'A wolf...a bear...' Leopold shook his head. 'Friends. All right. I have either gone insane or you did just say that, and if you did just say that — ' He paused. 'I have accepted the Queen turning into the Godmother in front of my eyes, mice becoming horses and squash becoming carriages. What's so hard about you talking to wild animals as well as tame, and making friends of them?' He dug his heels into his horse's ribs, causing it to nervously leap forward after the bear. 'Come on! Rosa is getting farther away from us all the time!'
* * *
Once she had magicked up the mouse horses and their gear, Lily had transformed back into Queen Sable. It would be too much trouble getting the servants who hadn't seen her actually resume her real identity to obey her orders otherwise. She ran back up to her rooms, and from there, she sent out the servants to rouse the whole Palace. Desmond probably thought he had time to get back to the Palace before he was missed. Well, too bad for that plan; it had been disrupted the moment that Siegfried's cat saw him steal the Princess.
That means either he has taken Rosa somewhere close by, or he has some variation on a spell of transportation.She didn't think they would be lucky enough for the former, so it was probably the latter. She didn't think he'd have the 'All Paths Are One' spell, since that was, as far as she knew, the peculiar property of Godmothers. But there were others, many others....
'Seven League Boots' — possible but unlikely; there were two of them, and neither of them would care to carry Rosa for very long. Probably they had left on horseback....
'Seven League Horseshoes' were possible. They wouldn't be restricted to paths...but they'd seriously disturb birds in their wake, and creatures with magic in them would sense the passage. But they were rare, and required not just a magician, but a blacksmith-magician. There were none here, and none that she knew of in the surrounding Kingdoms; most of them were up north — or Dwarves.
She also hadn't felt any huge perturbations of magic power, so he probably hadn't built anything as powerful as building a Portal.
Likeliest...'Pass Unhindered.' That was an old, old spell, it was likely that Desmond knew it, and it would let the horses go at top speed through the densest of forest as if they ran on a smooth road. And if he was willing to kill his horses — which he probably was — he could layer on another particularly nasty bit of work, making it 'Pass Unhindered Swiftly', that would make them run at three times the pace that any normal horse could do. 'Pass Unhindered Swiftly' absolutely required the life of the creature it was cast on, a form of blood magic that took the sacrifice at the end, rather than the beginning. A fresh horse at his destination, and casting the spell again, would get Desmond back in no time at all, comparatively. Her head pounded as she dropped down into a chair. Their best bet would be if he came back and didn't discover that the Palace had been roused against him until it was too late to flee. She could get the location out of him — not easily, but unless he was extremely powerful, she could, if only because she could bring in as much help as she needed to.
But catching him by surprise wasn't likely.
So they would have to hunt for him.
'Jimson,' she began.
As usual, he practically read her mind, answering her question before she asked it. 'There's a pair of mirrors in Siegfried's saddlebag, and a second pair in Leo's. I'll speak to them through one of them at the first halt.'
'Is Desmond — '
'There is nothing shiny on his harness or his person.' Jimson's face swam into view in her mirror; he looked positively haggard with worry. 'We have to assume he knows about mirror-scrying at least, if not mirror-travel. If he is in league with the Huntsman, that would be how both of them evaded my scrutiny. So there will be no mirrors where he takes her.'
She swore. So at the moment it was all in the hands of Siegfried and Leopold, and whatever other searchers went out.
'Lily, the cat was not the only friend that Siegfried has made.' Jimson paused, his head cocked to listen. 'The animals he has helped saw Desmond pass, and they are showing Siegfried the way. A wolf is tracking him, and a bear is tracking the wolf and leading Siegfried.' He smiled wanly.
'He is?' Lily nearly went limp with relief. 'Desmond won't have thought of that.'
'No, he won't. Typically that sort doesn't think much of animals except as something to eat and something to hunt.' He paused. 'Also, may I point out that if the wolf can track them, they are on the ground and not traveling by any other means. That is good for us.'
It was, very good news. It meant that one or the other variation of the 'Pass Unhindered' spell was likely what he was using. Unfortunately, she could not leap ahead of the young men and join the wolf, because she didn't know the wolf herself.
'He's a sorcerer or a wizard,' she said aloud. 'He knows magic. He never let slip a hint of that while he was here except for the simple charms and spells that anyone could have gotten. He probably knows about mirror- scrying, as you pointed out. We have to assume he has defended his stronghold.'
Jimson nodded grimly.
She drummed her fingers on the arm of her chair. There were so many ways that he could defend that stronghold...but there was one that was very, very likely. Especially if he kept Rosa asleep. The Tradition would only aid him. She could get through almost any defense that wasn't an army. But...'I can't do anything until they get there and lay out a mirror.'
'Exactly so.'
She needed to give him an aid, a very special helper. Short of a dragon or a unicorn, this would be the best possible help he could get. 'Except...one thing. And I hope that I can do this at a distance.'
When the bird had taken a bath, a single brown feather had been left in the saucer. As any magician would, Lily had kept it safe. Just in case. Well, this was just in case...and the spell was very, very complicated.
At least it would keep her mind occupied. But when it all came down to it, everything rested on Siegfried. Exactly as The Tradition required.
'We have...to rest...a moment,' Siegfried's horse puffed. Beneath his legs, the poor beast's sides
