no blasted troublemaker could say that Lily had had foreknowledge and level a curse anyway.
Of course, no public christening meant no horde of Good Fae to come bless the child, but everyone agreed that the inevitability of curses, more curses and multiple curses, outweighed the loss of some blessings.
Thurman and Celeste, like all monarchs of Eltaria, and unlike most other Kings and Queens, were nearly as educated in the workings of The Tradition as Godmothers. They had to be. It was the only way that Eltaria had stayed intact for this long.
But of course, only a Godmother, or one of the Fae themselves, had the ability to sense that The Tradition was gathering to strike, and the power to command the sort of servants that could show them where....
'All right, show me where The Tradition is gathering thickest.'
'I'm working, I'm working,' Jimson grumbled. The Mirror Servant could see anything that was in view of any reflective surface, but that was a lot to sort through. Lily wished she could have her hands free to rub her aching temples.
If it had been possible to exclude The Tradition from every one of the Five Hundred Kingdoms, she would have done so in an instant. That powerful, yet completely unintelligent force of magic that the Fairy Godmothers called 'The Tradition' quite literally made stories come to life. If a tale got told often enough, it became part of The Tradition — and the force then sought out those whose lives matched that tale closely in order to replay the story over and over again.
One might think that this was a good thing. After all, it meant that good, kind maidens, like Celeste, found themselves married to handsome Princes — that brave, penniless orphans slew dragons and won the hands of beautiful Princesses. And that was true.
But before the penniless orphan slew the dragon it had to decimate the countryside. The dragon might have been perfectly good-hearted before The Tradition drove it mad. The countryside generally was not improved by being decimated. Often many people suffered in the path of a Traditional Story on its way to its ending. It was also true that for every girl whose circumstances exactly matched those of, say, an Ella Cinders, there were dozens for whom the Prince in question was already married, an infant, a senile old man, a rake, a cad, or...would much rather marry another Prince, thank you. But The tradition did not care, and would senselessly keep trying to force the poor girl and her 'destined mate' down the 'right' Traditional Path, generally to grief all around. Not only that, but with that much magical force building up around her, the girl and her destined mate would quickly become the target of however many Wicked Witches, Dark Fae, Evil Wizards or the like that happened to be in the neighborhood and in the market for a nice juicy dollop of magical power.
Which, of course,every Wicked Witch, Dark Fae, and Evil Wizard was on the prowl for. Always. It was easy enough to take someone around whom the Tradition was moving, and drain that power. The procedure, unless carefully managed by an extremely skilled, patient and highly ethical magician, generally killed, maimed, or mind- wiped the victim. Patience and ethics were not something dark magicians worried about. Not when it was easier to just rip the stuff away.
That, of course, was not the only set of problems The Tradition caused. Because not all — nor even most — tales had happy endings. For every Ella Cinders, there was a Bluebeard, a Laithley Wurm, and a Rakshasha. For every Gingerbread Witch, there were Babes in the Woods. Girls danced themselves to death. Wolves ate grandmothers. Little Match Girls froze to death in the snow. Mothers told their errant offspring about the Boggles that would get them if they weren't good — and lo! a child misbehaved, as what child doesn't now and again, and a Boggle got him.
At least as tragic were all the times that people failed the tests. The witch that held Ladderlocks captive generally infested the ground beneath her tower with brambles, and plenty of would-be suitors would fall into them to have their eyes put out and wander sightless for the rest of their lives. The palace of a Beauty Dreaming was always surrounded by poisonous thorns, and if a Prince's courage failed him, even a little, they would impale him and his sad corpse would hang among the vines until he turned to bones. If a Prince of the Kingdoms of the Rus failed to get the help of Zhar-ptica, he would adorn the garden of the Katschei as a statue forever.
Preventing the tragedies, steering the stories, finding a way to prevent the mismatched from becoming the victims of those who would drain that magical power, was the job of the Fairy Godmothers.
Like Lily.
But unlike Lily, most Godmothers didn't find themselves trying to stem off an entirely mortal invasion on a monthly basis on top of her other duties.
'Ah!' said Jimson, finally. And then...'Oh dear.'
Before Lily could snap at him to explain himself, the mirror cleared and revealed a room she recognized — as she would recognize the public, and most of the private, rooms of most of the kingdom's nobles. This was the audience chamber of Duke Perrin, which was currently serving as Thurman's audience chamber, since at the moment he was there. Perrin's Duchy was right on the border with the Kingdom of Dastchel, which had moved troops to the border it shared with Eltaria as soon as the Queen died. Poor Thurman was not even allowed to mourn as anyone else would —
At first she had trouble understanding what she was seeing. The entire audience chamber was full of people in mourning garments in deference to the King, so three women in black and purple didn't stand out particularly.
Then her memory caught up with her, and she recognized three of the faces in the crowd.
In no small part because they were glaring at each other like the rivals they were. 'Nicolette ol the Gray Forest.' Dressed with deceptive simplicity, with wide violet eyes that looked utterly without guile, blond hair cascading to her hips, and a d'e colletage that was shocking in a mourning gown, Nicolette was widely acknowledged to be the most beautiful of the practitioners of the Dark Arts in this Kingdom. 'Asteria of the Ice Tower.' True to her name, Asteria was aloof, cold and remote as a statue of snow. White hair and pale skin, eyes so pale a blue they looked like glacier-ice; the high-necked dress of dark purple made her hands and head look as if they were detached from her body in some peculiar way. 'Desmona of Ghost Lake.' Of the three, Desmona was the most obviously an Evil Sorceress. Her black gown featured a spider theme, down to the glittering jet spiders — which might well be real spiders, enchanted — ornamenting her black hair. She openly carried her magical staff, atop of which a murky globe emitted the occasional sullen red spark in its depths.
She knew what they were there for, of course. And they knew it, too, throwing smoldering glances of sullen rivalry at each other. It didn't seem to have occurred to any of the three that she might be watching, because they were doing nothing to keep her from spying on them.
'Good job, Jimson,' she said, putting the hand mirror down, carefully. She was going to have to act quickly. But she hadn't been the Godmother of Eltaria all this time without learning to plan ahead. She ran to her Hall of
