All three warehouse managers were at that moment, according to Bigsley, confronting the weaver and his wife at the Scepter Rose. Bigsley was of the opinion that they would be nowhere to be found, and he had been entrusted by Aubrey with getting the letters from Merrigan and heading out on the road immediately. The word needed to get up and down the coast to keep the tricksters from even approaching a ship ready to cross the ocean.
"He loves her incredibly, doesn't he?" Belinda remarked, once Bigsley had raced away on his horse. She and Merrigan stood in the doorway of the orphanage warehouse, looking out into the darkening streets, where shadows grew long and were swallowed up in encroaching twilight.
"Who?" Merrigan pulled her thoughts back from Seafoam. She wished she could ride with Bigsley, to see her friends again. She knew the spell would keep her from retracing her steps, and not for the first time she regretted leaving Seafoam at all.
"Aubrey. He loves the merchant's daughter. That's an awful lot of worry and work and fury for just admiration." She sighed and followed Merrigan back into the massive building, where the sounds of bedtime activities trickled out toward them.
Merrigan liked the giggles of children as they played their games to delay the moment when they had to climb under their blankets and close their eyes and mouths. When she moved on, she would miss the tedium. The comfortable routines. Even, oddly enough, the smells of sweaty little boys with twenty different stains on their faces and clothes. The little girls who insisted on climbing into her lap during the bedtime story, making her legs fall asleep with the weight of their hot little bodies.
"I wish ... I wish I weren't quite so picky," Belinda confided in her as they settled down in the sewing room, just the two of them, with a pot of sweet tea, so heavy with spices the spoon almost stood up in it. For the next half hour, while the sewing girls helped bathe the younger girls, they had a few moments to themselves. Since she was new to the orphanage, she hadn't been assigned duties yet, other than sewing.
"Picky?" Merrigan had to struggle to focus on what she was saying. "Picky about what?"
"His name was Bayl. He was five years older than me, and at the time, I thought that was incredibly old. I had just decided that I wasn't going to settle for the first younger son prince who came calling. I liked him. I think I liked him far more than anyone else I had ever met. Father didn't think much of him, since he was the fourth prince. At that time, he still had some hopes that I could make a marriage alliance, joining two kingdoms together." She sighed, offering Merrigan a lopsided little smile. "I liked Bayl enough that it actually hurt a little when I turned him down. Father was pleased—can you believe it? Actually pleased when I turned down a marriage offer. He wanted me to hold out for a second-born prince from the kingdoms surrounding ours."
"They found other princesses?" Merrigan guessed.
"They found enchanted goose girls and swan maidens and millers' daughters who spun straw into gold. When Father started encouraging third-born sons, I held out for Bayl. For a while."
"He found someone else?"
"His family's kingdom fell under some awful enchantment. Everyone who has tried to get into the palace, then the capitol city, and finally anyone trying to go within a day's journey of the capitol ..." Belinda shrugged. "They never come back. They're trapped."
"Sylvanglade?" Merrigan whispered.
"How did you know? Yes, Prince Bayl of Sylvanglade." She sighed. "Father got to the point where he insisted I had to take a prince, any prince, no matter how poor his kingdom. All that mattered was royal blood, and not the brain or the personality or even the cleanliness of whoever showed up claiming to be a prince. Then he threatened me with enchantments, to make the princes prove they were worthy. At one point, he decided to put me and all my sisters into the enchantment, thinking that we'd have better luck with a traveling band of younger sons, working together. He would let them choose which of us the princes wanted to marry, without letting them know who was the heir to the throne. Oh, were my sisters furious! Bythia was furious enough—she has some magic of her own—she threatened to put a curse on me, as if it was all my fault the rest of them would be forced to marry someone they didn't like. Well, now they all knew how it felt to be just a prize hanging from the highest branch, waiting for anyone who could jump high enough to snatch us." Belinda burst into tears.
Merrigan patted the girl's shoulder, unsure what to say to soothe her. After a while, she rubbed her back, then moved on to wrapping an arm around her. Fortunately, Belinda's tears stopped soon after she turned and snuggled her wet face into Merrigan's shoulder. Even more fortunately, she stopped crying before the other girls came back from helping with evening baths, so there were no uncomfortable questions.
"How old are you?" Merrigan asked, under cover of the chatter and giggles as the seven girls scrambled into their nightgowns and robes and slippers, before heading to the main room for story time.
"Twenty-five. Yes, I know, I'm ancient for an unmarried princess." She sighed. Then for a moment she grew thoughtful. The disguising spell rippled just enough that her own face showed through the mask of childishness. "How old are you? And what's your real name?"
"My—my real name?"
"Oh, there's so much magic soaked into me, after all this time, I can
