Lance stood amidst a flurry of activity, stomping his feet on the frozen ground with his hands tucked in his armpits. He spared a hopeful glance upwards, but caught only a glimpse of the sun peeking through what remained of the foliage. It wouldn’t reach them for another few hours yet, to melt the frost that had gathered on the gold and orange leaves scattered across the forest floor, browning them prematurely. He couldn’t remember a year that it had grown so cold so early. His breath obscured what little he could see of the sun in a foggy cloud.

Around him, soldiers marched. Their efficiency was a marvel to him, what with so many coming from farms and villages. They’d had maybe a few months of training in the hands of a smattering of skilled veterans, and Lance’s expectations hadn’t been high. Now he watched them, no longer wondering how they could have possibly gotten so far into the Ahalan Forest without being noticed. If he hadn’t stumbled out of one of the tents himself earlier that morning, he wouldn’t have thought a camp had ever been there. The fires had been put out, the ashes scuffed into unrecognizable dirt, leaves thrown this way and that to hide foot and hoof prints.

He’d arrived the night before, after his father had shooed him from Aralyn’s bedside and told him to warn Roderick of the increasing danger in the Ahalan forest. He’d done so only to redeem himself – he blamed himself for Aralyn’s ordeal, for he had felt the cool fingers of the Sarians’ power tapping at his mind when he took Aralyn back to the palace, and it was that connection that had allowed them to sneak past the defenses placed upon the gates. If he’d stayed just seconds longer….

He watched another cloud rise above him as he exhaled his regrets.

“I should have been there for her,” Lance said.

“She took care of herself – or Lutaelen did,” Farram answered, placing a hand on his son’s shoulder. “You helped save the city. If you hadn’t guarded those people, they’d be dead. The children—”

“I know.” Lance tenderly tucked a curl behind Aralyn’s ear, shrugging out of his father’s grip; she shifted sleepily.

Farram sighed. “I need you to warn Roderick. If he can sense the things, he’ll pretend not to. And if not…”

“I’ll leave after she wakes.”

“You’ll leave now,” Farram told him; his son simply shook his head, gazing at his friend. The king grabbed his shoulder again, turning his son to face him. “Lance, think of her! If the Sarians see the man, they’ll kill him, simple as that. Do you think Aralyn is ready to be queen?”

“Roderick has Hecatius with him, he’ll be fine. I would appreciate it, father, if you would let go of me.”

Farram didn’t. “Just how well would you cope with an attack you didn’t know was coming? Aralyn is perfectly fine, Lance – a little shaken, I’m sure, and certainly exhausted. I’m not saying you need to stay away until Roderick gets here. Go for a day, for two—make sure they have the right protection, and come back.”

“Why don’t you send Gareth or someone else you trust?”

“I trust you, Lance.”

“You’re terrified of me.” He stood, rising to his father’s height, challenging him to deny it. “You’re terrified of what I might become – stronger than you. You feel threatened, don’t you, father?”

“No. If you’d just let me explain—”

“You should have explained a long time ago.”

“What do you want me to do, Lance? I’ve made mistakes – I know I have. But I can’t go back and change them. All I can do is apologize, which I have, and attempt to explain my reasoning behind my decisions. What do you need to hear to make everything alright?”

Lance snorted and strode around his father, to the door. “Nothing. It’s never going to be alright; I can’t ignore what you’ve done to me – what you’ve done to her.” He nodded to the sleeping princess. “I’ll go to her father now because that’s what she’d want me to do, and I’ll come back because I think she’d like that too, but when all of this is over and I can go back to Bellador, I’ll be staying there. Goodbye, father.”

“Goodbye, Lance,” Farram said softly. But he was already gone.

Perhaps it would be warmer if he was moving, Lance thought as he watched the busy soldiers enviously. The tents were being rolled up, the bags packed, horses tended to. He’d been warned off of activity by Hecatius, who’d taken stock of his magical stores upon his arrival and deemed him unworthy to fight even the weakest magical human, let alone the band of Sarians he’d come to warn them about. He’d been ordered to bed after a glass of whiskey and restorative, and had thus missed out and a great deal of the conversation about his news, though he had heard their raised voices as he drifted off to sleep.

