After all, he had been spending his time with Count Volmar’s niece, equal to equal. Nothing these silly boys, these ... mere servants could do was worth his notice!
At least Kevin thought he believed all that.
As he was on his way to the library, determined once and for all to find the missing manuscript and copy it, a sweet voice called to him, “Where are you going in such a hurry?”
Why did he suddenly feel so guilty? “Charina, I—”
“The weather’s so nice and warm today! And I have a wonderful idea for a picnic, just the two of us.”
Oh, how could he resist those lovely blue eyes? Grimly, Kevin reminded himself of the dream and his neglected duty. “I’m sorry, Charina,” he said with very real regret. “I can’t. I really would love to go riding or picnicking or anything else with you, truly. But, well, I have a job to do, and I’d better do it.”
Charina stared at him as though he’d just told her something obscene. “You’d turn me down?” she gasped.
“Please, I didn’t mean—”
“You would! No, no, don’t try to argue. I quite understand. You’re bored with me.”
“No!”
“Yes, you are.” She tossed her head. “If you don’t want to come with me, you don’t have to. I can do very well without you, you—you boy”
With that, Charina flounced angrily away, leaving Kevin standing lost and unhappy behind her.
Count Volmar looked up in surprise as Carlotta stormed into the solar, shedding the persona of Charina like a cloak and throwing herself down in a chair, eyes wild, red hair crackling about her.
“I cannot bear being that simpering little fool of a girl a moment longer!” she raged.
She looked so totally inhuman in her sorcerous fury that Volmar shuddered. “I can’t say I blame you,” he said soothingly, and saw just a touch of that fury fade. “I never did like little girls. All sweetness and cuteness—Bah.” He moved to the small table by the wall that held decanters of wine. Without asking her, Volmar filled a goblet and handed it to her. As Carlotta sipped, he took his seat again and asked, “Do you really need to be her any longer?”
The princess glared at him over the goblet’s rim in suddenly renewed anger, sorcerous hair like wildfire about her. “I don’t know!” she snapped. “I feel as though I don’t know anything any more!”
Warily, like a man tiptoeing on the edge of a fiery pit, Volmar asked, “You haven’t been able to find the manuscript, I take it?”
“Curse the thing, no! You either, obviously.”
“Obviously.” Ambitious though he was, Volmar admitted to himself, he was not about to do anything as reckless as trying to hide a probably magical artifact from a sorceress—Particularly one who right now was ablaze with rage and frustration. “You’re sure the boy isn’t deliberately hiding it somewhere in the library.”
Carlotta shook her head. “He may have tried to do so at first, but he was quite definitely on the verge of panic while hunting for the thing when I entered as Charina. No ...” she added thoughtfully, “he has nothing to do with its disappearance. There is almost certainly a spell surrounding the manuscript.”
“A spell! I thought you could detect such things.”
“Oh, it’s a very subtle one if even my sorceries haven’t been able to sense it. And, since the manuscript seems to be designed to deliberately hide itself, even from me, it must be a very powerful spell indeed.”
Volmar fought down a new shudder. Bad enough to have a sorcerous ally; he understood Carlotta and the dangers she represented after all these years. Or at least he hoped he did. But the thought that there might be some new, unknown, alien magic lurking in his castle as well, magic even Carlotta couldn’t identify, Just waiting to strike ...
“What about the boy?” That came out more sharply than he’d intended; he was struggling to keep his voice from shaking—”You told me he has the rudiments of Bardic Magic about him. Could he have somehow—”
“The rudiments. It’s a nuisance that it should have begun waking now, but the boy hasn’t yet mastered even the least Powerful of magic songs.”
