"Do you have any friends left at Gilbrick's warehouses?" she hurried to say, to cut off the full-blown plan screaming through her mind. It made her head hurt, and her stomach twist.
"Several friends," Aubrey said, frowning. "Why?"
"Any of the messengers? Anyone willing to leave immediately and ride all the way to Seafoam?"
"What if they don't go to Seafoam? There are a dozen other countries with three times as many ports they can sail from."
"Yes, but if the princess of Seafoam and the family that runs the premier inn in Windward and the captain of one of the largest ships in the port all join together and ask port masters and captains of ocean-crossing vessels up and down the coast to look for the weavers and not take them on board ..." She smiled as she let Aubrey finish the thought for her.
"Mistress Mara." He choked and tears brightened his eyes, strangely at odds with the fiercely exultant expression that made his face once again, just for a few seconds, look chiseled and determined and handsome. "You are a treasure. You are a heroine. You are better than ten faerie godmothers all rolled into one." He picked her up by her shoulders and kissed both her cheeks.
Merrigan quite lost her breath, her toes dangling several inches off the ground and a strange tingling, buzzing sensation fizzing through her blood and bones. Aubrey put her down and she sagged back against the wall while he dashed away, shouting for someone to bring him pen and ink and paper.
What just happened? Bib demanded, his voice loud in Merrigan's head. Never mind—it just showed up in my pages.
How? Merrigan nearly asked the question aloud. She staggered to her sewing room, blessedly quiet now.
"Magic," he said, his voice muffled, coming from behind the curtain of her bed shelf. "Two magic spells colliding. Meaning Aubrey—"
"Is under a spell too." She settled down on her bed and rested a hand on Bib's open pages. "So ... did it do anything to my spell, or was that just the feeling of two hitting each other, nothing changed?"
"If I miss my guess..." His pages riffled, nearly trapping her hand for a moment. "Sorry about that. It helps if I do a little actual physical searching. I know that makes no real sense, but it seems to help me sift things through, sort them out and ... ah...hmm..."
"That didn't sound very definite or certain."
"If I miss my guess, there's an undercurrent to both your spells that matches."
"Meaning?" She might have shouted the question, might have picked up Bib and tossed him across the room, but Merrigan couldn't get through the unsteady sensation bubbling through her. All that from a couple of kisses? They weren't even on her lips, so they really didn't count, did they? They were brotherly, for all that Aubrey was definitely exuberant and grateful and celebrating.
"There's healing magic in royal hands, and even stronger magic in royal kisses, in the right circumstances. If I miss my guess, the breaking of your curse—excuse me, the breaking of the spell to reform your character and destiny, has a codicil for a standard spell-breaking clause."
"Meaning?" A tiny flicker of heat shoved away some of the unbalanced feeling.
"You, Princess Merrigan, were just kissed by a prince. If Aubrey's heart wasn't totally fixated on Gilda, and he had kissed you on the lips, he might have broken your spell."
"Well ..." She wondered why the news left her feeling flat, a little sad, but not infuriated, cheated, insulted, as it would have a year ago. "I like Gilda too much to take her prince away from her ... Wait." Her head cleared a little more. "Aubrey is a prince?"
"All the indications confirm it. The ripples in the magic, the sense there is more to him than he appears, his general goodness and honesty and leadership skills. The best kind of prince. A prince under a curse. It's always the good ones who are targets of curses."
"You don't think ... What was it Gilda said about the curse on King Auberg's missing son?"
"It had something to do with seeing ... I think." Bib chuckled. "I seem to be affected by the spell as much as everyone. It seems to be a misdirection spell, an adaptation of you-don't-see-me and you-don't-remember-me."
So she wasn't ill or suffering some sort of aberration the few times Aubrey's features changed, just for a second or two. The question was, what should she do about it? Could she do anything?
Why do I keep thinking the problems around me are my concern?
She spent the dinner hour writing several letters to Warden and Dulcibella, to Quincy and Rosa, Miles and Elli, explaining the situation and asking for their help. As soon as Aubrey had her settled with writing materials and assigned two of her girls to make sure she was fed and no one bothered her, he had run off to Gilbrick's warehouse, to track down his friends among the messengers. When he didn't come back right away, Merrigan feared he had run into trouble even getting in, much less finding his friends. Or worse, everyone he approached laughed at him, mocked him, refused to listen. She nearly cried out in relief when the familiar face of Bigsley peered around the doorway. That evening when she had met him on the hill looking down on Alliburton felt like a lifetime ago. He informed Merrigan there had been a scuffle among the messengers for the privilege of taking the messages to Seafoam, once Aubrey explained what had happened. Not all the senior apprentices believed him, but they had at least given him the
