"Oh, Bib, I'm sorry," she moaned, when she had caught her breath. "They likely don't know how to read, so they'll probably rip out your pages and use them for kindling. I failed you. I let them kidnap you."
"Is it really kidnapping when they didn't even know they had me, and they certainly couldn't keep me?" Bib said.
Merrigan tried to shriek, but her throat hurt too much and she didn't quite have enough breath. She settled for scrambling away from the dark lump that had appeared before her.
"Bib?" Her voice cracked in a most unbecoming way, but she didn't care. Cautiously, she reached out and rested a hand on the dark lump—it certainly felt like the leather of his satchel.
"Right here, Mi'Lady. How?" he said with a rippling chuckle. "It's all in the bond we've created. Do you really think my former master would leave me vulnerable so anyone who walked into his library could steal me?"
"Well, you have to consider they'd have to go through a dozen magical wards, at the very least," she mumbled, wiping her face.
"You bound me to you when you repaired me, and I have chosen to bind myself to you. We are friends."
"It just shows how low I have fallen in the world, that my only friend ..." Merrigan sniffled and wiped her nose on her sleeve and for once didn't care what it looked like. "I'm sorry, Bib. That was cruel. I truly am the selfish brat my brothers and sisters always called me. You are my dearest friend, in some ways the only real friend I have ever had, and I am glad you—well, you do like me, don't you?"
"Enormously, Mi'Lady. I see great and good things hidden within you."
"Your eyesight is much better than most. Such good things must be hidden very deep indeed. I certainly don't see them."
"They need excavating, so to speak, Mi'Lady. Well, now that we're back together, I suggest we make you as comfortable as we can for the night, then in the morning find the nearest village. There should be an official of some kind who can help us."
"Most likely, some of the brutes who robbed me are his sons or nephews. That seems the way of it, out here so far from civilized towns. Those with any kind of power and authority abuse it."
"You never know. Luck might be on our side this time."
Merrigan was pleased to discover that she had stored quite a few necessary things inside the magic box, taking advantage of its expanded interior. Her teapot and the tin of tea. Scissors, pin cushion and measuring tape. A paper packet of sweets the wife at the last farm had given her, in thanks for mending her husband's coat, along with three boiled eggs, half a loaf of bread and a block of cheese as big as her fist. All tossed into the magic box because it had been open at the time. Merrigan wished she had thought to put her little bag of gold and silver coins in there, along with her extra clothes and blankets. Fortunately, the cloak was warm and thick, coming between her and the rocks and branches and uneven ground. Merrigan made a decent dinner for herself. She discovered a little waterskin tucked into one corner of the box, just large enough for two mouthfuls. Then laughed a little harder than was reasonable when it spilled out a stream of water that didn't stop until she squeezed the neck and stuck the plug back in the mouth.
"Did you know it could do that?" she asked Bib, as she set the pot of water over the flames of her magical fire.
"No, Mi'Lady. I think we have been remiss in exploring all the wonderful things Chancellor Morton gifted us with."
"Remind me to do something wonderful for him, when I have regained my throne. Even considering all the help I was to him in resolving Seafoam's problems ..." Merrigan sighed and closed her eyes and rubbed them with her fists. "Bib, do you think, with all the wonderful little magic tools at his disposal, Chancellor Morton knew who I really was, and that's why he helped me? Not to be kind, but because it was his duty to a queen?"
"To be blunt," Bib replied after a short silence, "I think he has far too much on his plate to care about the trials of, if you will excuse me, Mi'Lady, the former queen of a kingdom far from Seafoam. I think he is first of all a kind man, and wise. One who knows how to repay invaluable help. If he had magic strong enough to discern your true identity, then he would have done more for you than he did. He was being kind and grateful to Mistress Mara, not to Princess Merrigan of Avylyn."
"You must be right," she whispered. She managed a weak little smile at the realization that it didn't bother her when he referred to her as a princess, rather than a queen. She was just too tired to fight over such details—or maybe it just didn't matter anymore.
A MERCHANT'S CARAVAN caught up with Merrigan when she stopped at a spring just past noon, to rest and have something to eat. The merchant's daughter was a sweet creature wearing far too many ribbons on her traveling dress. She squealed with delight when she heard Merrigan tell her father she was a seamstress. Before Merrigan quite knew it, she was ensconced in the largest of the wagons, plied with a warm meat pie and sweets while Gilda interrogated her about fashion and the latest designs. She nearly swooned when Merrigan admitted she had made the wedding gown for Princess Dulcibella of Seafoam, and had sewed in the royal courts of Avylyn and Carlion.
At the next village, Merrigan climbed out of the wagon with the assistance