Now it seemed tempers were still high. The wizard directed both soldiers and those with magic as the camp was packed up. Roderick stood amongst a knot of military advisors; both cast glares at one another when the other wasn’t looking. Lance had never seen them acting in such a manner, and it caused an unpleasant sensation to tingle down his spine. It was as though Aralyn had held everyone together. Her disappearance had caused the entire framework of the Bellan nobility to fall apart; Roderick refused to listen to the wizard, formerly his most coveted advisor. As such, the wizard refused to advise, and instead carried out any duty the king asked him to, all the while checking up on Aralyn through Farram, a traitorous act indeed. Cady warred with her uncle too, but more so with her husband; she’d been left at home to tend to daily political matters while they went to war, but she swore they were going to get Aralyn killed.

Roderick himself didn’t seem so sure of his goals, either. He’d become bitter, and if Lance wasn’t very much mistaken, frightened. He’d faced the Black River like someone resigned to fight a mortal enemy without much hope for his chances, and hadn’t been himself since they’d crossed it. He looked upon everything with grim familiarity, and when Lance had brought news of the Sarians, he hadn’t looked surprised. Lance hadn’t mentioned that his daughter had been possessed by a being who fought them; he felt that was something for Aralyn to explain if she wished to do so.

The king didn’t look like he’d be able to handle the news, at any rate. There was gray in his hair that Lance hadn’t noticed in Bellador. Bags had developed under his eyes, and there were wrinkles on his forehead that hadn’t been there before. Lance hadn’t seen his lips twitch into so much as a small smile since his daughter had been taken, and the emptiness in his eyes reflected what he’d seen in Aralyn’s. They were lost and lonely without each other; they were all they’d had, as far as Aralyn could remember – and maybe as long as Roderick could remember, too, though Lance wondered how much of Roderick’s misery had to do with missing his daughter and how much had to do with twenty-year-old memories marching back into his mind.

“Ready, boy?” Hecatius called. Lance looked over at him; he stood next to the carriage while Roderick and Dominic climbed in. Only a handful of soldiers remained, all dressed in the red livery of Bellador. The rest, in civilian clothes, had left in groups of four or five, travelling through the forest and lesser used pathways that tended not to cut through towns or villages. That was the only way, they’d reasoned, to get an entire army to congregate in the forest without Farram noticing. To teleport with them all would have caused enough of a stir that Farram would have sent someone to check it out, and marching in a big group would have been more than a give away, undoubtedly sending villagers scurrying to the capital to warn their king.

No, Roderick was more intelligent than that. He, alone with a few advisors and the single regiment of soldiers he’d been allotted, were seen travelling the main roads in the little carriage, attracting more attention than Lance had anticipated. It seemed everyone along the road had heard of his arrival; he wondered how wise it had been of Gareth and Saxen to advertise this point, and decided his father had some sort of hand in it. In the inns where they sometimes ate, people were nothing but friendly, though they spoke sparingly, ducking away from their table as quickly as they could, a mixture of fear and awe in their eyes.

Lance clambered into their carriage after Hecatius, and it lurched into motion. He dared not look at Roderick, from whom he was sitting across, but he felt the king’s eyes bore into him. They hadn’t had much of a chance to talk the previous night, not before Hecatius had sent him off to bed. He knew there were questions to be asked, questions he didn’t want to answer.

“How is she?” Roderick asked after a moment.

“She’s fine,” Lance ventured carefully. “She doesn’t seem to be too frightened. Gave my father an earful at her party, actually.”

“She got a birthday party?” Dominic, next to Roderick, inquired. He raised his brows.

“Yes, in the ballroom.”

“Interesting,” he said, shrugging. “Strange. If we held you or Gareth or Raya captive, I don’t think we’d be giving you any parties, is all. I wasn’t expecting to find her in the dungeon, but—”

“If we were holding Lance, Gareth, or Raya hostage, we wouldn’t be looking for peace, would we?” Hecatius cut in, bitterness lacing his tone.

Roderick ignored him. “So she’s adjusted well. At least I feel better about that. And – the amulet?”

Lance winced. “I’m sorry, sir, but my father said I wasn’t to divulge some information. Said you might get angry, and he didn’t want you to take it out on the messenger, sir.”

