A Princess of Landover

wasn’t sure it had anything to do with being trapped.

“We need to think like she would,” he said suddenly, sitting up straight and facing Abernathy squarely. “We need to put ourselves inside her head.”

The scribe barked out a sharp laugh. “No, thank you. Put myself inside the head of a fifteen-year-old girl? What sort of nonsense is that, wizard? We can’t begin to think like she does. We haven’t the experience or the temperament. Or the genetics, I might add. We might as well try thinking like the cat!”

“Nevertheless,” Questor insisted.

They went silent once more. Abernathy began tapping his fingers on his cup again. “Well?”

“Well, what?”

“Well, what are your thoughts, now that you’ve taken on the character of a fifteen-year-old girl?”

“Fuzzy, I admit.”

“The whole idea of trying to think like a fifteen-year-old girl is fuzzy.”

“But suppose, just suppose for a moment, that you are Mistaya. You’ve been sentenced to serve out a term at Libiris, but you rebel and flee into the night with two unlikely allies. You go to the one place you think you might find a modicum of understanding. But it is not to be. Your grandfather takes the side of your parents and declares you must return to them and work things out. You won’t do this. Where do you go?”

Abernathy showed his teeth. “Your scenario sounds unnecessarily melodramatic to me.”

“Remember. I’m a fifteen-year-old-girl.”

“You might be fifteen, but you are also Mistaya Holiday. That makes you somewhat different from other girls.”

“Perhaps. But answer my question. Where do I go?”

“I haven’t a clue. Where do I go? Where Edgewood Dirk tells me to go perhaps?”

“If he tells you anything. But he might not. He might speak in his usual unrevealing way. He might leave it up to you. That sounds more like the Prism Cat to me.”

Abernathy thought about it. “Well, let me see. I suppose I go somewhere no one will think to look for me.” He paused, a look of horror in his eyes. “Surely not to the Deep Fell?”

Questor shook his head and pulled on his long white beard. “I don’t think so. Mistaya hates that place. She hates everything connected with Nightshade.”

“So she goes somewhere else.” Abernathy thought some more. He looked up suddenly. “Perhaps she goes to see Strabo. The dragon is enamored of her, after all.”

“The dragon is enamored of all beautiful women. Even more so of Willow.” Questor pulled on one ear and plucked at one eyebrow. “But I’ve already considered that possibility and dismissed it. Strabo won’t be of much use to her in this situation and she knows it. Unless she wants someone eaten.”

“A visit to the dragon doesn’t seem likely, does it?” Abernathy sounded cross. “Nothing seems likely, when you come right down to it.”

Questor nodded, frowning. “That’s the trouble with young people. They never do what you would expect them to do. Frequently, they do the exact opposite. They are quite perverse that way.”

“Perverse, indeed!” Abernathy declared, banging his coffee cup down on the table, his ears flopping for emphasis. “That is just the word! It describes them perfectly!”

“You never know what to expect!”

“You can’t begin to guess what they might do!”

“They don’t listen to reason!”

“The word doesn’t exist for them!”

“You expect them to do something, they do something else entirely!”

“They very last thing you’d imagine!”

They were both revved up now, practically shouting at each other.

“Tell them what you want them to do, they ignore you!”