"Someone who lived in the palace, obviously," Merrigan said, when Belinda could only shake her head. She was pale, but the two bright red spots in her cheeks hinted she wasn't going to burst into tears this time. Fury was the dominant emotion vibrating out of her now. "Do you think your father might actually be behind this, so desperate to get you back and force you to take a husband ..."
"Female magic," Bib reminded them. "You said your sisters were studying magic."
"Bythia and Barbarina," Belinda murmured. "How could they? They love books even more than I do. How could they sacrifice a book, of all things?"
Merrigan muffled a snort of laughter. She knew Belinda wasn't being a featherhead. The weight of the revelation was so bitter, she had to focus on something inconsequential to survive.
They agreed Belinda would continue to wear the illusion spell. Word that a "real princess" was living in the orphanage might draw the attention of the curious and adventurers. With all the pieces and knowing the source of the inimical magic, Bergomass had no trouble unwinding the tracking spell and separating it entirely from the illusions. When they returned to the orphanage that night, Belinda asked for a bowl of pea soup to celebrate. She said it was delicious, but only ate half of it.
Merrigan brought the crown back to King Auberg, but he told her to keep it, that it needed to be worn. Gilda was a lovely girl and he was delighted to have her for a daughter-in-law, but the crown of woven vines and tiny flowers was simply not her style. Merrigan agreed to keep it for Belinda, when she would need to prove she really was a princess. King Auberg smiled and said the crown would go to whoever married first.
Sometimes, Merrigan just could not understand men.
Then she had bigger problems to worry about.
The next morning, Prince Bayl and Prince Bryan of Sylvanglade walked into the orphanage, and announced Prince Aubrey had asked them to come help. After the previous invasion of princes, the foster parents were naturally hesitant to accept them. However, the brothers had a letter from Aubrey. He had met them several times during his travels working for Gilbrick. They had always been kind, and because they had been touched by a curse themselves, they recognized him as a fellow prince. Their friendship and support had helped make the years of obscurity bearable. Since Aubrey would now be busy with his royal duties and unable to spend as much time at the orphanage as he wished, he asked his two good friends to take his place. Besides, they were without a kingdom or home.
"None of us are getting any younger," Bayl said with a half-smile and a shrug. Nasius had read Aubrey's letter aloud to all the adults gathered around the table in the kitchen, where they could have a little bit of privacy.
"Why did you wait so long after the wedding to make contact?" Garber, who taught the boys carpentry and leatherworking and arranged for apprenticeships, rarely spoke. Merrigan was glad he did this time, because the same question had been circling through her thoughts.
"Quite frankly," Bryan said, speaking for the first time, "those good-for-nothings who gave you trouble the other day. We would have come right after the wedding. We were going to introduce ourselves to you at the wedding, and follow you home, but they saw us before we saw them." He glanced at his older brother, visibly hesitant.
"It's all right, Bri," Bayl said. "I was ... I loved a princess once, but I was unworthy of her. She was disgusted by all the younger sons of kings who saw her throne but never saw her. Those seven were hunting her. Our paths have crossed too many times over the years, and they've been so frustrated in their quest to force her to marry one of them, they take it out on me. Us." He nodded to Bryan. "I don't know what I would have done all these years, without my brother's strength and encouragement. Those scoundrels know I would like nothing better than to find her and rescue her from them. We didn't want them following us here and assuming that my princess is here."
Merrigan wanted to believe him, that fate had brought Bayl of Sylvanglade to the orphanage just when Belinda had been freed from her tormenters. Still, she was relieved when the other foster parents took the responsibility to doubt and to question and to make sure there were no holes or thin spots in their story.
She had brought Bib to the meeting to check over the princes in his own way. She knew as soon as they introduced themselves that giving Belinda and Bayl their happily-ever-after just could not be this easy. There had to be more codicils and nasty tricks, especially considering the rivalry between those useless princes and these two worthwhile ones. While she would have liked nothing better than to slap the borrowed tiara onto Belinda's head, yank away the disguise talisman, and send her running into Bayl's arms, Merrigan knew better.
You were right to be cautious, Bib said, after sitting on the end of the table for nearly two hours. There is a fine net of inimical magic that has been woven around those two for so long, it has soaked into them. Thanks to exposure to the pea soup tracking magic, I can verify that this interference spell comes from the same source. Belinda's two sisters want to make sure she and her prince either never find each other, or don't enjoy their triumph when they do.
"What do we do? Is it safe to have Bayl here?" Merrigan whispered. She was so furious over being right, and the nasty spoiled brat attitude of Belinda's sisters, she couldn't focus enough to converse in her thoughts.
I believe as long as he does not
