"They decided anyone who came with a complaint against Judge Brimble, especially a foreigner, has to be lying and needs to be punished right away. Oh, what was I thinking, to try to make anything right? That Fae who advised me to do something, to pay back the help I received, he's in on it with Clara, isn't he? He deliberately set me on the wrong path."
"Mi'Lady, no, no."
Bib's words didn't penetrate her heart-thudding moment of panic, but the suspicious hint of laughter in his voice did. Merrigan nearly burst into tears right then and there. Bib wasn't part of the plot to destroy her, was he? Why had she been such a fool to believe he was her friend?
"No, Mi'Lady, the curse isn't to hurt you and keep punishing you, but to guide you in, as you said, making things right. The curse isn't really a curse, if you think about it long enough. Clara did it to help you."
"Hmph. Clara's kind of help, I can do without, thank you very much." Still, now that she sat and thought about it a moment, Bib might be right. "So we gained our audience without any waiting or trouble because the curse is fiddling circumstances in our favor?"
"Let's call it a spell, Mi'Lady. Much easier on the ears. And quite frankly, if the wrong people hear you say you're cursed, they'll never give you a chance. Imagine all the princesses who never would have been kissed to awaken from an enchanted sleep if everyone considered them cursed, rather than enspelled. Princes and knights on quests must be triply cautious. I could turn your hair white again with tales of otherwise intelligent, talented, brave young men who thought they were lifting a spell and got themselves tangled in a curse that refused to be broken. Enspelled, not cursed."
"Semantics." Merrigan snorted, then managed a somewhat unsteady smile. "Thank you, Bib. It's so good to have a friend with some common sense."
"Delighted to be with you, Mi'Lady."
Despite Bib's reassurances, Merrigan tensed the first time a door opened and another servant came in. This one was a woman in a simple, dark green dress, white cap and white apron. She inquired if Merrigan was hungry or thirsty, and when she said she was, brought her a large wooden mug of cider and a napkin with three warm, honey-glazed pastries. Now Merrigan could believe magic worked on her behalf. Certainly, if she was about to be accused of some crime, she wouldn't have been treated like a guest.
Another servant, this time a balding man with an enormous moustache that gleamed with wax, led Merrigan out of the reception room. He took her down the hall to a double set of doors. They swung open as the man approached. Merrigan saw a man and woman, just a little older than Master and Mistress Twilby. They stood in front of a tall man wearing somber black robes and an old-fashioned short, white-powdered wig. That had to be the Overseer. The man shook the Overseer's hand, and the woman curtsied. They glanced once at Merrigan as she followed the servant into the room, then they turned and left by a door on the opposite side of the room.
"Well, so you are Mistress Mara," the Overseer said, after he had gestured for her to take one of the seats facing him. "I was wondering when I would see you here."
"Excuse me? You—you have?" Merrigan clutched the shoulder bag holding Bib, pressing him against her side. Maybe he had been wrong after all? Had someone lodged a complaint against her? "You know me?"
"Oh, indeed. Judge Brimble made sure everyone knew he had a foreign royal seamstress making his clothes." The Overseer's voice was deep, with a rumble that hinted at both contained amusement and anger. Merrigan found that highly confusing. "You can understand why a stranger who goes to work in the home of a high official would be investigated."
"And what did you find out about me, Your Honor?"
"I employ a very clever young woman to flitter from town to town and gather up the images of people I want investigated. She uses magic to peer into the hearts and the dreams of such people. She had to resort to simple pen and ink to capture your image because you are so thickly shielded with magic, her own magic refused to work."
"Please, Your Honor, I'm not a spy."
"And yet you come to me straight from Judge Brimble's household, naming yourself a plaintiff."
"I didn't intend ..." Merrigan took a deep breath to steady herself and gain a few more seconds to think. If she was utterly honest, she had indeed gone into the judge's household to spy on him—just not for a foreign country.
"Mi'Lady?" Bib riffled his pages, nudging her arm where it lay across him, in the bag on her lap. "Shall I speak for us both?"
"Yes, Bib. Please do." She reached into the bag and put him on the massive desk between her and the Overseer. The man tipped his head to one side and didn't appear at all startled to see the book, or what happened next. All he did was listen, his face entirely unreadable.
Bib flipped open and proceeded to empty himself of all the documents. He explained what they were, and why he and Merrigan had taken them. She thought he spoke rather like a minister in a king's council, with a compelling combination of brevity and elegance. He then backed up and narrated how Merrigan arrived in Smilpotz, challenged by a Fae to find some justice for young Corby. Then he explained how