The king snorted. “Which is enough of an answer in itself.”

“Yes, sir.”

The man sat back with a sad sigh and looked out the window, his arms crossed over his chest. After a moment, Lance dared let out a breath he’d been holding. He wasn’t going to be forced to elaborate.

“Sir?” he worked up the courage to ask.

“Hm?”

“I was wondering – if – when Hecatius says I can – if I can go back, to be with her. It’ll only be a week more until you join us, but I think she’d prefer if I was there. I’d prefer if I was there.”

Three pairs of eyes turned to him.

“Lance, I’ve told you, you are not my hostage. I will not stoop to his level,” Roderick said tightly. Lance wondered how much he wished he could. “You may go back whenever you wish. In fact, I’d appreciate it if you did. I don’t like the thought of my daughter sitting there with no one to—” He shook his head and sighed. “Take care of her. Keep her safe.”

“I will, sir. I promise I will.”

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Farram’s study looked like a war-torn battle ground. Papers littered the floors, a giant ink stain blotted the far wall where a bottle had smashed against it, his maps were torn and half off the walls. A thin layer of gray ash from the fireplace covered everything, completely obscuring any black that was left in the king’s hair.

As I sat in my usual chair, trembling fingers wiping soot from my eyes, Farram leaned out of the broken window.

“Yes, yes, I’m fine – no, I’m not being assassinated – stop laughing, Ana! I hope one of those shards hit you! Carry on, Saxen, or I’ll have you come up here for her to practice on!” He pulled a curtain over the gaping hole and turned back to me. “Again,” he said.

I shook my head, trying not to dislodge the tears of frustration that had pooled in my eyes. “I don’t want to do this anymore.”

“Very well. We can move on to something else.”

“No, I mean –” I said, looking away from him. “I don’t want to do magic anymore.”

“And why is that?” He moved away from the window to sit across from me, leaning his elbows on the desk as I struggled for words. It was my fourth lesson in magic. I’d been doing the same few things over and over again with little progress on any of them, but I wasn’t sure that was the full extent of my unwillingness to continue.

“Just… look,” I said at last, waving one hand around the room. He spared a glance at my indication. “This is precisely why my father hates magic so much. It’s destructive. He’s going to look at me and think I’m – I’m—”

“A young woman coming into her powers who needs training,” Farram said softly. “Your father understands magic more than you think he does.”

“He understands it enough to know It ought to be suppressed,” I said bitterly. “I should just keep the ward on, then I won’t be able to – to blast out windows and—”

“You still would have,” he said, sighing. “Aralyn, when I took the ward off of that charm, it was almost broken anyway – by your own magic. It’s been fighting it off for years, trying to break through. And if I hadn’t gotten to it first, it would have. Roderick knew it would happen – I can’t believe he didn’t – and more than that, he wanted it to happen, or you would have received a new ward every year for your birthday.”

“Why give it to me at all, then?” I asked.

“I have several theories,” Farram answered. “One, he’s afraid you may have caused a lot of destruction when you were younger, it’s true. Roderick always did take great pains to push ahead when it came to kingship. Your powers may have ruined what little support he had at the start of it all. Two, he knew that the amulets would have to be dealt with at some point and wanted to give you the chance to do that duty. Third, and most likely, I think, he was afraid magic would steal you away from him—”

The way he ended didn’t seem like the end of a sentence at all, more like the middle of one. Indeed, his mouth remained open a fraction of a second too long before he closed it, smiling a smile that didn’t reach his eyes. The frustrations I’d been forced to endure combined with anger at this tight-lipped explanation and my already on-edge emotional turmoil made me unwilling to deal with his mysteries and secrets he insisted upon keeping.

Instead of sitting and waiting demurely for him to explain, I snapped, “What?”

Perhaps he sensed my mood, for he didn’t argue that there was something to expound upon. Rather than explain, though, he simply said, “It’s not my place to say. I do think, though, that you should ask your father when he gets here.”

I snorted. “I’m not going to talk to my father about anything to do with magic. I told you, I don’t want to do this anymore. I’m rubbish, we aren’t doing anything productive—”

He leaned forward suddenly, causing me to jump and leave off my list of grievances. “That’s it, then,” he said. “You need more of a purpose. I hadn’t wanted to impose this upon you because I didn’t want to frighten you. Shall I show you what you can do, then? What can be done to you if you don’t learn?”

