Page 23 of Wickedly Ever After
Tinbit chuckled. “Could you really turn him into a frog?”
Hector smiled. “I don’t do much transformation anymore, but I suspect I could still manage a bullfrog. The trouble with frogs, though, they whine about wanting to be human right until they see water, and plop, off they go, and they never look back. The ponds in this valley used to be swimming with half-human tadpoles.”
He opened the room door.
“Wow.” Tinbit stood paralyzed.
Personally, Hector thought the place had come down a notch since the last time he’d stayed there. The golden carpets looked cat-picked, and they rolled themselves up at the edges protectively. Customers hunting for cheap souvenirs liked to take threads. Do that often enough to sentient rugs and they started thinking about smothering you in bed. He reached down and patted each one respectfully while Tinbit unpacked his own trunk and put his clothes in Hector’s wardrobe. He was still clearly overwhelmed.
“Who pays for all this?” Tinbit asked, eyeing the stained-glass wash basin and the silk sheets.
“The king,” Hector said. “Which means we pay for it. Taxes.”
“But they pay for our castle in the mountains too. Why isn’t it this nice?”
“Two reasons,” he said, unpacking his trunk and setting aside his best robe to air out for the Happily-Ever-After. “First, I’m a man of simple tastes. Secondly, when one gets the pleasure of presenting one’s expenditures to a new king every half-century or so, a man soon finds that a king’s grandson doesn’t care quite so much about updating the plumbing his great-great-great-grandfather installed. Ah, the mail.” A pile of it appeared on a fine cherrywood table that trotted over like an obedient dog when he beckoned.
“That reminds me, I need to leave a letter at the front desk for Hari, let him know I’ve arrived.”
“You do that. Then what about a late lunch? I’ll let you order for me.”
“Frog legs?” Tinbit grinned.
“I believe so.”
With a chuckle, Tinbit left Hector to finish sorting out his clothes and the mail.
Hector glanced at the headline on the complimentary paper, but it was theSorcerer’s Star. He tossed it in the trash where it belonged.
The first letter came from Queen Annabeth—a command invitation for the Unicorn Jubilee dinner and reminding him about the Thieves/Rogues match on Moonsday and insisting that he wear his best robe. Hector read it glumly. King Rupert he could usually handle, but Annabeth was a whole level of irritating he’d hoped to avoid. He’d had the distinct displeasure of her company the entire time he’d had her dear husband in his dungeons educating him on what happens to heroes who break the rules. On the whole, he thought she might have him beat when it came to torture—so much whining about everything from the bugs to the blood on the walls.
The rest of the letters contained requests for curses on ex-husbands, neighbor’s farms, wives, and ten concerning meddlesome mothers-in-law. He burned these rather than feed them to the wastebasket. He didn’t want to deal with a nauseated trashcan burping up paper scraps on the floor all night. He’d eat his frog legs, turn in early, and tomorrow he would go to the game, Annabeth or not. He didn’t want to mess up Tinbit’s date.
And he was wearing his Thieves jersey, damn it.
12
Ida
Dearest, bestest Witchy-Woman Ida,
Confirming you’re coming to the game on Moonsday. Ticket for you. It’s the King’s Box, of course. I hope you don’t mind, but I’ve invited some of the ladies and lords to come party with us! And I’ve ordered that delicious rich cake you served for me at my Common Princess election—Angel’s Dream Cake. Yummy!
Confidentially, I don’t believe a word those awful tabloids say, but is it true Amber shouldn’t be the Common Princess?
Love,
Annabeth
Ida’s headache, already at a level four from the carriage ride and a busy day, escalated to an eight. She lay back on the garish pink comforter and pulled the heart-shaped pillow from the mountain of surplus over her head.
Of all the princesses in her life Ida regretted, none bothered her more than Annabeth. The dossier called her a dairy girl with a buxom physique, blond hair, and blue eyes, possessedof a sweet, kind nature. Birds flew down from the trees to sing on her shoulder. Butterflies followed her wherever she walked. Sometimes she sang for no apparent reason while she worked. Classic princess behavior. Ida didn’t think she could do any better, really—the crop wasn’t great that year.
Only afterward did the dirty secrets come out. Annabeth was no common dairy maid. She was the daughter of a popular duke’s herdswoman, but it turned out she was actually half-royalty, her farmer “father” being somewhat notable for having no other children with his wife. She’d bought a glamour off a hedge witch to entice birds and butterflies. She “borrowed” the voice of an operatic mermaid and never gave it back. Her hair was her own, but that was about it.
It was quite the scandal when the story broke. Damned investigative trolls. Ida wanted to tell them the truth—that for the past few hundred years, the contest to become Common Princess had become a farce, with every girl hiring personal coaches and trainers in order to get their grabby hands on the tiara. But that would have meant a grilling by Hector, and so she held her tongue and appeared as the good witch to Hector’s bad at both the wedding and the christening of the prince the following year. Annabeth never publicly treated Ida as anyone but her agent of good fortune. But she was a notorious gossip. No wonder theSorcerer’s Stargot the exclusive.
Ida tossed the letter on top of the complimentary copy of the paper.
