of her jaw.
I waited for her to speak, but when she did not, I finally said, “I hope you realize, my lady, that in a minute I’m going to kiss you.”
“I owe you a kiss, at least,” she said and tilted back her head.
Though I told myself that I would not take a kiss given only because it was owed, I found myself kissing her before this thought had had time to take effect. With one arm around her shoulders and the other hand still lightly touching her cheek, I kissed her for what seemed about half an hour. She kept her hands to her sides and her body drawn back an inch from mine.
She turned her head away suddenly. I let her go and shivered, immediately feeling extremely cold. In a moment I would start crying myself.
“We should get back to the castle,” she said in a calm, almost flat voice. “We’re terribly late for dinner.”
We turned together and started stumbling back across the fields. The yellow lights of the castle shone at us from narrow windows a mile away.
At the moment it was still my castle, but I did not know for how long. I had resigned as Royal Wizard, although the queen may not have heard me. Even if she had not, I did not see how I could go on living in Yurt. In a minute she took my arm. I would have told her she wasn’t helping any, but then she would have let go again.
As we came up the hill toward the gates, we heard someone whistling, and a dark shape came across the bridge to meet us. “There you are,” said Paul’s voice. “I knew you’d be along soon.”
The queen let go of my arm. “I hope you haven’t been waiting all this time.”
“Vincent told me you’d gone off to talk about me, so when you weren’t here for dinner we knew it must be something important.” His voice managed to be casual, but I could hear the intense curiosity lurking under the surface.
“It wasn’t particularly important; it just took more time to discuss than we’d expected,” the queen lied cheerfully. “The wizard wanted to go over all his duties with me, to review what might change and what might stay the same once you become king.” She, at any rate, did not seem to realize I had resigned.
“And I have a message for you, Wizard,” said Paul, seeming to accept this account. It was too dark for him to see the tear smudges on his mother’s face. “The dean of the cathedral telephoned for you, maybe an hour ago. I told him I’d have you call as soon as you returned.”
I excused myself and hurried off to the telephone with relief. To return to the cathedral city would give me an excuse not to face the queen again.
Joachim’s black eyes burned at me a moment later, even though I knew he could not see me. “How soon can you come?”
“What’s happened?” I asked, startled out of my own concerns by the intensity of that stare.
“The lights are back. And this time it’s not just lights.”
“What is it?”
He hesitated. “I don’t know.”
“Have you seen it?”
He paused for a moment as though wondering if he dared tell me, then plunged on. “It lit on the tower at twilight. Dozens of people saw it. It’s enormous, five times the size of a man, and it has the wings of a bat.”
PART THREE — THE WITCH
I
Prince Paul came into my chambers. Books were scattered across the room, their pages marked with pencils, scraps of paper, and the covers of other books. Leaning on my desk with a magic globe glowing at my shoulder, I madly scribbled spells.
“So you have to return to the cathedral city?” he asked. “I’d been hoping you were back home for good.”
“So had I,” I said without looking up.
“Do you need to take a lot of books?”
I slammed one book shut and tried to find my place in another. “I have to go now, tonight, and my books are too heavy for me to carry them all and fly at the same time.”
Paul was clearly not interested in my books. I checked another spell, folded up the paper on which I was writing, and stuffed it into my pocket. I assumed he was hoping to hear more about the conversation I had had with his mother, but he was certainly not going to hear it from me.
“Even if you have to stay away a long time,” he said, “you
“Of course,” I said, trying to sound jovial. “You didn’t think I’d forget something that important?” I had completely forgotten about it. I tossed a few of my most basic books into a box with a change of clothes, began to reshelve the rest, then decided just to leave them.
“Did you know it’s starting to rain?” asked Paul.
I hadn’t, but at least it couldn’t make my mood any worse. I turned off the magic lights and stepped into the dark courtyard. A fine rain made the cobblestones slippery. I turned to Paul. “Good-bye. Tell your mother I was very sorry not to see her again before I left.”
This too was a lie. As I flew up into the black sky, I wondered what she had told Vincent. I said a prayer to whatever saint might listen to wizards that she would not tell him the real story.
It was a long way to the cathedral city. On horseback it took a day or more, and it was more than an hour’s flight even in daylight, not carrying anything. But I was constantly concentrating on keeping my small box flying with me and on finding my way. The moon was hidden, and if I flew high enough to avoid the trees I had trouble picking out the road. The wet countryside was dark, spotted only occasionally with the lights of a house or village. I flew in and out of fog, of sudden rain showers. At first I tried to maintain a protective spell against the rain but I didn’t have the concentration for it. I gave up and got wet.
Constantly running through my mind, interfering with my spells, were all the things the queen and I had said to each other. They burned in my brain as though written in fire, and turning them over did not improve them. I wondered if she, lying alone in bed-that is, I
At least she had no reason to feel my bitter shame. I was ashamed that I had tried to tell her I loved her, even though I had had nineteen years in which to realize it was foolish to do so, and ashamed that I had made her cry. The time for impetuous avowals, I told myself, was many years past. Paul was more accurate than he realized when he said there were people in the castle who should know enough to act their age.
The rain was letting up and the eastern sky was gray as I finally approached the cathedral city. Its streets were dark and quiet. I rose to the height of a quarter mile and swooped over the new construction, though I saw nothing unusual in the murky light of early dawn. Just as well-I was in no shape to meet a monster. But even at this height I could feel the presence of wild magic.
I descended to the street behind the cathedral, staggered under Joachim’s porch, and knocked on his door. In a moment he answered it himself, dressed in a long nightshirt and carrying a candle. He looked understandably startled but pulled me through the door and closed it against the damp.
“When I asked if you could come at once,” he said, “I meant tomorrow. I never intended you to come tonight.” The candle made light and shadow flicker across his face.
“I had to. If you can give me a dry jacket, we’ll go find out what was on the tower.”
“Did you see something?”
“I saw nothing, but it’s still nearly dark.”
“It wasn’t there at midnight.” Joachim pushed me into a chair. “You should go to bed at once. You’re exhausted. We can talk about it when you’ve had some sleep.”
“How do you know it wasn’t there at midnight?”
“I went up, of course,” he said, giving me a sharp look. “The head of the municipal guard, the crew foreman, and I all climbed up with torches.”