“I know the ghost woman can get into my head, I know!”

“But so can I,” Farram said. “So can anyone with our magic. Your untrained mind is easier to break into than a child’s. Without knowing your weakness, I could sense how open you are. Without any kind of blockade, and with your immense amount of power, you’re like a gemstone left unattended – even a well-off passersby is going to be tempted to take what he can purely for his own benefit. I can get into your head, Aralyn. See your thoughts., your memories. Use your magic as I might my own. Make you do whatever I wish.”

“Well, why don’t you make me do magic, then?” I burst out, standing with fists clenched. “Maybe then you could make me exercise some control!”

The glint in his eye warned me of my mistake, but still I didn’t draw back quickly enough. In one fluid motion he stood and grabbed my wrist. The moment his skin touched mine, I experienced that sensation of being drawn from my body and plunged back in to somewhere far different.

We were in my room in Bellador again – my father was handing me Missy Mousey and Tumble Bunny – but something was horribly different from the last time Farram had brought me here. I was sheathed in a white film of his magic, stemming from his upturned hand. I tried to move but couldn’t; the magic held me in place.

“Try to break free. Can you?” he asked, circling me. He cocked one brow. “Mind-to-mind magic is stronger than if I were to bind you physically with this spell. With the knowledge you have now you might be able to blast out of that with sheer force. But this? You don’t stand a chance, not against anyone. Show me your cousin.”

At his command, Cady walked into the room, carrying a silver tray. She looked to be around my age; her hair was shorter than it had been the last time I’d seen her, and she had that same, carefree, unburdened look I’d worn tramping through the puddle-pitted back roads of Bedros to get to the Shattered Sword.I looked at the bed again – my father had disappeared, and little me had changed. She sat propped against pillows, clinging to Missy Mousey as she turned a page in a book. She looked up when Cady closed the door. Her face was pale, even her lips – I recalled the time I’d been so feverish there had been whispers of forcing my father into marriage to produce another heir in the event of my death. Luckily it hadn’t come to that.

Cady set the tray on little me’s lap and held a hand to her forehead. “Still warm,” she muttered.

“Cady, I feel yucky,” little me whined, tossing the book aside. “And I’m bored.”

“I know, honey,” Cady answered, smiling. It was her worried smile, the one she put on to reassure me, but I didn’t know it then. “Drink your medicine, go on. Hecatius says it’ll make you feel better, and then you can go outside and play in a day or two.”

Little me sighed, gazing down at the contents of the tray. “This doesn’t taste good,” she informed Cady, but she picked up the cup anyway and took a hesitant sip.

Cady’s fingers rested on the bed as she watched. Tendrils of magic, foggier than Farram’s but magic all the same, crept out of her fingertips and poured into the cup. Little me swallowed the medicine and the magic. I frowned.

Not half a day after this had occurred, my fever broke.

“Hm,” Farram said, watching from my side. I wasn’t able to turn to look at him, to glare at him, for sifting through my mind, though I continued to struggle against his bonds. He rested a hand on my shoulder. “A court day.”

It was as though we zoomed from one area of the castle to the next; we stood in the throne room, behind my father and myself. I recognized it as the day Gareth had come in – of course my mind would take me there first. As I watched, the doors swung open to admit him. The room fell silent. I realized then how strange it was that everyone else had known on sight who Gareth was. Everyone except me. I looked at my father as he stood and ordered the man out. I wondered what else he’d kept from me. I wondered how my people could have any respect for a princess they knew was ignorant.

Lance and I were leaving; Farram and I followed. As we darted down the hall, I thought, no, no, no! I didn’t want Farram to see the hiding place. That was Lance’s and my place alone. Who knew what evils Farram could use it for, if he got the chance?

Beside me, I felt Farram’s amusement.

We zoomed again, moving so fast through hallways and corridors that everything flashed by in a blur. We ended up in one of the family-sized dining rooms on the second floor, one overlooking the courtyard. A thin dusting of snow covered everything outside, frosting everything white, while inside a fire crackled in the fireplace, chasing away the cold. I stood near the windows, looking out – I was maybe fourteen; my hair was longer then than it was now. My father sat at the table, looking over papers.

