"Until she drops her illusion. Oh, I would love to slap that sleeping cap on both of those nasty twits and lock them in a dungeon for the next hundred years or so."
"Sleeping cap?" The magic mirror wobbled from side to side, as if she were trying to sit up. "What are you talking about?"
"We've been busy discussing other things," Bib said. "Forgive me. That box contains some useful bits of minor magic. We used the cap to make our friend sleep during the invasion of the princes. We baited them with an enormous pot of pea soup, to activate the spell. She couldn't sneeze or heave while she was asleep."
"Clever." Bryan's face relaxed into the good humor that Merrigan thought made him so much more handsome.
"Hmm, a stopgap measure," she said. "We can't tell her he's unable to recognize her. It'd just make her more weepy than she already is. Would she risk her life to help him recognize her? How much temptation can she stand?"
"What if you made it clear that he was doing it to protect her?" Crystal suggested. "Let her know he is just as much tangled in enemy magic as she is."
"I would like to give her some hope, ease some of her hurt," Bib said, "but not if it just puts her in more danger."
"Why don't we ask my brother what he wants to do?" Bryan said.
When the others agreed that the older prince should have some say in what was told to Belinda, he got up to go look for Bayl. Merrigan sipped at her tea, watching him walk away, and wished ... she wasn't quite sure what she wished for.
"I was such an idiot when I was younger," she whispered.
"Indeed you were, Princess Merrigan," Crystal said.
"Bib!" Merrigan slammed her mug down on the table, fearful she would drop it.
"I didn't tell her, Mi'Lady," the book responded. "She's a magic mirror. She sees everything."
"Even into the past?" She clutched her hands in her lap to resist the urge to snatch up the mirror and slam her down onto the stone paving of the warehouse. Unfortunately, magic mirrors were impervious to such attempts at breaking them.
"I see you as you are now. I can see the magic strangling you, and how you truly are—the face of your soul and spirit and heart," Crystal said. "Pick me up, Princess. If you please?"
"Why? I know what I look like."
"You know what you've seen. I can show you what you can't see."
She hesitated. After all, how long would it take for Bryan to find his brother and bring him back here to talk? If she didn't comply, Merrigan suspected Crystal would take matters into her own metaphorical hands. She might even reveal the truth about Clara's curse, Merrigan's identity, even the travesty of her marriage to that charming but foolhardy schemer.
"Very well," she muttered, and reached over to pick up the mirror from where she lay against Bib. The silver and ivory hummed under her hands. Sparkles of blue and green and purple magic spun around the surface of the mirror, down the handle, then traveled up Merrigan's arm and enfolded her. For several seconds, she could see nothing but the sparkles. When she blinked them away, she saw her own, her real face.
Yet not her face. Her features were all sharp-edged and glossy, like jewels. She was young and beautiful and regal, but with an overall impression of coldness.
The image of herself reminded her of the Fae she had encountered before going into Smilpotz.
"That is the woman you used to be," Crystal said. "Here is the woman you are now."
The image softened. There were still hard planes, but no sharp edges, and the glitter and gloss of polished jewels had faded into warmth. The colors and tones were flesh and blood. Merrigan shivered when she saw she did look older—of course, how could she expect all the travel and working to support herself not to age her? Yet there was something regal and admirable about the woman who gazed somberly from the mirror. A sense of warmth and mischief, where the jeweled woman had been chill and her humor had a malicious edge to it.
"What will I be in the end?" Merrigan whispered.
"That depends on the choices you make. I thought you said your princess was clever."
"She is. But everyone is clever in different ways," Bib said. "They're coming. Wipe your eyes, Mi'Lady."
Merrigan nearly snapped that she hadn't been crying, but she blinked and realized that yes, there was dampness in her eyes. She put Crystal back where she had originally been.
"Does he—he doesn't mention me at all, does he?" slipped out before she could tuck that errant, totally ridiculous thought back into hiding.
"When he's tired and lonely and jealous of his brother's happiness," the mirror said.
"Happiness?" Merrigan flinched, thinking she heard footsteps.
"Men are silly sometimes, when they're being heroic. Bayl finds much of his strength in knowing that even though he can't be with his princess, he's serving her, and proving his love. He has the hope of winning her freedom and her love someday. He's clever enough to realize her sisters targeted him because she did feel something for him. If you want to hurt your enemy, use someone who has already touched her heart."
"I never gave him a bit of hope, did I?" she whispered. Yes, now she did hear footsteps.
"When you were young. You changed and he was gone too long, and what chance does he have, really, as the youngest prince of a kingdom that nobody will ever rule again?"
"Don't tell him, Crystal. Please. Promise me."
"Don't tell him what, exactly?"
"That it's me." She tapped her breastbone. "Inside this—this—old hag."
"Mi'Lady," Bib said, a touch of laughter in his voice. "You were more a hag when you were beautiful. Now, you're simply lovely. And you're not half as old as you think you are."
Then the two princes stepped into the
