Bella scrambled for her own crossbow, and lurched to her feet. She had just enough time to load an arrow, when a new voice rang across the clearing.
“That will be quite enough.”
Everyone froze. The voice — female — wasn’t loud, but it held unmistakable authority.
Godmother Elena, dressed much as Bella was, and practically bristling with power, entered the clearing, accompanied by a dozen or more of the lighted orbs that Bella thought she’d invented. The Godmother didn’t so much glare at Eric, as freeze him with her gaze.
She regarded him for quite a long time. He stared back at her defiantly. “Thank you very much for that quite Traditional monologue,” she said, coolly. “There were one or two pieces of the puzzle I hadn’t yet found — ”
The uprush of dark magic caught the Godmother by complete surprise.
It was like an avalanche of hate, but it was one that packed a very physical punch. With no sophistication, only raw power, Eric slammed the Godmother into the snow, as if a giant fist had backhanded her. With a second blow, he flattened Sebastian to the ground. Then, still fueled by fury, he turned toward Bella —
And stopped.
And toppled to the ground.
The bolt of her crossbow sticking out of his left eye.
“It would take an extraordinarily lucky shot,” she remembered Eric saying…
A lucky shot? Or The Tradition?
The crossbow fell from her hands, and she started to shake. And that was when things really got confusing, for suddenly there were men with colored scarves wrapped around their arms, or bunches of leaves pinned to their chests, who hadn’t been there before, and they were everywhere. One went to help the Godmother to her feet. One caught Bella as she almost fell. Two ran to Sebastian as he tried to struggle to his feet and fell over sideways, and wrapped his bleeding leg up to staunch the flow of blood. Then more people poured into the clearing, including a young woman in servant’s livery that had been stitched with such exquisite work that it was elevated far past being a mere “uniform.” She had a blue ribbon wrapped around her arm, and she and a man with a green scarf immediately took over the situation. In no time, Sebastian was hoisted up on a stretcher and carried off, the Godmother was assisted onto Bella’s mule, Bella herself was helped into the saddle of her horse and Eric’s body was taken away. It all happened so quickly that she felt dizzy.
She looked down at the young woman. “Sapphire?” she said, incredulously.
The woman nodded. “Eric cast a spell on us, as well,” she said. “The loyal servants, the ones he knew wouldn’t leave — he got us alone and blasted us with dissolution, one by one. It’s a horrible spell — it rips you right out of the world and leaves no trace behind. I suppose he thought he’d killed us, and some of us did die, but the rest — we were in a kind of limbo, a nowhere place. And when Sebastian started calling real Spirit Elementals to take our place, we were able to cross back over to serve him again. We hoped he would figure out what had happened to us and break the spell — ”
“It broke when Eric died, then,” she said, and felt like bursting into tears. “But why is Sebastian still a wolf?”
“Because it’s a curse, not a spell,” Sapphire said, sadly. “And curses don’t die with their maker.” She looked up at Bella with solemn eyes. “I’m sorry, Mistress Bella. There’s nothing to be done.”
19
BELLA SAT IN NUMB SILENCE. SEBASTIAN HAD BECOME a human again with the dawn, but he hadn’t spoken to her — or indeed to anyone. The King had ridden in just after dawn, with the Prince and a formidable entourage to take charge of everything. Bella, who had been pacing and crying outside the chamber where Sebastian had been taken until the sun rose, had been given something to drink, and she didn’t even remember going to her room. She just finished the warm flagon someone had thrust into her hands, and the next thing she knew, she was waking up in her bed.
As soon as she was awake, Sapphire appeared.
“You have to get up, Mistress Bella,” the servant said, her attitude making it perfectly clear that this was not negotiable. “The Godmother has asked for you.”
Her head hurt horribly, and she really just wanted to lie in a ball and be miserable for a while. Oh, they had gotten an ending, all right, but it wasn’t a happy one. Sebastian had been betrayed by the person he counted on the most, and now — who knew whether or not he was going to become a wolf every night instead of just on the full moon?
Then she steeled herself. Hadn’t they proved that Sebastian could control the beast? He’d done it three times, now. Surely the King and the Godmother would see that —
She got up, let Sapphire help her into one of the much less practical gowns in the closet and sat mutely while Sapphire fussed over her hair, muttering to herself. Finally, the servant stepped back and examined her handiwork critically.
“Now you look like a proper lady,” she pronounced.
Bella made a face. “I think I liked you better when you were just a ribbon.”
“I’m sure you did, Mistress Bella,” Sapphire said, unperturbed. “Now, the Godmother and the King are waiting for you in Sebastian’s workroom. You must go there. The Master needs you.”
Feeling decidedly strange, not being in breeches for the first time in weeks, Bella made her way up to the top of the tower. But there was someone waiting for her at the foot of the stairs.
Sebastian looked completely, utterly miserable. He had clearly been waiting for her and no one else, because the moment he saw her, he steeled himself visibly.
“Bella, you don’t have to — I mean, it was one thing when I was only a wolf three nights out of the month,
