"Nobody would listen when you told them to run?" Merrigan guessed.
"We've dedicated our lives since then to defending others. And defending a certain princess, whose name you know, even though it's a sacred vow between us never to reveal it to anyone." Bryan sat up and leaned toward her. "There's quite a lot that's mysterious about you, Princess Mara. Including that intriguing magical box. Crystal senses it is capable of holding this entire warehouse. If we could figure out how to get it through the opening," he added with a grin.
Merrigan felt a little queasy. Afraid yet elated. She wanted to be included in some new mischief he was about to make, all hinted at in the glitter in his eyes. For just a moment she slid back in her memory to their childhood adventures, when his eyes held that same spark.
"Tell me the rest of your story, and when those two are finished catching up, the four of us need to talk. There's a great deal of magic still in play, and danger we need to untangle."
"Uh huh." His eyes narrowed and his grin grew sly.
Belinda's suspicions were proven true, when Bryan related what he and his brother had discovered. Crystal had been able to deduce much from scrying the magic every time they got close to the band of good-for-nothing princes. Bythia and Barbarina had woven the spell to trap their older sister, and put her into the clutches of the least worthy prince of the bunch. The magic held a nasty core. The enchantresses wanted Belinda dead, to take her throne, but their father also had a searching spell at work. He would not only know when Belinda was found, but also who hurt her. Both sisters would be disinherited if they directly harmed their sister. A curse was tangled around the hunting princes themselves. It would cause a series of embarrassing miss-steps and accidents, so the princes and Belinda would end up dead. Only someone made from magic, like Crystal, could see through the weaving to the malicious intent. Anyone else examining the aftermath would conclude Belinda had been killed through stupidity colliding from multiple directions.
"So tell me the truth," Bryan said, after they went to the kitchen to make tea and bring it back to the sewing room, with leftover biscuits from breakfast. "She's here, isn't she? Hiding among the orphans?" He waggled his eyebrows at her. "I thought you might be her, in disguise, but Crystal says you're an entirely different kind of magic."
"She does, does she?"
"You two are a pair of ninnies," Crystal announced, when Bryan and Merrigan just sat and smiled at each other.
"Oh, definitely a pair," Bib said, his pages riffling in a whispery chuckle.
"What sort of consensus have you two come up with?" Merrigan asked. "Are we safe enough from the enemies to take off some masks?"
"Bib is a wonder when it comes to diagnosing magic, but he hasn't had the experience with the whole nasty tangle that I've had over the years," Crystal announced. "As much as I hate to admit it, things could get much grimmer before they get better."
"The sisters?" Bryan asked, pausing with his mug of tea nearly to his lips.
"They've had time to seethe and add to their spells. By now, it's a matter of honor to them to wipe out—our friend," Bib said, after a slight pause. Merrigan guessed that Crystal had warned him that the brothers didn't dare to even speak Belinda's name. "She's frustrated their plans and efforts for too long. Despite all Crystal has done, there are a few threads of magic attached to Bayl she hasn't been able to loosen. Her sisters will know when he's found and unmasked her. They have several contingency spells watching from far off, ready to snap into action and separate the two sweethearts."
"Oh, now that's not fair at all," Merrigan said.
Bryan muttered some curses into his tea, then tipped the steaming mug back and emptied most of it down his throat.
"Do we make things more treacherous if we tell your brother our mutual friend is here?" Bib continued after several moments of unhappy silence. "While it might make things more pleasant for him, can we trust him not to confront her? Or try to identify her?"
"I'm surprised he hasn't picked her out already," Merrigan said. "She looks like a much younger version of herself, that's all."
"That's easy to explain," Bryan said. "One spell on us decrees that until she reveals herself, neither of us will recognize her. Even if, as you said, she looked like a younger version of herself."
"A variation of the you-don't-see-me spell," Crystal said, "but woven in such a way it only reacts when the brothers and your friend are close enough to see or hear each other. Rather vicious, if you think about it."
"She thinks he hates her," Merrigan said. "She looked into his face, she talked with him, and he smiled at her and patted her head, treating her like a little girl. No wonder she's on the verge of tears half the time since the two of you arrived."
"It's to force her to confront him. Torture her until she breaks down and makes herself vulnerable." Bryan scowled into his mug. "You can't imagine how it tears him apart to know he probably looks her in the face a dozen times a day and he can't say anything, can't even speak her name, because it would put her at risk."
"Oh, I can imagine all too clearly," she whispered. Then she thought of something. "But she's told him her name. Several times. She isn't using a false name, which is rather reckless. He doesn't call any of the girls by name, now that I think of it."
"That's the really nasty part," Crystal said. "The spell makes him hear every girl say her name is hers. So when
