Besides, she had another journey to make, and she had borrowed the help of Sergei, the Little Humpback Horse; she wouldn't keep him standing about waiting any longer than she had to.

He stood in the traces of the gaily painted cart, shaking his head sadly. He knew what she had been forced to do in order to avert the greater tragedy of the birth of a Ladderlocks child.

'This is a sad thing,' he said, and Elena's dragon's-blood gift of the Speech of Animals allowed her to understand him, as she had not been able to the last time she had seen him. 'To have your child for only sixteen years — '

'Or to know that she is the cause of many deaths?' Elena replied, climbing into the cart. 'Do you know how