“He’s here,” younger me said suddenly, her full attention on the scene before her. I peeked, though I didn’t have to. I knew I’d see the dark carriage roll up the drive, its wheels and hoof prints making tracks in the snow. I knew I’d see the black haired boy jump out, shake himself of the ride’s jitters before pulling his cloak more tightly about himself. He looked around, up at our towers, at our frosted windows. She jumped back, afraid he’d caught her looking.

“Is he now?” my father asked, his tone amused. “Look like much?”

“A little skinny,” she answered. Farram beside me chuckled. “Try not to be too hard on him, won’t you?”

“I’ll do my best,” Roderick answered. “But I can’t promise anything.”

Zoom! In the hallway not an hour later, showing the bewildered new wizard’s apprentice around the castle, making awkward conversation. Zoom! The first night he came into my room, not two weeks after I’d met him, asking me if I’d like to go out on the town for a night. Zoom! Witnessing his anger at a band of street urchins our age, when they stopped us in the middle of the night on our way back to the castle – his magical energy was made of pure fury. Zoom! Us, lying in bed, the image I used for gathering my magic. It swirled to me then with each animal he painted on the ceiling. No, no, no!

Zoom! His face as he charged into my room, shouting at Gareth and Saxen. His face as his head hit the ground. His face appearing out of a crowd at a birthday party…

Stop, stop, STOP!

His face, leaning in closer and closer by the fountain in Ahala…

NO!

We jolted away from the scene, hovered above it for mere seconds as I pushed Lance away, shouting about Sarians. Then I was thrown back into my conscious body, Farram dropped my wrist. I used the attached hand to take a swing at him, and managed a satisfying smack across his face. My hand stung as I stood shaking; tears splashed down my cheeks, and I didn’t care who saw them.

He hadn’t anticipated my actions; I could see surprise in the way his lips curled inward as I’d never seen them do before. A red print of my hand appeared on his cheek as I watched, but he made no move to assuage the pain.

“Never,” I said, pointing a shaking finger at him. “Never, EVER do that to me again. Do you understand me? I swear I’ll—I’ll—”

But I couldn’t think of what I could do to that might bother him as much as that experience had disturbed me, and he replied, quite calmly, “You had to see what could happen. There’s a lot of information stored in your head you probably don’t even think about. I looked at people, at certain events – anyone could look at your secrets, your weaknesses, and use them against you. Or your country.”

I snorted and strode to the door, with full intentions of storming out. But once again the handle wouldn’t bend to my touch, no matter how I rattled it.

“I have not dismissed you, Miss Mehnota.”

“I am dismissing myself!”

“You had to know—”

“You could have just TOLD me!” I shrieked, pulling at the handle again. Without thinking I poured my magic into it, everything I had, and the door blasted off of its hinges. It fell into the hallway with a thud, and I heard the tinkling of glass as the potted plants on the windowsill shattered. I didn’t stop to apologize before stomping down the hall, trying to clear my eyes and head, trying to wipe away all traces of Farram. Kedron, I decided, really had nothing but evil to offer. I wanted to go home.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The kitchen door slammed against the opposite wall, rattling the pots and pans hanging there. It bounced back, almost hitting me as I stormed through with my arms crossed, brow furrowed, lips scowling. My footsteps were so heavy they echoed in the small space as I stomped past tables laden with items for dinner that evening and rounded the corner to see the large counter space and giant fireplace where the cook prepared our meals.

But it wasn’t the cook who turned with her arms full of bowl and spoon, frowning at the unexpected disturbance that may or may not have flattened the bread I saw still hot in its pan sitting on the table. Ana, her hair in one long braid tossed over her shoulder, watched me approach with concern in her eyes.

“What’s wrong?” she asked.

“Nothing,” I snapped.

Even Cady might have reprimanded me for being impolite, but Ana simply handed me the bowl she was holding and demanded, “Stir” without another word on the subject of my feelings. I took the bowl and set it on the counter, stirring the floury mixture as fast as I could without letting the contents spill over. I hadn’t known why I picked the kitchen, of all places, to vent my anger, but I decided this was it. There weren’t a lot of things I could beat without getting in trouble for it – here, each time I jabbed the spoon in the bowl, I could pretend it was Farram’s face without consequence.

