magician to take a stranger into his household by making her appear Raclin’s victim. A very clever way for Ilissa to introduce a spy into the stronghold of her most powerful enemy—don’t you agree?”
“I’m not a spy,” Nora said, hearing the menace in his tone and fighting the temptation to take a step away from him. If she did, she feared, she would not be able to stop herself from taking another step, and another, until she was running away as fast as she could.
“You might not even realize that you’re Ilissa’s tool. The ring could direct your actions at some future time, or right now.” As though to himself, he said, “I can’t believe I was such a fool as to leave you here in my castle, with my people, while I went away for weeks at a time. I should have turned you into a donkey or geranium for safekeeping or at least locked you up in the dungeon. Only the sun knows what kind of mischief you worked in my absence.
“And you even said just now you wanted to be a magician. What secrets of mine are you trying to steal?”
“Nothing,” Nora said, trying to surpress her panic. “Listen, I don’t know what this ring is, but it’s not controlling me. You would know it, the way you could tell Ilissa put those other spells on me.
Aruendiel’s expression was stony. Nora added suddenly: “Besides, she’s not clever enough to come up with a scheme like that. I mean, she wouldn’t do anything that would make Raclin look bad, or ever admit that he’s less than perfect.”
“You’re underestimating her. She has carried out devious and complex schemes before.”
“I’m not her spy,” Nora said again, with some desperation. “I wasn’t trying to steal your secrets. I had no idea that your forest was private, or that it was full of, um, great power. How would I? I don’t know anything about magic.”
“No,” he said, no warmth in his voice. She could feel his eyes on her, probing, distrustful, all the way back to the castle.
PART TWO
Aruendiel sat up that night reading everything he could find about the various kinds of enchantments that could be affixed to or expressed in jewelry. He considered it a rather old-fashioned branch of magic, but there was no shortage of spells and commentaries, including many accounts of necklaces, earrings, bracelets, or rings that had been endowed by wizards with specific charms, powers, or curses. Baubles to make the wearer invisible, stronger than a dozen oxen, more beautiful than any other woman alive, uglier than death, or richer than seven kings. Trinkets that conferred eternal youth or a lifetime of pain.
None of the wizards and magicians who had written on the subject mentioned a spell that served only to hold a ring on a person’s finger. Aruendiel did not find this reassuring. Most likely, he thought, the girl Nora’s ring would not leave her finger because it contained a spell that was still somehow hidden. And yet he was familiar enough with the traces of Faitoren magic—powerful stuff, but cloying, much like Ilissa herself—that he should have been able to detect such a spell. All the more galling that he could not remove the ring.
In the morning, while he was still eating breakfast in the great hall, there was a delegation from the village. In addition to the sheep, Raclin had helped himself to a goat and three chickens, and set three thatched roofs on fire. Aruendiel listened as patiently as he could. Without promising to replace the lost livestock, he pledged to repair the burnt roofs and assured everyone that he would increase the valley’s magical defenses immediately.
After they had left, Aruendiel observed to Mrs. Toristel: “If a raiding party came through the village, burned buildings, and stole an equal quantity of livestock, no one would expect me to make them whole. But if an obviously magical creature wreaks havoc here, it automatically becomes my fault.”
“They’re used to your protection, sir,” Mrs. Toristel said. “I’m not saying it isn’t ungrateful of them.”
“Well, no doubt they assume that if not for my presence, we wouldn’t have been blessed with this particular visitor. I suppose they’re right,” he added, with a glance at Nora, who was gathering up the used dishes from the table. “He came only because I decided to harbor his runaway spouse. Come over here,” he called to her. “I want to take another look at that ring.”
But after half a dozen of the most potent spells Aruendiel knew for separating objects or undoing magic, the ring was still fast to her finger, which was now black and blue. The girl herself said little, only bit her lip and blinked hard when he tried the Tulushn fire. (Well, he stopped as soon as he saw it was doing no good, and conjured a bowl of water from the kitchen to soak her hand.) A shame that she hadn’t listened to his advice about not marrying the Faitoren monster in the first place. “You should always be careful about whom you accept jewelry from,” Aruendiel said, as Mr. Toristel came in from the courtyard to say that there was a gentleman to see his lordship.
Nora, who remembered hearing similar advice from her grandmother, felt she was in no position to contend this point with the magician. She took the goblets into the kitchen; then, at Mrs. Toristel’s bidding, she went out to the garden to dig some carrots. As she pulled them up, her eye kept coming back to the ring’s smooth gleam on her now-grubby, still-smarting hand.
Ilissa’s tool? She could not shake a nagging sense of doubt. Despite what she’d told Aruendiel yesterday, would she really know if someone was slipping thoughts into her mind like cuckoo’s eggs? It had happened before, after all.
“But if Ilissa were controlling me,” Nora argued internally, “would I even be wondering about this?”
Back in the kitchen, Mrs. Toristel informed her, snappish and excited, that Aruendiel’s visitor had come from Semr. “That’s the king’s livery. Put those carrots down and take him out some ale. He’ll want it after talking to the master.”
Nora took the pitcher of ale and went out into the great hall, where Aruendiel was speaking with a man in a red-and-gold coat. Mrs. Toristel was more correct than she knew. “But His Serene Highness requires the Lord Aruendiel’s counsel,” the messenger was saying, his voice frankly desperate.
“Then he should have asked for it more civilly,” Aruendiel said. He rolled up the scroll he was holding and placed it on the table. “I will look forward to seeing His Majesty next year, at the Assembly of Lords.”
The messenger licked his lips. “His Majesty will be sadly displeased.”
“Then I am sorry for His Majesty’s ill humor. He is not the first king that I have sadly displeased, however, and perhaps he will not be the last. Will you have some refreshment before you leave? There are some hard- boiled eggs here, and”—Aruendiel turned and caught sight of Nora, holding the pitcher—“yes, my housekeeper has sent out some ale.”
Nora did not move forward with the pitcher. She was staring at the dish of eggs. She had boiled them herself earlier that morning. So why was one of the eggs rocking madly back and forth? She could hear the tap- tap-tap as it knocked against the others.
Aruendiel followed her gaze to the egg. His eyebrows lifted.
As they watched, the shell cracked, then broke in two. Something bright emerged, a tangle of tinsel. A bird the size of a sparrow, fluffing out silver feathers. It took flight over Aruendiel’s head, a glittering streak in the bars of morning sunlight, and then perched on a rafter, throwing a faint radiance onto the smoke-blackened roof beams.
“You brought another message for me,” Aruendiel said to the man in the red-and-gold coat.
“Me? No. I’m no wizard!” said the messenger, blinking.
“That’s very obvious,” said Aruendiel. “But it doesn’t mean you didn’t bring some magic with you.” He pursed his lips and whistled; the bird chirped back.
