"Show her," Crystal said from somewhere nearby. "But not with me—an ordinary mirror. Otherwise she'll think it's a trick." Her sigh bubbled with laughter. "Some people will never learn how to trust."
Bryan slid his arm under her back and helped her sit up. Merrigan took a deep breath and it cleared cobwebs from her brain. She was in her bed. She looked past Bryan and saw ... it seemed like nearly everyone in the orphanage had managed to crowd into the open area by her shelf bed. Belinda stepped up, her face pale and eyes red with weeping, but she smiled. Merrigan blinked and shook her head, then rubbed her eyes. Belinda had gone from a twelve-year-old to a grown woman. She handed Merrigan one of the mirrors from the bathing room.
"Oh." Merrigan sighed, seeing her own features for the first time in what felt like a lifetime. Her hair was just as black as before, her skin just as smooth and just the right combination of alabaster and peaches and roses, her eyes just as smoky dark brilliant.
"You've changed, Merrigan," Bryan said, taking the mirror from her limp hands. "The princess I knew would have erupted by now, demanding explanations, or at least demanding that everyone stop staring."
"That's because she's not the princess you knew," Bib said.
Before Merrigan could ask where he was, Bryan stood up and reached into the shelf bed over her head, and brought down the book and the mirror.
"I don't ... I don't really understand," Merrigan said. Yes, she wanted everyone to go away. She couldn't make herself meet those bright, inquisitive eyes, or face the expected expressions of accusation, the demands for an explanation. All those people she had worked with, lived with for so many moons, deceiving them. Surely they were furious with her.
"If you don't understand, how could you know that you could make the spell apply to you?" Nasius asked.
"Well, it worked against those idiot princes," she said. "And they said a princess could pick up the apple, not one specific princess, so I just ... guessed."
"You have a brilliant future as a magic-wielder ahead of you," Crystal said. "If you want to pursue magical studies."
"No, thank you. I've had quite enough magic in my life already."
"You're going to need to pursue some magical studies if you're going to help Belinda and Bryan find wherever Bayl went." The magic mirror sighed loudly. "Breaking the spell had enough backlash to give those two hags a comeuppance, but it didn't bring back the prince."
"Belinda ... I'm sorry." Merrigan put down the mirror on her bed and held out her hands. The other princess came to her and they held each other. "How much of a comeuppance?"
"Not nearly what they deserve," Bryan said, his voice a little hard, "but we've only just started." His sharp smile softened. "What you did for them, for us ..."
Merrigan fought down the sensation that a totally featherheaded kind of giggle was going to erupt from her at any moment. She couldn't do that. Not in front of her friends and the children. Certainly not in front of Bryan. She couldn't tear her gaze free of his. "You kissed me."
"Three times." His lips twitched and he shrugged. "I figured I should get as many as I could before you were awake enough to give me a black eye."
"No, but you woke me. How?" She fought the urge to lick her lips, knowing she would lose the taste of his kiss still lingering there. "I know enough about magic ..." She shrugged. "Shouldn't it be true love's kiss? There's no way you could ... you could ..." She hid her face in her hands, unable to say the words.
"Love you?" Bryan gently caught her hands in his, and they were wondrously warm and strong and gentle. He pulled her hands down, so she had to look at him. "Consider it a promise. A strong possibility. And maybe ... I like to think it wouldn't have worked if there wasn't something inside you, some hope, maybe you could try to ..." He reddened in that charming way of his that squeezed at her heart.
"All right, everyone," Nasius announced, waving his arms in a shooing motion. "I think that's enough staring. We're all sure that Mara—sorry, Princess Merrigan, is just fine now. Let's give her some room to breathe."
"It's just Merrigan," she called, as the people who had become her family turned around, some of them visibly reluctant to leave. "I'm no princess."
"That's what you think," Crystal said with a rolling, triumphant chuckle.
BRYAN HAD REALIZED what was happening when the two enchantresses struck, because of the lingering threads of magic still clinging to him. He felt the reverberations and followed them to their source. Bryan immediately ran to look for Belinda, since his brother wasn't there to protect her. He arrived in time to see Merrigan collapse, and then Bythia and Barbarina a moment later, in reaction to the shattering of their spell. He had the presence of mind to shout for the girls to sit on the nasty women while he used scraps of cloth and measuring tapes to bind and gag them. Then they searched Belinda's sisters and removed everything that might be used to hide a spell or some sort of inimical magic.
He had the presence of mind to turn Merrigan's magic box upside down and shake it until everything stored inside it had been shaken out. Everyone laughed later, when they examined the pile that covered the whole sewing table, ten feet long and five feet wide. Then he shoved the two enchantresses into the box, which obligingly widened enough to take them without hesitation. They were currently locked up in the box, sealed with several unbreakable leather straps that had come from it. They would