Ana worked around me, measuring out other ingredients. She poured milk into my bowl, some sort of sugary syrup, a couple of eggs. I beat them all together into a creamy colored paste until Ana held out a burlap sack. I stopped stirring and took it from her, peering inside.

“I usually put however many in I feel like,” she said, “and eat however many I feel like too.” She reached a hand in to demonstrate, and pulled out a small pile of miniature blocks of chocolate. Popping one in her mouth, she grinned. “Just as good as I remember. Try it, go on.”

I looked at her dubiously, but reached my hand in anyway. Surely this was unladylike! But I soon found, picking one of the tiny little blocks from my palm and placing it on my tongue, that I didn’t care if I was ladylike or not. I’d had chocolate before, of course, but there was something oddly pleasing about eating bits of it straight from a sack. I plunged my hand in for more, grinning.

“Makes a whole day better, I think,” Ana said. She picked up the sack when I was finished and poured a good amount of the chips into our mixture and stirred while I munched on chocolate, feeling, indeed, a great deal better in that short span of time than I thought I’d ever be able to manage. Ana smiled at me and strode to the opposite end of the kitchen. She returned with a long sheet pan, which she set down between us. “I love this kitchen. I missed cooking in here. Spent the better part of my days in here when I was your age.”

“Why?” I asked, watching in an awed sort of horror as she dipped her fingers into the bowl, pulling out some dough to roll in her hands. She placed the ball on the sheet and repeated her actions. Feeling daring, I followed suit; the dough squished pleasantly in my fingers.

Ana shrugged. “I was frustrated with a lot of things then. Farram, mostly. Cooking was a wonderful antidote. Nearly frightened cook half out of her wits when I first barged through those doors – same one’s here today, and she’s not at all happy I’m back.”

We stood in silence for a few moments, rolling dough in our palms, until I worked up the courage to ask, “What happened then, when you were here before?” I tilted my head when she frowned into the bowl of dough; she didn’t answer, and I continued, “From the sound of it, Farram didn’t know there were fairies before you showed up. No one did. So I thought that none of you ever showed yourselves—”

“We didn’t,” she answered, slowly retracting her hand from the bowl. She sighed, eyes on her hands for a moment before they shifted to me, examining me as people did when they wondered if I was up for something. I looked back at her with mere curiosity, and saw a small, sad smile cross her features. “No fairy had crossed into the human lands in my memory – and I have quite a long memory. It was strongly felt, and still is, that we had interfered enough in your lives. We were ashamed, after the war with the gods, and wanted to leave you alone. We watched you, of course. If something warranted intervention, we would intervene. But the Sarians were confined to their northern lands in the past, and nothing seemed important enough for us to get involved, until the amulets showed up in human hands.

“Up until that point, the amulets had appeared periodically in Tormani. We recognized them for what they were, and guarded them. But when we sensed, after several years of their absence, that a human had come into possession of one of them, the entire island was thrown into panic. My mother – our leader then – was peppered with ideas about what to do about the situation. Some suggested abduction. Others thought she ought to be killed. Some said we shouldn’t do anything about it at all, and let things unfold as they would. Humans wouldn’t know what to do with an amulet, they reasoned. Something needed to be done.

“Meanwhile, discussions went on about what was to be done with me. I’d found an amulet too, you see. Lutaelen. She would talk to me – and that hadn’t happened before. I thought I was crazy, at first – I didn’t tell anyone. She told me I ought to go to the human lands, meet this girl. I proposed the idea to my mother. It was turned down. I went to the human lands anyway.”

Ana quirked a mischievous grin my way, and it was my turn to frown. This I hadn’t expected; I hadn’t envisioned Ana as anyone needing permission for anything. She continued: “I was far from prepared. I didn’t understand the consequences – I was too excited for the adventure. I had no idea where I was meant to go, no direction – I learned the hard way that magic is more difficult to do here than it is in Tormani. Farram is still trying to puzzle out why. So I had to take care of myself without the ease of magical interference. Needless to say, I was in rough shape when a hunting party stumbled upon me.”

“Farram?”

“Who else? H e might have dropped me off at the local infirmary if I’d been anyone else, but he saw something in me that intrigued him – or Mali did. I’m afraid I don’t remember much discussion about what to do with me, as I fainted soon after they found me, and when I came to I was here, in the palace. And – well – my true identity was revealed in time.”

“And you went home when the amulets had served their purpose?”

“Well—”

The kitchen door opened again, though not with as much force as I’d used to enter; we heard the subtle creak and heavy footfalls sounded across the floor. An angry sort of prickle crept to the back of my neck, and though I plucked another bit of dough to roll in my palms, I wasn’t concentrating on it. Ana turned for me, and confirmed my suspicions with a harsh, “What do you want?”

“To speak with you only,” was the instant reply. Farram’s voice was dull, emotionless – careful. “I see now is a bad time. Perhaps you can meet me in my study while the cookies bake.”

I squished my ball of dough into something resembling maggot-eaten bread and turned. “If you wish me to leave, I will do so. You need only ask.”

Guarded his voice may have been, but his expression I likened to something like one of his son’s when I was snappish with them. The corners of his lips drooped, his eyes grew wide, and his brows knit together – I ignored all of it, and returned with my own fearsome glare. Ana glanced between us for a moment and drew her own conclusions about what had brought me to so ferociously enter the kitchen not quarter of an hour before. She placed one hand on a hip and formed an accusing finger with the other.

“What did you do?” she demanded. Farram winced.

But it was I who answered for him. That bubble of anger rose in my chest, and unlike other times it had done so in the past months, I didn’t feel the need to suppress it because of fear or nerves or whatever else. Fire took over my tongue, and I said, “Only what he normally does, I’m sure. Used his magic as a crutch. As an excuse to get into people’s heads. To take over their thoughts. He’s an evil, lying, horrible—”

The way his face fell gave me a sick sort of pleasure I was sure I’d regret soon as the heat of anger wore off, but for now I watched haughtily as Ana took her turn. “Went into her head? Like you went into my head, Farram? Didn’t I teach you a lesson?”

“Ana, listen, please—”

“No, you listen! You have taken liberty with us for far too long – to do that to her – her! She has no experience with magic, Farram, how could you possibly expect her to fight back or whatever it was that—”

“I didn’t think it through,” he said.

“No, you didn’t!”

Ana took a breath, ready to say something more, and I opened mine to agree with her, liking this woman more and more with each passing second – wondering how I could possibly have been afraid of her at all – when Farram held up a hand to stem the flow of accusations. We fell silent, and he ran a hand through his silvering hair, looking very old and very tired. “I only came to ask,” he addressed Ana, “if you could, perhaps, inform Aralyn that—”

“Too cowardly to do it yourself?” I retorted.

He ignored me. “—that Lance is back, and awaits her in the ball room. If you wish to go,” he added hastily, his eyes shifting to me.

That sent my temper flaring, and if I had been angry, it was nothing compared to the monster that emerged then. I flung my bit of dough back into the bowl, picked up the nearest towel to smear its remains from my hands, and threw it back onto the counter with a satisfying whack! I marched past him, screeching, “Well, you would know, wouldn’t you?”

He grabbed my arm, and for a moment our eyes met. In that moment, his expression was difficult to decipher – something caught in the middle of apology and a determined attempt at calm in the face of two irate women. “I expect to see you in my study tomorrow morning, Aralyn.”

He didn’t need to say what for. I wrenched out of his grip without an answer and stomped away without so much as a glare over the shoulder as goodbye.

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Hey all! Sorry for the somewhat delayed update. Classes have been insane. I expect this story will be finished in the next week or so (I'm cheating and using the last bit as part of my NaNo), but thennnn we move on to its direct sequel. It's basically all one story, but I see the two halves as drastically different from one another. I haven't decided whether or not to make them two separate Fiction Press stories or just continue on here (either way, you'll know where Hidden ends and the next begins). I apologize in advance for any crazy typos / wordy sentences / who knows what else in the coming chapters. National Novel Writing Month makes me loopy. I would also like to apologize to Katelyn for not putting in the adorable scene, but I wanted this chapter done. :P SO, as always, I love to hear your comments in your wonderful reviews. Thanks for reading! 3